Ork1927

Doh - that’s half term so no first screening super screen on release day for me 

What is everyone’s thoughts on who is going down?

Southampton are too far adrift, but hard to call the other two. I thought Forest were in big trouble, but not so sure after last night’s result and Bournemouth look less safe after being battered by West Ham.

Leeds look a mess, West Ham should be okay, If Vardy has come to life then he might keep Leicester up?  
 

Can Everton intimidate the opposition at Goodison in their past couple of home games like last year?

Bournemouths next 4 are Southampton away, Leeds and Chelsea at home and Palace away. Pretty favourable.

Monday is Leicester vs Everton!

I've figured out what is going to happen going into the last day.

We lose to Rotherham, Reading beat Wigan and then we lose to Huddersfield.  Rotherham and QPR both win next week-end as well and Huddersfield beat Sheffield United.

Final day is Cardiff and Reading on 46 points with the same goal difference (but Reading are ahead having scored far more goals).  Which means we have to better Reading's result or if  both teams win then we have to win by a bigger margin than Reading and if we both lose then we need to lose by a smaller margin.

And we will be safe with 20 minutes to go so choose to do nothing else to ensure it and then Reading or Burnley (or both) will score in the 95th minute and send us down.

Should be a nice earner if I bet and all that now.

Still a small chance of Chelsea finishing bottom London club if Lampard continues to work his magic and West Ham and Palace clock up some more wins.

I fell like we could have won Arsenal winning league, Brighton winning FA Cup and Everton/West Ham getting relegated and Napoli winning Champions League and instead we are getting Man City treble and Southampton/Forest/Bournemouth or Leeds going down.

Chances of Survival

Wigan - 40 Points. Max Points 46.

If Wigan hadn't been deducted 3 points then they would look at their last two fixtures against relegation rivals and think they might have a shot, but they have to win both games to have any chance and then its still unlikely.

As Reading play Huddersfield then Wigan need to get to 46 points so their only real chance is to beat Reading and Rotherham with Huddersfield losing to Cardiff and Sheffield Utd and then Huddersfield and Reading draw on the last day.  Their terrible goal difference means they'd need massive wins (as well as big losses elsewhere) for they slim chance of overtaking Cardiff or Rotherham on goal difference with 2 wins and one of those teams failing to get a single point from 3 games.

Blackpool - 41 Points. Max Points 47.

Technically, 45 points could keep Blackpool up, but it would require a very specific combination of results elsewhere so really they need 2 wins and they aren't playing anyone else in the bottom 7.  Two wins would give them 47 points which could be enough if two of the teams above them fail to pick up many or any points, but they've got to get those two wins so it still seems unlikely.

Reading - 43 Points. Max Points 49.

Without their 6 point deduction, Reading would be pretty much safe by now. They face two other relegation candidates and 6 points should be enough to keep them safe, but it isn't fully guaranteed if the wrong combination of results occur with Cardiff/Rotherham and Huddersfield and QPR win a game.  But it would be a surprise if they went down with 49 points.  Anything less than that and it get tricky to predict.  A loss on the last day to Huddersfield would probably be fatal unless Cardiff or Rotherham completely collapse even if they beat Wigan first. Losing to Wigan would be a disaster and could see them down before the last day if Rotherham and Cardiff pick up a point each and Huddersfield beat Cardiff or Sheff United.  4 Points might be enough, but really, like the other 2 sides in the bottom 3 - they really have to look for 6 points.

Huddersfield - 44 Points. Max Points 53

Huddersfield play the team directly above them and the team below them with a home game against probably promoted and hungover Sheffield United before then and they won't have played for nearly a fortnight to allow Warnock to scheme and train his team to defeat a very vulnerable at home Cardiff next Sunday.  They have a big advantage that the Cardiff and Sheff United games are effectively free hits.  All they have to do is beat Reading on the last day and then they stay up regardless of what happens before that.  However, I think they'll get something at Cardiff although we are most vulnerable to teams passing the ball around and waltzing through us like we aren't there and that isn't Warnock's style.  It would be daft to bet against him achieving a great escape with 3 games left.  If they come to Cardiff in the bottom 3 and/or facing a pretty much safe Cardiff will depend on what happens before then.  They should stay up.

Cardiff - 46 Points. Max Points 55 

An awful season for the Bluebirds, especially at home and on our third manager of the season.  We are not very good and while we've improved in front of goal recently, we've become worse at the back.  We've been lucky unlucky with  couple of key injuries, but lucky with the loan signing of Sorry Kaba in January who has supplied the goals to keep us ever falling into the bottom 3.  Our problem is we are very passive, utterly useless at home and tend to only win games by briefly coming to life and getting a couple of goals while the opposition have been lulled into a false sense of security that we aren't going to offer any threat.  4 Points guarantees safety or just beating Huddersfield on Sunday and not getting hammered by Rotherham and Burnley.  We should stay up and may well be safe before we play Huddersfield, but if we find ourselves HAVING to get a win at Burnley I don't think we will do it.  A draw between us and Rotherham on Thursday might even be enough if Reading fail to beat Wigan and then we are only vulnerable to going down on goal difference.

Rotherham 46 Points. Max Points 55

Rotherham also have two games against fellow relegation candidates and play this week-end's game after everyone else.  4 Points will guarantee safety, but a win over Cardiff on Thursday would almost certainly be enough due to their superior goal difference.  Relegation for Rotherham looks the most unlikely of all the bottom 7 bar an absolute disastrous last 3 games with the latter two against a Middlesbrough team repairing for the play-offs and a likely relegated Wigan.  Its possible that a single point might be enough.

QPR 47 Points Max Points 53

Before the Burnley game, QPR were probably favourites to continue their freefall and end up in the bottom 3 at the end of the season.  But that surprise win gives them a good chance of avoiding the drop even if they lose their next two games.  A win in either games guarantees safety or Reading to lose at home to Wigan.  But their goal difference is terrible, so they are still vulnerable and it would only take Rotherham and Cardiff drawing on Thursday and Huddersfield and Reading winning at the week-end for them to find themselves in the bottom 3 on goal difference by the end of the week-end if they lose at Stoke. I think they'll stay up just about.

Prediction: The current bottom 3 will go down with Cardiff 4th most likely (but I'm probably slightly negatively biased).

1 hour ago, OneDvBmbr said:

Rotherham vs Cardiff really needs to not be a draw, because that takes two teams out of our reach. Maybe a Cardiff win is better and then them getting all three points against Huddersfield helps us too, but after one win Cardiff could be on the beach if they feel it’s mission accomplished. 

I imagine we might be ore dangerous if we do win at Rotherham as the team might actually have a go if they've got nothing to lose.  I'm still amazed at how passive we were on Saturday in the last 20 minutes.

Sure, losing at home again would have been a disaster, but half the time our most creative player, Philogene was messing about near our own box and everyone else was sort of watching Stoke pass the ball around and when we did get it back then we'd do next to nothing with it.  An incredible lack of urgency.

We are such a weird team - we aren't good enough, but they aren't lazy players, but we play without any drive nearly all the time.  If it all goes the wrong way and we have to go to Burnley and win - I'm just not sure they now how to go all out to do it.    Most likely is we will be 'safe' with 20 minutes to go and its 1-1 or something then something will happen elsewhere that puts us into the bottom 3 and they just won't be able to spring into life to try and get a second.

I want Brighton to win but I didn’t want Sancho and Rashford to miss.

I need to make sense of the bottom of the Championship so I'm going to post something here.

So the table currently looks like this.

Before the fixtures in mid-week and this week-end - it looked like Wigan and Blackpool were gone and freefalling QPR were probably the most likely to go down on account Reading were in a slightly false position due to their point deduction, Huddersfield had Warnock and Cardiff and Rotherham had a game in hand (although against each other).

The mid-week games saw Cardiff get an unlikely win at Watford and Wigan win at Stoke with QPR, Reading and Rotherham and Huddersfield grabbing draws and nothing for Blackpool.

Still looking like Wigan, Blackpool and probably QPR for the drop.

But, this week-end saw QPR pull off the unlikeliest result with a win at Burnley denying them a title win with 3 games to go and both Blackpool and Wigan won while Cardiff laboured to a draw at home to Stoke and Rotherham and Reading both lost. 

Suddenly Wigan and Blackpool have a glimmer of hope, QPR now look look like they might stay up and Huddersfield really need Warnock to work his magic.

Remaining Fixtures are pretty mad with a 5 day window from Thursday onwards where the bottom 7 are all playing including 3 games where teams are playing each other, then a Thursday week game for Huddersfield before the final day which includes 2 games with bottom 7 sides playing each other.  With the games in hand and teams playing each other - the points for safety calculations are challenging.

Thursday 27th May

Rotherham vs Cardiff

Friday 28th May

Blackpool vs Milwall

Saturday 29th May

Reading vs Wigan

Stoke vs QPR

Sunday 30th May

Huddersfield vs Cardiff

Monday 1st May

Rotherham vs Middlesbrough

Thursday 4th May

Huddersfield vs Sheffield United

 Monday 8th May

Burnley vs Cardiff

Huddersfield vs Reading

Norwich vs Blackpool

QPR vs Bristol City

Wigan vs Rotherham

Next post on what teams need to do or hope other teams don't do.

@Plissken

FFS - are you waiting to win the league on the very last day by beating us?

We missed a penalty today, but I’d struggle to say we deserved more than a point - barely did anything for the last 20 minutes to win the game.

Thankfully Reading lost and we on need 3 points from 9, but will we get them? 
 

Im very scared that Warnock has had nearly two weeks to prepare for the game against us next Sunday and pissed we didn’t win today as I’d rather skip next Sunday and actual out enjoy the bank holiday.

I found it funnier than you did in amongst the incredibly fucked up mega gore and all the tension.

It’s certainly not going for the full Bruce experience, but I was chuckling a fair bit at some of the ‘kills’ - but yeah it’s a proper horror and very creepy, tense and occasionally wince inducing.

I thought it was great 4/5.  Seemed to go down very well in the screening I was in.
 

I did like that

3 points in 9 for Arsenal despite scoring 2 or more in each game.

Why the fuck did he do that and try and score a screamer.

This is nuts 

I'm binging this now having never heard of it before I signed up to Lionsgate+ to watch a couple of films.

I'm halfway through Series 2 Its really great and also gets some major bonus points for having two episodes with a very foul mouthed J K Simmons and also plenty of other great guest stars.

Edit - Just watched my favourite episode so far S2 E5 featuring a eighties actor playing himself.

Cracking win for us - had to work hard to keep Watford at bay second half and could have done without QPR and Reading getting draws, but if, if, if we can win on Saturday and nobody else does then we are looking pretty good with a game in hand as well.

I dunno wtf is going on at Vicarage Road, but if we can get, say, another 2 and go 5-1 up I might even relax.

If they don’t come back I think Wilder and the next two Watford managers will get sacked today.

Wrexham need a win from their last two to guarantee promotion unless Notts County somehow lose to bottom of the league, Maidstone before Wrxhamplay again.

43 minutes ago, glb said:

Haaland will end the tie in a half if Real play like they did tonight against City. Them finally winning the European Cup has an air of inevitability to it, only took £1.1b. And they could still win a treble.

 

Here’s hoping Arsenal can dig in for the run-in. And, checks notes, Sheffield United can cause a sensation on the weekend.

Man City can have the Champions League if we get Arsenal winning the league and a Sheff Utd vs Brighton cup final rather than them just winning the league and cup for the umpteenth time.

On 16/04/2023 at 19:10, OneDvBmbr said:

We’ve shown signs of a pulse but that’s all it is right now. 
 

Mind you, back it up with a win at home to West Brom on Tuesday night and that would really put the cat among the pigeons. 

I’d like to just aim the rest of the season and get it over with regardless of what happens.

Or better still win tomorrow and beat Stoke Saturday and nobody else pick up a point.  Not that 6 points would guarantee anything, but it wouldn’t hurt.

2 hours ago, Oh Danny Boy said:

The narrative is that Arsenal have dropped points the last two games but imo they have gained two points. Both games they have been very fortunate to not leave with a defeat. 

2-0 up after 10 minutes against a relegation contender who played in Europe on Thursday is dropped points.

But if they give up a 2-0 lead at the Ethiad and draw 2-2 again, but win every other game then they still win the league.

This continues to do big money at the box office.  Already 15th highest grossing post Covid film after being out less than a fortnight.

Will clearly go over a Billion, wonder if it can do 1.5 Billion+?

Have to go and win at the Ethiad now.

Bournemouth’s next 3 games are West Ham (h) Southampton (a) and Leeds (h).

If they carry on their good form then they look well placed to stay up.

Still somehow outside the bottom 3 although now only on a 3 goal better GD and Reading losing 6 points.

All 4 teams just above relegation lost so Reading’s draw against Burnley was the result of the day at the bottom assuming Blackpool’s win against Wigan won’t end up meaning anything with so few games left.

I reckon it’s us or QPR.  You’ve got to think QPR will win at least one before the season ends despite the being in free fall so we need to make our game in hand count.