Robmoss2k previews ALL THE GAMES!
Hi, robmoss2k gives us a preview to the rest of the season!!! Enjoy?
Bristol City (A)
Bristol City are a side who are desperately trying to land themselves back in League One as quickly as possible. After the Gary Johnson era saw them in the play-offs just 5 seasons ago vying for a place in the Premiership, first Steve Coppell, then Keith Millen, then Derek McInnes and now Sean O’Driscoll have presided over heavy financial losses, deteriorating performances, falling attendances and a slide down the league. Thoroughly rooted to the bottom of the league and with almost no hope of avoiding relegation, recent home wins over Middlesbrough, Barnsley, Notts Forest and Watford leave us with something to think about. They’re equally poor defensively home and away, but score twice as many goals at home as they do away, the majority of them coming from Davies and Baldock. They also have a worrying knack of scoring after the 80th minute – 15 of their 57 league goals, indeed. We really need to take this game to them early and kill it off before they have chance to pepper the box towards the end of the match.
Leicester City (A)
How the mighty have fallen. In 1st place after 12 games and 2nd after 30, Leicester now find themselves 8 games without a win or a clean sheet, including 5 defeats, scoring just 4 times and conceding 10, not scoring more than one goal for the past 8 games, and for the first time since their 7th game of the season they find themselves outside the play-off places. Nugent has 14 goals for them and is clearly the danger man, but 13 league games have passed since his last league goal thanks to both injuries and poor form, and is no doubt the source of much of their current difficulties. Following their next fixture against Birmingham, Leicester play four promotion hopefuls in ourselves, Crystal Palace, Watford and Notts Forest, and they’ll have a big say in who reaches the play-offs and who goes up automatically – although hopefully the league’s meanest defence will have another off day for us.
Middlesbrough (H)
Middlesbrough were top of the league after 16 games but, like Leicester, they’ve seen themselves slide down the table – only in an even more alarming fashion. The last 25 games have seen them lose 8 places and they find themselves languishing in 9th place, 7 points shy of the play-offs with 5 games remaining. Unless they can break their recent run of 5 defeats in the last 6 games when Brighton and Notts Forest come to town, their season will be well and truly over by the time they visit Fortress Reebok. Again, however, they’ll have a serious say in who gets into the play-offs and how. Middlesbrough have won all 9 games in which they led at half time this season, yet we’ve salvaged 8 points from 8 losing half time positions – a record only bettered by Crystal Palace – so it would be nice to take a lead into the dressing room rather than see what happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object. Middlesbrough’s poor defence – having conceded a fairly staggering 62 goals, including 29 in their last 16 – should leave plenty of holes for Eagles and Lee to exploit and keep the ball in our opponents’ box.
Cardiff City (A)
What can you say about Cardiff this season? They have the best home record, the second best away record, have been top of the league ever since beating Barnsley on November 24th, get goals from all over the pitch, have scored the third most goals, have the second meanest defence, have failed to score on only five occasions, have the longest run of both home wins and away wins… but all is not lost. In 17 games against the top half teams, Cardiff have come away with just 23 points. That’s worse than us. Their last five home games – when winning the Championship began to look a formality – have yielded them only one win and 3 points. That’s the same as Blackburn. This may well be Craig Dawson’s last game for us, so let’s just hope that he wants to get himself one last winning goal before he goes and warms the bench back at West Brom again.
Blackpool (H)
Blackpool may have a prolific striker in 18-goal man Tom Ince, but they’ve still scored 4 fewer goals than we have. Blackpool’s season has been marked by drawing and winning from losing positions, having won every time they’ve taken the lead and normally not throwing a lead away to end up with a draw. With 24 points (the league’s best) gained from losing positions and only 10 lost (the league’s second best record) from winning positions, Blackpool are a team you need to score against and then keep on scoring. There’s no let-up here. You can’t just sit back and let them come at you; Ince’s pace will do for you in the end. They may have only scored 6 goals in the last 10 games, and only one of them was Ince’s, but if we’ve come this far and we’re still in with a shout, we can’t rest on our laurels.
Do we have a chance? All of these games are potentially winnable. We absolutely have to keep the pressure up as high as we possibly can. Recent form – which is a fickle thing at the best of times – suggests that we’re on to get about 71 points and achieve a 4th or 5th place finish. But things are never that simple. Whilst the teams around us have begun to struggle, there’s always a surprise in store every weekend. But even if we don’t reach the play-offs, or even if we do make it and then have to suffer the ignominy of another 2-0 defeat to Watford at Wembley – hell, even if we get Barry Knighted – spare a thought for our neighbours. Their poultry (ahem) form of late means that they’re on to finish 23rd, about 7 points from safety, and suffer back-to-back relegations. And the other team who followed us down, Wolves, are on to cut things very fine and just about stay up – which means there’s a reasonable chance they could follow Blackburn down into League One. Despite my best efforts I can’t find an example of a season where two teams that had been relegated from the top flight were immediately relegated again – maybe this would be a first? One more win and we’re mathematically safe – Blackburn and Wolves would bite your arm off for that right now. Just remember – no matter how bad these last five games get, it could be worse.