Was top 2 this season a pipe dream?

[Mr Popodopolous]

Perhaps this is just pessimism talking.

This isn't necessarily a reflection on Holden, and it's a long season. Plenty can change.

However, was it a bit of a pipe dream? Often one club can fall as they come down and it can be a big one, another can slide towards somewhere between midtable and playoff race and one is competing high up the top.

However Norwich look strong, in some ways stronger than two years ago albeit not invincible. Bournemouth are clicking and Watford are strong but more mixed away from home.

Importantly, they have lost less players than expected. This makes a big difference.

Brentford will still be quite strong though less so than last season in some ways.

I digress though, are the relegated 3 sides just too strong?

[Mr Popodopolous]

Always had us down as top 6 rather than top 2 in any case even in those great first few weeks.

[Lrrr]

Top 2 always depends on how strong the relegated and last season play off teams are, but why aim for play offs (essentially saying we need ~75 points) when you can say we need to aim for top 2 (~90 points) and set your aims and standards higher.

[ExiledAjax]

In short: yes.

[David Brent]

I don’t think anyone has ever really suggested top two.

Are the playoffs a pipe dream?

[ralphindevon]

Yes.

Knowing in the last few seasons we never have a full side available and we always finish around 10th, I’ve gone for the same this season.

To counter this disappointing I remind myself that majority of my 40 odd years watching City I’ve spent wishing we were a top half championship club 

 

[GrahamC]

The 3 relegated sides start with a huge advantage, Sky reckon their budgets are 300% of ours. Occasionally one of them (like Sunderland) is a total shambles, but this year all 3 have kept a lot of their squad & Watford aside, also have continuity of management.

Then there is a club like Swansea which is always saying they have no money, yet have an £18m striker who is on £80k a week..

Top six would be an excellent achievement, though I have my doubts that we will achieve that.

 

[A Horse With No Name]

Top two ? Top six ? Have any of you actually seen us play this season?

[Mr Popodopolous]

Interesting stat, quite startling stat that @GrahamC

Makes sense though given parachute payments, maybe 2.5-3 times depending on club. We have one of the higher incomes at that level.

I would say it's rare for all 3 to come down and be so competitive. Possibly helped by the pandemic and rejig of FFP.

Coincidentally, in 2014/15, last time these 3 sides were in same League guess the 3 who went up?

Swansea are an interesting one. Ayew I assume you're referring to, they generally have been making healthy player sale profits and quite a lot of higher earners have left since relegation, either in the aforementioned sales or maybe release at end of contract.

Top 6 seems like the target? At club level I mean. 

Pretty sure there is usually one who is nowhere near and one who is fair to middling. All 3? Rare!

[1960maaan]

Short answer, Yes.

Long answer, Yes , very much so, never a real contender for top 2.

[mozo]

Literally 6th is the target! 

Yeah top 2 was always too much for fans to hope for.

[Bs4Red]

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Perhaps this is just pessimism talking.

This isn't necessarily a reflection on Holden, and it's a long season. Plenty can change.

However, was it a bit of a pipe dream? Often one club can fall as they come down and it can be a big one, another can slide towards somewhere between midtable and playoff race and one is competing high up the top.

However Norwich look strong, in some ways stronger than two years ago albeit not invincible. Bournemouth are clicking and Watford are strong but more mixed away from home.

Importantly, they have lost less players than expected. This makes a big difference.

Brentford will still be quite strong though less so than last season in some ways.

I digress though, are the relegated 3 sides just too strong?

Top 6 is a pipe dream, I said it before the season and I still believe we will come 8-12th. 

[Pezo]

1 hour ago, Bs4Red said:

Top 6 is a pipe dream, I said it before the season and I still believe we will come 8-12th. 

Well quite, in reality what has changed?

Maybe we're not so streaky this season and instead we have swapped that for being inconsistent, that's about it as far as I can tell. 

[Major Isewater]

7 hours ago, GrahamC said:

The 3 relegated sides start with a huge advantage, Sky reckon their budgets are 300% of ours. Occasionally one of them (like Sunderland) is a total shambles, but this year all 3 have kept a lot of their squad & Watford aside, also have continuity of management.

Then there is a club like Swansea which is always saying they have no money, yet have an £18m striker who is on £80k a week..

Top six would be an excellent achievement, though I have my doubts that we will achieve that.

 

And Rotherham’s budget dwarfs ours .

 

[Murraysrightplum]

Yes. Who said otherwise?

[nickolas]

Absolutely. 
The performances we are putting in im glad we are on the points we are as the safety of relegation limit is not far away!

If we finish top half we’d have done well. 

However if we get some players back by Jan, im hoping we might improve and make some sort of playoff effort. 
Injuries have hit us hard but our performances are woeful!

[Numero Uno]

11 minutes ago, markcarter said:

Our squad is full of mid ranking Championship players.  When we play any decent sides it is very noticeable that they will have 2 or 3, sometimes more, truly outstanding players that really affect the game.  We don’t.  With an experienced Head Coach that means 12th would be an adequate outcome and anything above that an achievement.  

With a total novice Head Coach avoiding relegation would be an adequate outcome.  Fortunately, we have secured 30 points already, roughly twice what our performances have deserved, meaning that 25 points from the last 28 matches is almost certain to keep us up, and 20 points highly likely to do so.

Although our performances remain on the whole very poor, we can have reasonable hope that we will achieve the points needed to stay up, even if points match performances for the rest of the season.

This season will see a low total needed to stay up imo, probably lower than 50 points. I think we’ll do better than that but how much better depends on the likes of Mawson, Baker  and Williams returning from injury plus recruitment in January.

As for the original point of expectations of top 2 with the squad we’ve got, that’s just mental. Top 6 is mad enough but top 2? Where did that come from? How can anyone look at our squad and really think it could finish in the top 2 of the division?

[Oh Louie louie]

Did we make a bid for that brentford player toney at one point?

Hes going to get 20 by the end of this month at this rate.

He looks good enough to play in the prem.

[Robbored]

Just now, Oh Louie louie said:

Did we make a bid for that brentford player toney at one point?

Hes going to get 20 by the end of this month at this rate.

He looks good enough to play in the prem.

Yes we did but Posh were asking way above our budget.

[Oh Louie louie]

Looking a bargain allready.

He could be the diffrence in them getting top 2.

[DavidNoble]

9 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Perhaps this is just pessimism talking.

This isn't necessarily a reflection on Holden, and it's a long season. Plenty can change.

However, was it a bit of a pipe dream? Often one club can fall as they come down and it can be a big one, another can slide towards somewhere between midtable and playoff race and one is competing high up the top.

However Norwich look strong, in some ways stronger than two years ago albeit not invincible. Bournemouth are clicking and Watford are strong but more mixed away from home.

Importantly, they have lost less players than expected. This makes a big difference.

Brentford will still be quite strong though less so than last season in some ways.

I digress though, are the relegated 3 sides just too strong?

Yes

[RedM]

The relegated teams haven’t fallen as dramatically as say Stoke did for example. They take up three of the top four places and have been consistent. Then I guess you have to look at the sides that missed out on promotion and expect them to be up there too, so we have Swansea in third and Brentford in 6th place. Cardiff sit in 10th only 5 points adrift. So it’s a tougher league than first thought I think.Reading has been the surprise for me.

Can we compete in all areas of the teams mentioned? Players, style of play, settled established experienced management and coaching staff? I think we are quite a way off on most counts.

We got a bit excited when we won a couple of games, but our football hasn’t been convincing. There is no wow and I would be surprised if any clubs are eying up many of our players. Usually this time of year we are fearful of losing a couple. 

Long way to go yet. I think we will be steady but unspectacular this season.

[Mr Popodopolous]

Well, I certainly didn't see a serious top 2 challenge. Such a prospect is looking increasingly distant anyway.

I think some of the criticism of performance has been a bit harsh, to a point. 

Up to and including 9-10 games in, we mostly saw genuine improvement in a number of areas. More possession, more chances created, less chances conceded as set against last season.

I'm unsure where to draw the line. Is it after Norwich at home, a game in which despite the result we had a reasonable amount of possession and chances, see Martin hit post, Wells penalty miss and Krul being a strong performer. 

Or is it post Huddersfield away when despite quite a lot less possession, we still created a number of chances. Scored 2, hit woodwork, late surge seeing us win.

I can't work out whether performance level dropped off post Norwich or post Huddersfield however.

@JonDolman

Don't forget Baker! That said he's not the best technically or ball carrying wise.

[SuperRed]

37 minutes ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Looking a bargain allready.

He could be the diffrence in them getting top 2.

Whilst Brentford paid an initial £5 million fee for Toney and will no doubt sell him for nearer £30 million in the future, we paid £5 million for 29 year old Wells the previous January and he will most likely leave on a free when his contract runs out. Factor in Szmodic and I would like to think there was a deal to be done for Toney if we hadn’t signed Wells. 

[Redrascal2]

10 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Perhaps this is just pessimism talking.

This isn't necessarily a reflection on Holden, and it's a long season. Plenty can change.

However, was it a bit of a pipe dream? Often one club can fall as they come down and it can be a big one, another can slide towards somewhere between midtable and playoff race and one is competing high up the top.

However Norwich look strong, in some ways stronger than two years ago albeit not invincible. Bournemouth are clicking and Watford are strong but more mixed away from home.

Importantly, they have lost less players than expected. This makes a big difference.

Brentford will still be quite strong though less so than last season in some ways.

I digress though, are the relegated 3 sides just too strong?

I never thought anyone would have ever thought/dreamed/hallucinated that we could ever be in the top 2 this season. The pipe dream  is a top 6 finish.

[Numero Uno]

53 minutes ago, Oh Louie louie said:

Looking a bargain allready.

He could be the diffrence in them getting top 2.

Great signing for Brentford but had we signed him instead he wouldn't score a hatful in our side and would probably have put his career on hold if not ruined it. Nobody would score a bucket load of goals for us because we are complete and utter pony in midfield from an attacking point of view when Paterson isn't on one of his good days and we don't have a genuine wide man to change things up. Holden has to bring in a winger, if not two, in January imo.

[italian dave]

9 hours ago, The Horse With No Name said:

Top two ? Top six ? Have any of you actually seen us play this season?

It also depends on how 23 other sides play. And there’s not much consistency anywhere. 
 

But I know what you mean, and after yesterday’s dire showing it’s not easy to find positives!
 

Bottom line, I think, is we’re still too beatable. Top two are usually the sides that lose no more than 4-5 games over the whole season. We’ve lost 6 already. 

[Oh Louie louie]

He would have scored a hatfull for us.

And joining bristol city from peterboro, where he also scored a hatfull, is not quite putting your career on hold.

Its a vast improvement.

He would score 20 a season in a bad side, id wager.

Well said super red, id go along with those points.

[Alessandro]

For me, 6th position is the realistic highest place we’d achieve this season.

That is dependant on several “if”’s and hopeful scenarios (the same hopefully scenarios that didn’t work out under LJ) - as well as simple tasks we need to improve like passing to a team mate or getting a shot on target of course;

A) “Getting injured players back” - for me that’s one side of the coin, more importantly is getting them competing, see Afobe, never reached the heights of his post injury form for us.

B) “Strengthening in Jan” - We’ve learned now a January signing rarely improves us. Tough time to scrabble around and do business, arguably Jan signings have been detrimental at times and rarely come in and push us on.

C) Fixing home form - something we’ve been unable to do for several years now.

D) If all those if’s come together - still hoping that we haven’t given ourselves a mountain to climb between now and Jan/Feb points wise and that Holden still has the respect of every player in the squad.

For me we don’t look near it I’m afraid, the season will only get tougher and we rarely get better as it goes along...all the signs point to the same mistakes being made by Holden and history repeating itself...but I’ll be here watching every game and hopelessly hoping i’m wrong!

[GrahamC]

10 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Interesting stat, quite startling stat that @GrahamC

Makes sense though given parachute payments, maybe 2.5-3 times depending on club. We have one of the higher incomes at that level.

I would say it's rare for all 3 to come down and be so competitive. Possibly helped by the pandemic and rejig of FFP.

Coincidentally, in 2014/15, last time these 3 sides were in same League guess the 3 who went up?

Swansea are an interesting one. Ayew I assume you're referring to, they generally have been making healthy player sale profits and quite a lot of higher earners have left since relegation, either in the aforementioned sales or maybe release at end of contract.

Yes, Ayew is on £80k a week, they had Bony stuck with them on £100k a week at one point, too.

They have been trying to offload Ayew since they got relegated, he had a spell in Turkey but the club there sent him back.

Makes me laugh when I hear pundits say he is class at Championship level, seeing as he will often be marked by defenders on £5k..