The Next Month Is Crucial

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Let's have a look at the schedule over the next month:

Jan 19th @ Swansea
Jan 29th Man City
Feb 1st @ Hull
Feb 9th Everton
Feb 12th @ Newcastle

As of this weekend, each of these teams is in the top half of the table, except for Swansea which is just outside of it. Sherwood took us through the holiday schedule unbeaten, with the West Brom home draw seen as the lone blip in the run. We're now allotted a time of "rest," with only one game (today's) being played in the two weeks between the FA Cup third round and next weekend's visit to Wales.

In the context of this rest, and Sherwood's reign of a month including time to implement and reinforcement his ideas to the first team, it is now a pivotal time for him and the team to perform. It could solidify our plight for the top four and thereby possibly Sherwood's hold on his job, or potentially cast us back into a rebuilding phase and reassessing plans for the summer.

Looking forward to it. As of this moment, I'm feeling much better about it than I would've after Liverpool. IMO, we've made the right decision going forward.
 
Let's have a look at the schedule over the next month:

Jan 19th @ Swansea
Jan 29th Man City
Feb 1st @ Hull
Feb 9th Everton
Feb 12th @ Newcastle

As of this weekend, each of these teams is in the top half of the table, except for Swansea which is just outside of it. Sherwood took us through the holiday schedule unbeaten, with the West Brom home draw seen as the lone blip in the run. We're now allotted a time of "rest," with only one game (today's) being played in the two weeks between the FA Cup third round and next weekend's visit to Wales.

In the context of this rest, and Sherwood's reign of a month including time to implement and reinforcement his ideas to the first team, it is now a pivotal time for him and the team to perform. It could solidify our plight for the top four and thereby possibly Sherwood's hold on his job, or potentially cast us back into a rebuilding phase and reassessing plans for the summer.

Looking forward to it. As of this moment, I'm feeling much better about it than I would've after Liverpool. IMO, we've made the right decision going forward.

We can win them all, top of the league by Easter mark my words.

Timmy Sherwood's Blue White Army, all the way. COYS
 
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Just as a nice boost, next week we supposedly have Lamela, Sigurdsson, Sandro, Townsend, Kaboul and Vertonghen all coming back.

Me likey :levylol:

On a side note though, who the feck will be dropped?!? I guess we will be forced into loaning out a few younger players e.g. Bentaleb just to keep everyone happy,
 
We need at least 10-12 points out of those games to still have hopes for a top four spot. Obviously not impossible, but we need to up our game in order to achieve that and even more importantly, maintain a good rhythm for a full 90 minutes and not allow any blips.

We will still have tough matches left after this, Woolwich and Chelski come to mind, but this is the time when we can start building some form especially since some vital players will be returning from injury. We have 40 points so far, that's one better than at this stage last season (when we achieved our record points tally). That's right, we played some dire football at times this season, but we are better than last year. I am not getting over excited, but the season is far from over and we can still get a CL spot.
 
March will be more crucial, i think
02 Mar Cardiff City (H)
08 Mar Chelsea (A)
15 Mar Woolwich (H)
22 Mar Southampton (H)
29 Mar Liverpool (A)

Defiantly a much tougher month, including matches against 3 of our main rivals.

Apart from the Cardiff home match, expect quite a few of those dates and KO times to change once the next set of Sky Sports/BT Sport live fixtures are announced.
 
March will be more crucial, i think
02 Mar Cardiff City (H)
08 Mar Chelsea (A)
15 Mar Woolwich (H)
22 Mar Southampton (H)
29 Mar Liverpool (A)

As far as top four status, agreed. But with this next month, we can know where we're truly at and adequately plan going forward. If we come out with 12 points, we can shoot for top four. Less than 10, I'd like to see some youngsters and investments blooded in while trying another formation or two.
 
Just as a nice boost, next week we supposedly have Lamela, Sigurdsson, Sandro, Townsend, Kaboul and Vertonghen all coming back.

Me likey :levylol:

On a side note though, who the feck will be dropped?!? I guess we will be forced into loaning out a few younger players e.g. Bentaleb just to keep everyone happy,

If any of our youngsters are going to get loaned out then I'd say Bentaleb would be the least likely. Tim really trusts him - and rightfully so!
 
They are all crucial. If we completely fuck up in any of the following months the chances are that we will not be where we want to be. We need to be consistently picking up points no matter what month it is
 
Reckon we can go undefeated, but it's important we don't lose to Everton as I regard them as one of our Main competitors for a top 4 finish. The title is Man city's so I won't be too upset if we lose to them, especially considering what they've been doing to teams at their home stadium, however their Away form isn't the best so I think we could capitalize.

Looking at the other teams' fixtures:

Woolwich:
  • Fulham (H)
  • Southampton (A)
  • Crystal Palace (H)
  • Liverpool (A)
  • Man utd (H)
  • Sunderland (H)
I expect them to win all of them with maybe points dropped away at Anfield and possibly to Man United. Southampton could also cause an upset but with their form dropping of late, I would be surprised if Woolwich didn't win there. They also have a game against Bayern Munich sandwiched between Man utd and Sunderland and will send out a very strong squad so will hopefully face some fitness problems.

Chelsea:

  • Man Utd (H)
  • West ham (H)
  • Man City (A)
  • Newcastle (H)
  • West brom (A)
  • Everton (H)
They have the hardest fixtures of the lot, in my opinion. They play the 2 Manchester clubs and will probably pick up 3 at home to United but a loss away to Man city seems very likely given the way they have been playing at home. Newcastle and West brom do occassionally cause an upset when playing Chelsea so I wouldn't bet against either of those 2 teams either. They finish the month at home to Everton which I predict will end in a draw...

Everton:

  • West brom (A)
  • Liverpool (A)
  • Aston Villa (H)
  • TOTTENHAM (A)
  • Crystal Palace (H)
  • Chelsea (A)
Pretty tough fixtures for the Blue scousers, with Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool the teams which stick out. Mersey side derby can really go either way, but I fancy Liverpool for that one, especially if Suarez is on his A-Game. I don't see them dropping points to any of the other teams, perhaps the unfortunate draw which I see West Brom managing.. The games against Chelsea and us will be very important though to see how serious their Champions league ambitions really are.

Liverpool :
  • Aston Villa (H)
  • Everton (H)
  • West brom (A)
  • Woolwich (H)
  • Fulham (A)
  • Swansea (H)
Liverpool are unpredictable. One week they lose 3-1 to Hull, despite sending out their strongest side. But then score 14 in their next 3 games. With their losses against Chelsea and Man city in late December, they have shown they may not have the best squad among the top 4 contenders, however with Suarez in their side, anything is possible. I personally see them only losing one or two of their fixtures listed above with Woolwich and Everton obviously being the hardest ones.

Was going to post Man city and Man utd but I'll let someone else do that because I can't be asked..
 
I'll be furious if we loan out Bentaleb. We need our best players, and he's one of them.

Also won't he be a 'free pick' for the Prem/EL squads, I honestly don't know as I don't know the rules re this and also Nabil's status re 'homegrown/U21/whatever', but IF he is a 'free squad place' another key reason not to loan him out.

Re the next month, it's also crucial, because we need to another striker in, a back up GK, and another defender.

We might scrape top 4/EL trophy without additions, but I doubt it, and we fail on those two objectives it'll be another season where it'll probably be 'good' but not the 'excellent' that would shift us up the 'global brand rankings' or whatever it is that ENIC are aspiring to :)
 
I'll be furious if we loan out Bentaleb. We need our best players, and he's one of them.

Also won't he be a 'free pick' for the Prem/EL squads, I honestly don't know as I don't know the rules re this and also Nabil's status re 'homegrown/U21/whatever', but IF he is a 'free squad place' another key reason not to loan him out.

Re the next month, it's also crucial, because we need to another striker in, a back up GK, and another defender.

We might scrape top 4/EL trophy without additions, but I doubt it, and we fail on those two objectives it'll be another season where it'll probably be 'good' but not the 'excellent' that would shift us up the 'global brand rankings' or whatever it is that ENIC are aspiring to :)

Bentaleb will be officially a homegrown as of next January. This combined with his age certainly contributes to his value to the club.
 
all training games for our assault on the Europa league.. stick 4th place up your arse... = losers championship.

football is genuinely fucked if you believe the race for £ notes comes before winning a trophy
 
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