So Malky wouldng have kept us up either

all these easier home games..........a lot of these teams were finding a bit of form...

What teams apart from palace had found some form?

you have to take your chances when they come, we had played teams away who were in shocking form

What away game had we played where a team was in shocking form?

had we managed to ever take the lead away

Yes, we took the lead against fulham twice and beat them.

does anyone really think we would have gone on to score again and again.?

Not many teams apart from those who have played us under Ole have gone on to score and score again.

..our opponents grabbed their opportunity to take the 3 points

Not under Malky they didnt

no one else seemed to have the mind set we had............

What mind set would that be?

Try opening your other eye and explain how we had the 2nd worst defence in the league under Malky if we were so defensively solid.

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

Some things on this thread are so laughable .

Firstly there's people saying they would rather have the lower teams away and bigger teams at home. A bottom half side is lucky to pick up a few points off big teams at home and you would expect to win most home games against bottom half sides so how people can say we should accumulate more points the other way around is insane.

Then there are people saying that Malky would not have kept us up and when someone disagrees and backs up there point they are shot down because of 'ifs' and 'buts'. I would like to know what these people are basing us getting relegated under Malky on as i fail to see how they can be certain we were going down anyway.
Is it the fact we had not been in the relegation zone since the first day?
Is it that our 'hoofball' and defensive style of play was picking up the points that we needed?
Or is it that common sense tells us we more likely to accumulate a higher amount of points in the second half of the season because of our fixtures?

Common sense tells you Malkys teams are more likely to do worse in the 2nd half of the season. Every year he has been a football manager his teams have done progressively worse in the 2nd half of the season.

Common sense tells you we were heading one way after Malkys initial honeymoon period of 8 points from the first 6 games. We were then sussed out and only took 9 points from the next 12 games, failing to score in 8 of those games. Beaten by 2 goals or more in half of those games.

Common sense tells you it doesnt matter where you are after 18 games, it counts for nothing. Just ask Arsenal.

Common sense tells you if you cant create a chance, let alone score a goal, against most of your relegation rivals (We failed to score in 5 of the 7 away games against bottom half) then you are not likely to beat them at home.

Common sense tells you scoring at an average of under a goal a game and conceding at 2 a game isnt going to win you many games.

Common sense tells you, if you keep hoofing the ball to the opposition your players fitness gets fucked having to chase around trying to get it back. Just look at Gary Medel. looked like a world beater in August / September, he was fucked by November and looked like a pub player.

And finally, common sense tells you that we didnt sign enough quality in the summer and had a championship squad playing in the PL and were doomed whoever we had in charge.

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

I agree with the reply above but before the season started I predicted where our points should come from. If everything went to my plan I thought we could get to 43 points as an absolute maximum. However, I predicted we would only get 14 points from the 18 games Malky was in charge and a maximum of 29 points from the last 20 games.

Malky got 17 points which is 21% more than I thought was possible.
We got 13 points from the other games which is only 45% of what I thought was possible.

So in my opinion Malky managed to get the team to over perform by 21% where as Ole was responsible for a team performing at less than 50% of what I thought they were capable of achieving.

That's why for me Ole has to go.

If that's not irrefutable evidence Malky would have kept us up I don't know what is?

I was being sarcastic. He has obviously shown his lack of punditry skill by getting the first part of the season wrong

how can it be evidence ffs!

hes just gone and assumed that we would have beaten every team in the bottom 10 at home....what kind of idiot thinks like that!

all these easier home games..........a lot of these teams were finding a bit of form...

What teams apart from palace had found some form?

you have to take your chances when they come, we had played teams away who were in shocking form

What away game had we played where a team was in shocking form?

had we managed to ever take the lead away

Yes, we took the lead against fulham twice and beat them.

does anyone really think we would have gone on to score again and again.?

Not many teams apart from those who have played us under Ole have gone on to score and score again.

..our opponents grabbed their opportunity to take the 3 points

Not under Malky they didnt

no one else seemed to have the mind set we had............

What mind set would that be?

Try opening your other eye and explain how we had the 2nd worst defence in the league under Malky if we were so defensively solid.

Try opening both of your eyes and look at the defensive record when MM was sacked. We werent so low down then. Plus there was only one stat that mattered and that was league position

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

It worked for Palace, Hull and Swansea whoops that isn't a we were crap and got relegated

all these easier home games..........a lot of these teams were finding a bit of form...

What teams apart from palace had found some form?

you have to take your chances when they come, we had played teams away who were in shocking form

What away game had we played where a team was in shocking form?

had we managed to ever take the lead away

Yes, we took the lead against fulham twice and beat them.

does anyone really think we would have gone on to score again and again.?

Not many teams apart from those who have played us under Ole have gone on to score and score again.

..our opponents grabbed their opportunity to take the 3 points

Not under Malky they didnt

no one else seemed to have the mind set we had............

What mind set would that be?

Try opening your other eye and explain how we had the 2nd worst defence in the league under Malky if we were so defensively solid.

Try opening both of your eyes and look at the defensive record when MM was sacked. We werent so low down then. Plus there was only one stat that mattered and that was league position

Defensive record when Malky was sacked was -15 goal difference after 18 games

Scored 13 conceded 28 in 18 games. In fact after the slide started to Newcastle home we scored just 7 and conceded 21 in 12 games.

Do the math Einsteen, we were heading one way and that wasnt up the table.

That league position stat doesnt matter after 18 games. It counts after 38 games.

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

It worked for Palace, Hull and Swansea whoops that isn't a we were crap and got relegated

As your stats show you are going to drop points against your rivals and will need to take some "bonus" points as you put them against the bigger teams.

You cannot expect to hit 40 points the way youve outlined, history shows that is just not the way its done.

Sunderland, West Ham, Villa and Stoke all got more than a third of their total points tally against top half of the table.

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

It worked for Palace, Hull and Swansea whoops that isn't a we were crap and got relegated

As your stats show you are going to drop points against your rivals and will need to take some "bonus" points as you put them against the bigger teams.

You cannot expect to hit 40 points the way youve outlined, history shows that is just not the way its done.

Sunderland, West Ham, Villa and Stoke all got more than a third of their total points tally against top half of the table.

Established premiership clubs do better against top 9 clubs? This is truly a shock

Some things on this thread are so laughable .

Firstly there's people saying they would rather have the lower teams away and bigger teams at home. A bottom half side is lucky to pick up a few points off big teams at home and you would expect to win most home games against bottom half sides so how people can say we should accumulate more points the other way around is insane.

Then there are people saying that Malky would not have kept us up and when someone disagrees and backs up there point they are shot down because of 'ifs' and 'buts'. I would like to know what these people are basing us getting relegated under Malky on as i fail to see how they can be certain we were going down anyway.
Is it the fact we had not been in the relegation zone since the first day?
Is it that our 'hoofball' and defensive style of play was picking up the points that we needed?
Or is it that common sense tells us we more likely to accumulate a higher amount of points in the second half of the season because of our fixtures?

Common sense tells you Malkys teams are more likely to do worse in the 2nd half of the season. Every year he has been a football manager his teams have done progressively worse in the 2nd half of the season.

Common sense tells you we were heading one way after Malkys initial honeymoon period of 8 points from the first 6 games. We were then sussed out and only took 9 points from the next 12 games, failing to score in 8 of those games. Beaten by 2 goals or more in half of those games.

Common sense tells you it doesnt matter where you are after 18 games, it counts for nothing. Just ask Arsenal.

Common sense tells you if you cant create a chance, let alone score a goal, against most of your relegation rivals (We failed to score in 5 of the 7 away games against bottom half) then you are not likely to beat them at home.

Common sense tells you scoring at an average of under a goal a game and conceding at 2 a game isnt going to win you many games.

Common sense tells you, if you keep hoofing the ball to the opposition your players fitness gets fucked having to chase around trying to get it back. Just look at Gary Medel. looked like a world beater in August / September, he was fucked by November and looked like a pub player.

And finally, common sense tells you that we didnt sign enough quality in the summer and had a championship squad playing in the PL and were doomed whoever we had in charge.

Firstly, you need to educate yourself on what common sense means

Starting with your first point, that is not common sense it is stating a trend that has no impact on this season And if your going by that trend then you can also say that we pick the majority of points up at home so it is likely we will accumulate more points against the weaker opposition we had at home in the second half of the season.

How does common sense tell you we were heading one way? We may have had dip in form slightly but still picked the wins in the 2 important home games we had against swansea and west brom. A dip in form does not mean you will stay out of form just look at sunderland, west ham and palace.

No it doesn't matter where you are after 18 games but it doesn't count for nothing By being above our relegation rivals we stood a better chance of surviving

Once again that's not common sense Not scoring in one game makes no difference to whether you score in another, they are two completely different games. Dont get how you came to think this. And of the 5 games we did not score in, the opposition of Norwich and stoke did not score. Two teams with very good home goal scoring records.

No, those averages will not win many games as expected when your a weaker team in the league, but those averages were picking up enough wins and are a bit off the mark for when MM was in charge.

Another point where it is not common sense (shock!). Firstly because you are talking about an individuals fitness, i haven't seen Campbell stop running all season and he seems fine? Also, fucked by November? Did you not see his brilliant performance against Swansea and his vital role in the United draw, both in November.... clearly not. Medel has only suffered in performance since MM has left.

And again thats not common sense, it is an opinion. Some people like you may think we are doomed and there are others who think that we had a fit enough squad to compete at this level. That is opinion.

Before you reply to this though, please search google to find out what common sense is.

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

It worked for Palace, Hull and Swansea whoops that isn't a we were crap and got relegated

As your stats show you are going to drop points against your rivals and will need to take some "bonus" points as you put them against the bigger teams.

You cannot expect to hit 40 points the way youve outlined, history shows that is just not the way its done.

Sunderland, West Ham, Villa and Stoke all got more than a third of their total points tally against top half of the table.

Established premiership clubs do better against top 9 clubs? This is truly a shock

Swansea are not an established PL club are they?

Its your "bottom half" statistic not mine

Dont get all sarky cos your own table has been flipped on you

Besides, the 3 you picked out from the table all took 20% of their points from the top 9 so again shows the flaw in your table.

You have to take points against the top 9 or you go down. Simple.

Defensive record when Malky was sacked was -15 goal difference after 18 games

When have i said we had a good defensive record? All i have said is that we had a defensive style and that our defensive record was not the 2nd worst when MM was here

Scored 13 conceded 28 in 18 games. In fact after the slide started to Newcastle home we scored just 7 and conceded 21 in 12 games.

Of which, 15 goals were conceded to top half teams (Chelsea, Arsenal, Southampton, United and Liverpool) so i couldnt care less about those goals being conceded. 6 conceded in the other 7 games against teams we are competitive with is what matters

Do the math Einsteen, we were heading one way and that wasnt up the table.

What maths?

That league position stat doesnt matter after 18 games. It counts after 38 games.

As ive said it does matter, it's like saying there's no difference in being on 10 points and bottom than being on 17 points and in 16th

Some things on this thread are so laughable .

Firstly there's people saying they would rather have the lower teams away and bigger teams at home. A bottom half side is lucky to pick up a few points off big teams at home and you would expect to win most home games against bottom half sides so how people can say we should accumulate more points the other way around is insane.

Then there are people saying that Malky would not have kept us up and when someone disagrees and backs up there point they are shot down because of 'ifs' and 'buts'. I would like to know what these people are basing us getting relegated under Malky on as i fail to see how they can be certain we were going down anyway.
Is it the fact we had not been in the relegation zone since the first day?
Is it that our 'hoofball' and defensive style of play was picking up the points that we needed?
Or is it that common sense tells us we more likely to accumulate a higher amount of points in the second half of the season because of our fixtures?

Common sense tells you Malkys teams are more likely to do worse in the 2nd half of the season. Every year he has been a football manager his teams have done progressively worse in the 2nd half of the season.

Common sense tells you we were heading one way after Malkys initial honeymoon period of 8 points from the first 6 games. We were then sussed out and only took 9 points from the next 12 games, failing to score in 8 of those games. Beaten by 2 goals or more in half of those games.

Common sense tells you it doesnt matter where you are after 18 games, it counts for nothing. Just ask Arsenal.

Common sense tells you if you cant create a chance, let alone score a goal, against most of your relegation rivals (We failed to score in 5 of the 7 away games against bottom half) then you are not likely to beat them at home.

Common sense tells you scoring at an average of under a goal a game and conceding at 2 a game isnt going to win you many games.

Common sense tells you, if you keep hoofing the ball to the opposition your players fitness gets fucked having to chase around trying to get it back. Just look at Gary Medel. looked like a world beater in August / September, he was fucked by November and looked like a pub player.

And finally, common sense tells you that we didnt sign enough quality in the summer and had a championship squad playing in the PL and were doomed whoever we had in charge.

Firstly, you need to educate yourself on what common sense means

Starting with your first point, that is not common sense it is stating a trend that has no impact on this season And if your going by that trend then you can also say that we pick the majority of points up at home so it is likely we will accumulate more points against the weaker opposition we had at home in the second half of the season.

How does common sense tell you we were heading one way? We may have had dip in form slightly but still picked the wins in the 2 important home games we had against swansea and west brom. A dip in form does not mean you will stay out of form just look at sunderland, west ham and palace.

No it doesn't matter where you are after 18 games but it doesn't count for nothing By being above our relegation rivals we stood a better chance of surviving

Once again that's not common sense Not scoring in one game makes no difference to whether you score in another, they are two completely different games. Dont get how you came to think this. And of the 5 games we did not score in, the opposition of Norwich and stoke did not score. Two teams with very good home goal scoring records.

No, those averages will not win many games as expected when your a weaker team in the league, but those averages were picking up enough wins and are a bit off the mark for when MM was in charge.

Another point where it is not common sense (shock!). Firstly because you are talking about an individuals fitness, i haven't seen Campbell stop running all season and he seems fine? Also, fucked by November? Did you not see his brilliant performance against Swansea and his vital role in the United draw, both in November.... clearly not. Medel has only suffered in performance since MM has left.

And again thats not common sense, it is an opinion. Some people like you may think we are doomed and there are others who think that we had a fit enough squad to compete at this level. That is opinion.

Before you reply to this though, please search google to find out what common sense is.

Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things,

I have executed it perfectly, backed up by logic and perfect understanding of the game

You on the other hand assume we were going to pick up all these wins at home just because on paper it says we have a better chance I repeat football is played on grass not paper, and you cannot explain with no thought or logic exactly how we were going to get those wins other than "well we beat Swanse and West Brom 1-0" a couple fo scrappy 1-0's which is a nonsense considering both were awful games and could easily could have gone either way.


I notice you dont want to go back to your claim how defensively solid we were under Malky after I pointed out the facts that dispell this theory

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

It worked for Palace, Hull and Swansea whoops that isn't a we were crap and got relegated

As your stats show you are going to drop points against your rivals and will need to take some "bonus" points as you put them against the bigger teams.

You cannot expect to hit 40 points the way youve outlined, history shows that is just not the way its done.

Sunderland, West Ham, Villa and Stoke all got more than a third of their total points tally against top half of the table.

Established premiership clubs do better against top 9 clubs? This is truly a shock

Swansea are not an established PL club are they?

Its your "bottom half" statistic not mine

Dont get all sarky cos your own table has been flipped on you

Besides, the 3 you picked out from the table all took 20% of their points from the top 9 so again shows the flaw in your table.

You have to take points against the top 9 or you go down. Simple.

I wouldn't say two years is enough time to be an established premier league club so at the start of the season I wouldn't have included Norwich or Swansea as an established premier league club. The clubs you mention have all spent the majority of the last 10 years in the premier league building up their squads to premier league standard. Swansea and Norwich have only had two years doing this.

As previously stated I am not saying that you only get points from the bottom 10 clubs simply that you get the majority of your points there and situations like Sunderland hardly ever happen and shouldn't be relied upon as a strategy for staying in the premier league. If that's what you want to think they should do then you are entitled to your own opinion.

Defensive record when Malky was sacked was -15 goal difference after 18 games

When have i said we had a good defensive record? All i have said is that we had a defensive style and that our defensive record was not the 2nd worst when MM was here

Scored 13 conceded 28 in 18 games. In fact after the slide started to Newcastle home we scored just 7 and conceded 21 in 12 games.

Of which, 15 goals were conceded to top half teams (Chelsea, Arsenal, Southampton, United and Liverpool) so i couldnt care less about those goals being conceded. 6 conceded in the other 7 games against teams we are competitive with is what matters

Do the math Einsteen, we were heading one way and that wasnt up the table.

What maths?

That league position stat doesnt matter after 18 games. It counts after 38 games.

As ive said it does matter, it's like saying there's no difference in being on 10 points and bottom than being on 17 points and in 16th

We had the 2nd worst defensive record under Malky.

Keep telling yourself we didnt, it still wont be true

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

It worked for Palace, Hull and Swansea whoops that isn't a we were crap and got relegated

As your stats show you are going to drop points against your rivals and will need to take some "bonus" points as you put them against the bigger teams.

You cannot expect to hit 40 points the way youve outlined, history shows that is just not the way its done.

Sunderland, West Ham, Villa and Stoke all got more than a third of their total points tally against top half of the table.

Established premiership clubs do better against top 9 clubs? This is truly a shock

Swansea are not an established PL club are they?

Its your "bottom half" statistic not mine

Dont get all sarky cos your own table has been flipped on you

Besides, the 3 you picked out from the table all took 20% of their points from the top 9 so again shows the flaw in your table.

You have to take points against the top 9 or you go down. Simple.

I wouldn't say two years is enough time to be an established premier league club so at the start of the season I wouldn't have included Norwich or Swansea as an established premier league club. The clubs you mention have all spent the majority of the last 10 years in the premier league building up their squads to premier league standard. Swansea and Norwich have only had two years doing this.

As previously stated I am not saying that you only get points from the bottom 10 clubs simply that you get the majority of your points there and situations like Sunderland hardly ever happen and shouldn't be relied upon as a strategy for staying in the premier league. If that's what you want to think they should do then you are entitled to your own opinion.

Rubbish, Wigan done what Sunderland done a number of times.

Some things on this thread are so laughable .

Firstly there's people saying they would rather have the lower teams away and bigger teams at home. A bottom half side is lucky to pick up a few points off big teams at home and you would expect to win most home games against bottom half sides so how people can say we should accumulate more points the other way around is insane.

Then there are people saying that Malky would not have kept us up and when someone disagrees and backs up there point they are shot down because of 'ifs' and 'buts'. I would like to know what these people are basing us getting relegated under Malky on as i fail to see how they can be certain we were going down anyway.
Is it the fact we had not been in the relegation zone since the first day?
Is it that our 'hoofball' and defensive style of play was picking up the points that we needed?
Or is it that common sense tells us we more likely to accumulate a higher amount of points in the second half of the season because of our fixtures?

Common sense tells you Malkys teams are more likely to do worse in the 2nd half of the season. Every year he has been a football manager his teams have done progressively worse in the 2nd half of the season.

Common sense tells you we were heading one way after Malkys initial honeymoon period of 8 points from the first 6 games. We were then sussed out and only took 9 points from the next 12 games, failing to score in 8 of those games. Beaten by 2 goals or more in half of those games.

Common sense tells you it doesnt matter where you are after 18 games, it counts for nothing. Just ask Arsenal.

Common sense tells you if you cant create a chance, let alone score a goal, against most of your relegation rivals (We failed to score in 5 of the 7 away games against bottom half) then you are not likely to beat them at home.

Common sense tells you scoring at an average of under a goal a game and conceding at 2 a game isnt going to win you many games.

Common sense tells you, if you keep hoofing the ball to the opposition your players fitness gets fucked having to chase around trying to get it back. Just look at Gary Medel. looked like a world beater in August / September, he was fucked by November and looked like a pub player.

And finally, common sense tells you that we didnt sign enough quality in the summer and had a championship squad playing in the PL and were doomed whoever we had in charge.

Firstly, you need to educate yourself on what common sense means

Starting with your first point, that is not common sense it is stating a trend that has no impact on this season And if your going by that trend then you can also say that we pick the majority of points up at home so it is likely we will accumulate more points against the weaker opposition we had at home in the second half of the season.

How does common sense tell you we were heading one way? We may have had dip in form slightly but still picked the wins in the 2 important home games we had against swansea and west brom. A dip in form does not mean you will stay out of form just look at sunderland, west ham and palace.

No it doesn't matter where you are after 18 games but it doesn't count for nothing By being above our relegation rivals we stood a better chance of surviving

Once again that's not common sense Not scoring in one game makes no difference to whether you score in another, they are two completely different games. Dont get how you came to think this. And of the 5 games we did not score in, the opposition of Norwich and stoke did not score. Two teams with very good home goal scoring records.

No, those averages will not win many games as expected when your a weaker team in the league, but those averages were picking up enough wins and are a bit off the mark for when MM was in charge.

Another point where it is not common sense (shock!). Firstly because you are talking about an individuals fitness, i haven't seen Campbell stop running all season and he seems fine? Also, fucked by November? Did you not see his brilliant performance against Swansea and his vital role in the United draw, both in November.... clearly not. Medel has only suffered in performance since MM has left.

And again thats not common sense, it is an opinion. Some people like you may think we are doomed and there are others who think that we had a fit enough squad to compete at this level. That is opinion.

Before you reply to this though, please search google to find out what common sense is.

Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things,

I have executed it perfectly, backed up by logic and perfect understanding of the game

You on the other hand assume we were going to pick up all these wins at home just because on paper it says we have a better chance I repeat football is played on grass not paper, and you cannot explain with no thought or logic exactly how we were going to get those wins other than "well we beat Swanse and West Brom 1-0" a couple fo scrappy 1-0's which is a nonsense considering both were awful games and could easily could have gone either way.


I notice you dont want to go back to your claim how defensively solid we were under Malky after I pointed out the facts that dispell this theory

This grass/paper thing doesn't make any sense. It is obvious you have more chance to win home games against lower placed sides. If the opposite was true then the bookies would go bankrupt with all these punters taking the fantastic odds available on away teams where they are actually playing on grass so there is no disadvantage and no lesser chance to win than the home team.

So if you accept that is logical to target wins at home against worst 10 teams and draws away against worst 10 teams you would have the following stats for the season so far:-

Palace 36pts from 39 points in targeted games so far 92% success rate, 8 bonus points taken off top 9 teams
Swansea 31 / 37 = 84% plus 8 bonus
Stoke 31 / 39 = 79% plus 16
Hull 30 / 40 = 75% plus 7
Fulham 27 / 37 = 73% plus 4
West Ham 28 / 40 = 70% plus 12
Villa 24 / 40 = 60% plus 14
West Brom 22 / 37 = 59% plus 14
Norwich 23 / 40 = 58% plus 10
Cardiff 22 / 40 = 55% plus 8
Sunderland 17 / 39 = 44% plus 21

So you can do it the sunderland way by getting lots of points against the top 9 but Palace, Swansea and Hull's success has come from taking points in the games you would expect points to be possible.

under Malky 12 / 13 = 92% plus 5
under Ole 9 / 24 = 38% plus 3

As previously stated I am not saying Malky would keep us up but simply highlighting what a crap job Ole has done in comparison.

Why should we accept that logic? because its your logic?

I prefer it to the alternative logic of expecting to take points off the top teams and not worrying about dropping points against sides you actually have a chance of beating.

The football played on paper not grass logic by bspark.

It worked for Palace, Hull and Swansea whoops that isn't a we were crap and got relegated

As your stats show you are going to drop points against your rivals and will need to take some "bonus" points as you put them against the bigger teams.

You cannot expect to hit 40 points the way youve outlined, history shows that is just not the way its done.

Sunderland, West Ham, Villa and Stoke all got more than a third of their total points tally against top half of the table.

Established premiership clubs do better against top 9 clubs? This is truly a shock

Swansea are not an established PL club are they?

Its your "bottom half" statistic not mine

Dont get all sarky cos your own table has been flipped on you

Besides, the 3 you picked out from the table all took 20% of their points from the top 9 so again shows the flaw in your table.

You have to take points against the top 9 or you go down. Simple.

I wouldn't say two years is enough time to be an established premier league club so at the start of the season I wouldn't have included Norwich or Swansea as an established premier league club. The clubs you mention have all spent the majority of the last 10 years in the premier league building up their squads to premier league standard. Swansea and Norwich have only had two years doing this.

As previously stated I am not saying that you only get points from the bottom 10 clubs simply that you get the majority of your points there and situations like Sunderland hardly ever happen and shouldn't be relied upon as a strategy for staying in the premier league. If that's what you want to think they should do then you are entitled to your own opinion.

Rubbish, Wigan done what Sunderland done a number of times.

I would be surprised if you can show that Wigan took more points against top 9 sides than bottom 10 sides a number of times, sounds made up to me.

Quite the opposite sparky, if everything went according to the guide book then the bookies would go bankrupt.

On paper there should be more chance, yes, in reality this is far from the case, hence it is almost impossible to make a decent profit punting in football.

f**k me, by your logic, just put the best team down at home to win the game, accy up 5 or 6 and bash the bookies every week.

In reality it dont work like that does it?

Some things on this thread are so laughable .

Firstly there's people saying they would rather have the lower teams away and bigger teams at home. A bottom half side is lucky to pick up a few points off big teams at home and you would expect to win most home games against bottom half sides so how people can say we should accumulate more points the other way around is insane.

Then there are people saying that Malky would not have kept us up and when someone disagrees and backs up there point they are shot down because of 'ifs' and 'buts'. I would like to know what these people are basing us getting relegated under Malky on as i fail to see how they can be certain we were going down anyway.
Is it the fact we had not been in the relegation zone since the first day?
Is it that our 'hoofball' and defensive style of play was picking up the points that we needed?
Or is it that common sense tells us we more likely to accumulate a higher amount of points in the second half of the season because of our fixtures?

Common sense tells you Malkys teams are more likely to do worse in the 2nd half of the season. Every year he has been a football manager his teams have done progressively worse in the 2nd half of the season.

Common sense tells you we were heading one way after Malkys initial honeymoon period of 8 points from the first 6 games. We were then sussed out and only took 9 points from the next 12 games, failing to score in 8 of those games. Beaten by 2 goals or more in half of those games.

Common sense tells you it doesnt matter where you are after 18 games, it counts for nothing. Just ask Arsenal.

Common sense tells you if you cant create a chance, let alone score a goal, against most of your relegation rivals (We failed to score in 5 of the 7 away games against bottom half) then you are not likely to beat them at home.

Common sense tells you scoring at an average of under a goal a game and conceding at 2 a game isnt going to win you many games.

Common sense tells you, if you keep hoofing the ball to the opposition your players fitness gets fucked having to chase around trying to get it back. Just look at Gary Medel. looked like a world beater in August / September, he was fucked by November and looked like a pub player.

And finally, common sense tells you that we didnt sign enough quality in the summer and had a championship squad playing in the PL and were doomed whoever we had in charge.

Firstly, you need to educate yourself on what common sense means

Starting with your first point, that is not common sense it is stating a trend that has no impact on this season And if your going by that trend then you can also say that we pick the majority of points up at home so it is likely we will accumulate more points against the weaker opposition we had at home in the second half of the season.

How does common sense tell you we were heading one way? We may have had dip in form slightly but still picked the wins in the 2 important home games we had against swansea and west brom. A dip in form does not mean you will stay out of form just look at sunderland, west ham and palace.

No it doesn't matter where you are after 18 games but it doesn't count for nothing By being above our relegation rivals we stood a better chance of surviving

Once again that's not common sense Not scoring in one game makes no difference to whether you score in another, they are two completely different games. Dont get how you came to think this. And of the 5 games we did not score in, the opposition of Norwich and stoke did not score. Two teams with very good home goal scoring records.

No, those averages will not win many games as expected when your a weaker team in the league, but those averages were picking up enough wins and are a bit off the mark for when MM was in charge.

Another point where it is not common sense (shock!). Firstly because you are talking about an individuals fitness, i haven't seen Campbell stop running all season and he seems fine? Also, fucked by November? Did you not see his brilliant performance against Swansea and his vital role in the United draw, both in November.... clearly not. Medel has only suffered in performance since MM has left.

And again thats not common sense, it is an opinion. Some people like you may think we are doomed and there are others who think that we had a fit enough squad to compete at this level. That is opinion.

Before you reply to this though, please search google to find out what common sense is.

Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things,

I have executed it perfectly, backed up by logic and perfect understanding of the game

You on the other hand assume we were going to pick up all these wins at home just because on paper it says we have a better chance I repeat football is played on grass not paper, and you cannot explain with no thought or logic exactly how we were going to get those wins other than "well we beat Swanse and West Brom 1-0" a couple fo scrappy 1-0's which is a nonsense considering both were awful games and could easily could have gone either way.


I notice you dont want to go back to your claim how defensively solid we were under Malky after I pointed out the facts that dispell this theory

Well done for getting a definition I think you deserve a gold star for it

However, you still haven't released that the points you were claiming are not common sense and your 'definition' shows that as you have not 'understood' half of your points such as when you talked about ONE persons fitness and not the whole teams fitness. Also, where have you used any logic to back up your points other than some seriously ridiculous 'theories' you seem to think.

When have i said we would win all of our home games? I've said it is likely we would pick up more points against weaker opposition not that we would win them all. Stating how wins against weaker opposition show that we were likely to win a lot of home games against weaker opposition is using logic as it is showing what has happened in the scenarios where we have played weaker opposition before.

I never claimed we were 'defensively solid' please show me where i have said this

I would be surprised if you can show that Wigan took more points against top 9 sides than bottom 10 sides a number of times, sounds made up to me.

In 2011/12 season Wigan took just 10 of their 43 points at home to teams in the bottom 11.

In the last 9 games they won 7, beating amongst others Arsenal and Liverpool away and United and Newcastle (finished
5th that year) at home.

They took 18 "bonus" points if you want to call it and along with their poor home form against bottom half teams this flies in the face of your theory you have to win your home games against bottom half.

In short without away wins and "bonus" points Wigan would never have stayed up.

Quite the opposite sparky, if everything went according to the guide book then the bookies would go bankrupt.

On paper there should be more chance, yes, in reality this is far from the case, hence it is almost impossible to make a decent profit punting in football.

f**k me, by your logic, just put the best team down at home to win the game, accy up 5 or 6 and bash the bookies every week.

In reality it dont work like that does it?

Not true actually. Bookies make loads of money by offering lower than market rates on short priced favourites that win by trading against their liability. A bookie always wins unless there odds are incorrect (and then they normally just palp the bet) which they are not so your theory is nonsense.

I would be surprised if you can show that Wigan took more points against top 9 sides than bottom 10 sides a number of times, sounds made up to me.

In 2011/12 season Wigan took just 10 of their 43 points at home to teams in the bottom 11.

In the last 9 games they won 7, beating amongst others Arsenal and Liverpool away and United and Newcastle (finished
5th that year) at home.

They took 18 "bonus" points if you want to call it and along with their poor home form against bottom half teams this flies in the face of your theory you have to win your home games against bottom half.

In short without away wins and "bonus" points Wigan would never have stayed up.

So in 2011-12 Wigan took 28 points against the bottom 10 sides and 15 bonus points against top 9 sides.

You are meant to be finding numerous examples of when they got more points against top 9 than bottom 11. This isn't going well.

Defensive record when Malky was sacked was -15 goal difference after 18 games

When have i said we had a good defensive record? All i have said is that we had a defensive style and that our defensive record was not the 2nd worst when MM was here

Scored 13 conceded 28 in 18 games. In fact after the slide started to Newcastle home we scored just 7 and conceded 21 in 12 games.

Of which, 15 goals were conceded to top half teams (Chelsea, Arsenal, Southampton, United and Liverpool) so i couldnt care less about those goals being conceded. 6 conceded in the other 7 games against teams we are competitive with is what matters

Do the math Einsteen, we were heading one way and that wasnt up the table.

What maths?

That league position stat doesnt matter after 18 games. It counts after 38 games.

As ive said it does matter, it's like saying there's no difference in being on 10 points and bottom than being on 17 points and in 16th

We had the 2nd worst defensive record under Malky.

Keep telling yourself we didnt, it still wont be true

Just had a look on the table after round 18 and guess what it is true

Fulham conceded 35
Norwich conceded 31
Sunderland conceded 30
And then comes us conceding 28, one more than palace and 2 more than stoke

So i was right as we had the 4th worst defensive record

I would be surprised if you can show that Wigan took more points against top 9 sides than bottom 10 sides a number of times, sounds made up to me.

In 2011/12 season Wigan took just 10 of their 43 points at home to teams in the bottom 11.

In the last 9 games they won 7, beating amongst others Arsenal and Liverpool away and United and Newcastle (finished
5th that year) at home.

They took 18 "bonus" points if you want to call it and along with their poor home form against bottom half teams this flies in the face of your theory you have to win your home games against bottom half.

In short without away wins and "bonus" points Wigan would never have stayed up.

So in 2011-12 Wigan took 28 points against the bottom 10 sides and 15 bonus points against top 9 sides.

You are meant to be finding numerous examples of when they got more points against top 9 than bottom 11. This isn't going well.

Why am I meant to be finding examples of that? Cos you say so?

You are the one claiming you have to target 30 points at home to the bottom 10, and throughout this thread just dismissed beating the top 9 as "bonus" points

Well Wigan in 2011/2 totally dispell that logic.

Theyve done a Sunderland in the sense they were dead and buried and managed to take a large number of "bonus" points at the end of the season, keeping them up.

Your back must be sore trying to move those goalposts.

Quite the opposite sparky, if everything went according to the guide book then the bookies would go bankrupt.

On paper there should be more chance, yes, in reality this is far from the case, hence it is almost impossible to make a decent profit punting in football.

f**k me, by your logic, just put the best team down at home to win the game, accy up 5 or 6 and bash the bookies every week.

In reality it dont work like that does it?

Not true actually. Bookies make loads of money by offering lower than market rates on short priced favourites that win by trading against their liability. A bookie always wins unless there odds are incorrect (and then they normally just palp the bet) which they are not so your theory is nonsense.

We are not talking horse racing here. We are talking a 3 way football market.
if all the bookies are offering lower than market odds then who do they trade the liability off against?
Especially on accys?

If everything went to the guidebook as your suggesting the bookies would be out of business and have no-one to trade off against

I would be surprised if you can show that Wigan took more points against top 9 sides than bottom 10 sides a number of times, sounds made up to me.

In 2011/12 season Wigan took just 10 of their 43 points at home to teams in the bottom 11.

In the last 9 games they won 7, beating amongst others Arsenal and Liverpool away and United and Newcastle (finished
5th that year) at home.

They took 18 "bonus" points if you want to call it and along with their poor home form against bottom half teams this flies in the face of your theory you have to win your home games against bottom half.

In short without away wins and "bonus" points Wigan would never have stayed up.

So in 2011-12 Wigan took 28 points against the bottom 10 sides and 15 bonus points against top 9 sides.

You are meant to be finding numerous examples of when they got more points against top 9 than bottom 11. This isn't going well.

Why am I meant to be finding examples of that? Cos you say so?

You are the one claiming you have to target 30 points at home to the bottom 10, and throughout this thread just dismissed beating the top 9 as "bonus" points

Well Wigan in 2011/2 totally dispell that logic.

Theyve done a Sunderland in the sense they were dead and buried and managed to take a large number of "bonus" points at the end of the season, keeping them up.

Your back must be sore trying to move those goalposts.

Indeed I am saying you should target trying to get 40 points against bottom 11 clubs without dismissing the obvious handful of points you may get off the top 9.

They didn't do a Sunderland because Sunderland have got only 17 points against bottom 11 and 21 against top 9 which as I said never happens. Wigan got 28 points from bottom 11 and a very good 15 points from top 9 similar to Stoke or Villa this year but nothing like Sunderland.

You are trying to prove what you said a couple of posts up that Wigan on numerous occasions took more from top 9 than bottom 11 and you can't do it.

Quite the opposite sparky, if everything went according to the guide book then the bookies would go bankrupt.

On paper there should be more chance, yes, in reality this is far from the case, hence it is almost impossible to make a decent profit punting in football.

f**k me, by your logic, just put the best team down at home to win the game, accy up 5 or 6 and bash the bookies every week.

In reality it dont work like that does it?

Not true actually. Bookies make loads of money by offering lower than market rates on short priced favourites that win by trading against their liability. A bookie always wins unless there odds are incorrect (and then they normally just palp the bet) which they are not so your theory is nonsense.

We are not talking horse racing here. We are talking a 3 way football market.
if all the bookies are offering lower than market odds then who do they trade the liability off against?
Especially on accys?

If everything went to the guidebook as your suggesting the bookies would be out of business and have no-one to trade off against

Betting exchanges.