The Mail Bag
Yes, but who've they played?
Comments (14)
In this mailbag I read arguements everyday..."Everton are hopeless" versus "but we are doing OK". I see both sides of these arguements. On the one hand we are not playing well. There is not much good football to be seen. But on the other hand we are 7th and 5 points off Villa and Hull.
If what we are saying is that the football can only get better, I just hope that means we keep climbing the table as well.
If you look at arguably 4 of our biggest rivals and who they have actually played, it might put things into perspective. Below are our rivals and ourselves, and how many of the current top ten they/we have played:
- Arsenal - 2 teams from top ten (none of the "Sky 4")
- Aston Villa - 4 teams from top ten (2 of the "Sky 4")
- Man City - 5 teams from top ten (2 of the "Sky 4")
- Spurs - 6 teams from the top ten (3 of the "Sky 4")
- Everton - 5 teams from the top ten (3 of the "Sky 4")
The point I am making is that Arsenal may be top of this pile but who have they played? Ourselves and Hull!! I believe this makes them vulnerable in the lead up to Christmas. Look at Tottenham! They may be six points behind us but they have already played 6 teams currently in the top ten including three of the big ones. Don't be surprised by their rise into contention.
Let's focus on us though. As I said, I see the point about our poor displays. But I also see that we have played almost half our games against teams who occupy the top ten. There are others around us who have the more difficult games coming up. So with a bit of improvement in our play, solid displays at the back, and a bit of luck, we could be right up there by Christmas, and it wouldn't surprise me one little bit.
Gareth Mercer, Posted 06/11/2008 at 11:12:23
Comments
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Nobody seems to complain when Liverpool or Chelsea are crap and score last-minute winners, apparently they are not lucky, it's because lesser sides can't keep up the pace of closing down for 90 mins so the team with more quality will eventually find openings late in the game and have more chance of scoring, so this must apply to us, which shows we must be a real quality team and we don't even have to play well and still win.
Seriously though the defence with the exception of Jags are no where near their best, the midfield isn't balanced, Arteta and Pienaar are out of form, Cahill is not match fit, Yakubu is out of form and the others are just settling in. Once everyone starts to click, I have high expectations.
The Prem is a marathon not a sprint and the best defenders and best attackers will rise to the top over a season. For the rest of us it?s either good luck (dodgy decisions or rub of the green) or good timing(playing a team when they?re not playing well).
We?re not outstandingly good nor outstandingly bad so I anticipate a mid table finish until we can get new owners/players in.
It doesn?t matter how many times you play whomever out of which ever group, (hold on to your hat for novel concept)...It?s how many times you BEAT ALL teams that get you more or less points.
Spurs have 4pts from 6 Vs the crap 4...
We have ONE from NINE!
AND, with the odd 45 min exception, the football is STILL shite.
We have grinded out three very useful results which are important as we know how low confidence has been this season and I would say going right back to when we got knocked out by Fiorentina. The football standard is pretty dismal and I don't expect us to go and play Brazilian style tomorrow at West Ham, that will be a much sterner test than Bolton and Fulham and I would guess if we play as lethargically as we did against Fulham then our mini-revival could come to an end at Upton Park.
At the same time, from the remaining games in November, we could all sit down and try to do calculations on paper about if we draw at West Ham and then beat Boro and then beat Wigan before perhaps we do lose at Spurs then November will have been a decent month but we all know with Everton nothing is ever straightforward.
I agree with someone that at this moment in time we should still be looking over our shoulder rather than getting too complacent simply because this season nobody really looks like getting cut off from the rest in terms of how bad Derby where last year...
Newcastle are steadily improving and my major worry is Spurs, I actually think they won't finish anywhere near the bottom but at the present minute they are below us.
Harry Redknapp is a clever manager, you don't win the FA Cup with a team that were languishing in Division One when he took over if you don't know the game. Already he has got Spurs playing good football and what's more they are scoring goals again. If our defence went to the dogs again would we be able to say the same? Would we be able to score four at the Emirates? Well we all know we didn't but it's a perfect example.
The wise head says after the start we had endured, when the season started just as poorly as the previous ended, all we can do is take one game at a time and not worry about who is beatable on paper.
That's like some BS you tell kids... "it's not the winning ? it's the taking part". Well, this is professional football at the highest level we are talking about so it is about the winning. It's the team's and management's job to win and they get paid absurd amounts of money to do so. So wise up will you ? this is not an under-8s team we are talking about here.
My point, if not well made, is that it's not all doom and gloom. Not great, but there's no disaster yet (excepting the early exit from Uefa and Carling cups!!!).
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