The race for... Europe?

[blueToffee]

Are you working on the assumption 7th is Europe or 8th?

Hard to know isn't it where the line might be? I had Villa down for EL progression, and yes they may well do with Emery and a rested first team, but IF Forest get a result in the second leg and what seemed almost certainly like a bunch of places for grabs will suddenly be one less.

With a bit of a points gap already, plus our fairly poor goal difference, just feels like we'd need three wins to me as the form of the teams above us is generally decent/good.

EDIT: I suppose the Villa thing would only mean the CL places would reduce and switch to EL. Can't keep track

[blueToffee]

I would also add, I think I'd deluded myself a bit that sneakily that 6th place spot was open. It probably should have been given the points we've recently dropped in injury time would've had us on 52pts at this stage.

[Shogun]

GW35.png

Sat 12:30 Liverpool v Chelsea
Sat 15:00 Fulham v Bournemouth
Sat 15:00 Sunderland v Man United
Sat 15:00 Brighton v Wolves
Sat 17:30 Man City v Brentford
Sun 14:00 Crystal Palace v Everton

Interesting that it's another weekend where we're the last of this bunch to play. Brighton should be 3 points, so we're just looking to try and stick with them with a win. Looking at those matches, there are a few teams that we might have the opportunity to make ground on.

Gut feeling is that Bournemouth and Brighton are just a bit better than us and playing well, I don't see us catching them unless we go on a mad one and take 9 points. I do think 8th will go down to the wire, I just hope we can show up in these last few matches.

[Shogun]

Hard to know isn't it where the line might be? I had Villa down for EL progression, and yes they may well do with Emery and a rested first team, but IF Forest get a result in the second leg and what seemed almost certainly like a bunch of places for grabs will suddenly be one less.

With a bit of a points gap already, plus our fairly poor goal difference, just feels like we'd need three wins to me as the form of the teams above us is generally decent/good.

EDIT: I suppose the Villa thing would only mean the CL places would reduce and switch to EL. Can't keep track

haha yeah Villa winning has no impact on the number of places. It's just if City win the FA Cup then it'll go to 8th. If Chelsea win it then it'll take one of those spots from the league positions unless they themselves finish top 7

I think 7 points will give us a shot. It's hard to see Chelsea winning another match at this rate whilst Brentford have City away and Liverpool away, but as we've seen tonight then the fixtures aren't always that important at this point of the season.

[Cantoffee]

Before this week my feeling was we'd need 55 or 56 points for Europe. Nothing really changed but we need at least 2 wins and a draw from the last 3.

Likely need to win the next 2 and put ourselves in a position to nick into 8th. 6th is gone now unfortunately.

If we'd have won that you'd have backed us to be in with a real shout.

[blueToffee]

Chelsea crazily feel like they're almost done..? Maaaaybe they get a result against Spurs at home, but I'd not even overly fancy them for that unless they really got up for it as otherwise it feels like too many players are off form or just playing for the exit. I guess you can't rule them though out as their players can turn it on when they fancy it, so one game at a time for them. If they keep up this form though, we really should finish above them if we can play at all to our potential.

Brighton...it's not inconceivable Brighton finish on 53 pts. So 6 pts might be enough to overtake them for 8th.

Brentford feel hard to predict, they can give anyone a game on their day, but they also can drop silly points like us. Hard to not see them at least finishing on 54pts+ so that'd mean we'd need 2 wins and a draw to overtake.

Then Bournemouth...really not sure. We've seen Man City being shaky away from home ourselves. Forest might be on the beach from a PL point of view IF they progress in the EL. Fulham...can often roll over but honestly their run in feels hard to predict.

I'd still say we need at least 2 wins, probably 3 though to really have a chance of getting above some of these teams.

[Shogun]

I wouldn't be surprised if Bournemouth won their last 3 or lost their last 3.

Fulham might be the dark horses.

[Bumble]

Last 3 games we've shot ourselves in the foot once the clock strikes 90 mins.

Probably cost us a European place.

[Bluedylan1]

On a positive note we've come quite a long way against the better teams in a short space of time, much as the lack of points hurts right now. In the past we've just surrendered in a lot of those games and it's been a 2-0 defeat and damage limitation.

We beat Man U away with 10 men for most of the game, we should've got at least a point away at Arsenal but for some wasteful finishing and then a goalkeeping error. We beat Villa away deservedly. We should've beat a very in-form Man City at home, but for some wasteful finishing again.

The derby was massively disappointing because it felt like we didn't grab the opportunity to really put it on them.

Have to think with some more investment and a few better players in key areas that some of those fine margins can go our way next season. Progress is definitely being made, which is all you can really ask for.