Our next 8 (league) games

[Ole'sattheWheel]

At the moment we're full of confidence and getting plaudits from everyone, however our next 8 league games occur over the span of 7 weeks, amongst an FA cup tie, a league cup tie, and Barcelona H&A in the EL - an extra 4 games.

The league games are:

City (H): Little needs to be said about this game.
Palace (A): Bogey team, beat them once in our last 4 meetings and Selhurst park has never been an easy game for us
Arsenal (A): They have our number at the emirates of late and are flying league leaders.
Palace (H): Again, bogey team
Leeds (A): We tend to smash these since their return to PL, but they have all the ingredients to be game raisers v us, especially at bellend road. I'd be surprised if this was a walk in the park
Leicester (H): On paper the easiest team on this list however, we've only beat them once in our last 4 meetings & is sandwiched between Barca games
Brentford (H): This season's giant slayers. Leathered us 4-0 at their ground earlier in the season
Liverpool (A): Liverpool at Anfield

What are our expectations for this run of games? If we get 15 points, I would say that's a fantastic return. 11-13 would be acceptable. 10 or lower would be disappointing

 

[Nero]

22 out of 24.

 

[DavelinaJolie]

"We could lose all of these games"

Well yeah...

 

[Ole'sattheWheel]

22 out of 24.

That would be huge. But with how thin our squad is, I just can't see it. Injuries will surely start to pile up

 

[Bastian]

Just listened to Damien Delaney talking about Palace's average runnings stats, which are 20th for the league. 101km per match. Surprising that.

 

[Ole'sattheWheel]

"We could lose all of these games"

Well yeah...

Well my point is more that this is the hardest run of games this season, and was giving justification for that

 

[Thepinhead]

20 points is doable but requires we don't get injuries. 18 points is minimum if we want to secure a good position in the top 4 battle before the last part of the season. 22 points or more could see us fight for a top 2 placement.

 

[Mr Smith]

Palace are at a very low ebb currently, this is a good time to play them. I think we can potentially set the tone with a good performance against City; I have weirdly high expectations about that game.

However even if we don't do so well in this run, that's many of the toughest league games of the season out of the way by the end of Feb and almost half the season still to play. Plenty of time to build back momentum if we lose our way a bit during this run, especially looking at the state of our top four rivals.

 

[JB08]

These threads are shite and usually singlehandedly ruin everything.

 

[Ole'sattheWheel]

Palace are at a very low ebb currently, this is a good time to play them. I think we can potentially set the tone with a good performance against City; I have weirdly high expectations about that game.

However even if we don't do so well in this run, that's many of the toughest league games of the season out of the way by the end of Feb and almost half the season still to play. Plenty of time to build back momentum if we lose our way a bit during this run, especially looking at the state of our top four rivals.

Good point that I hadn't considered. Another thing is I don't think most of these weaker teams will fancy playing us right now either. In games gone by against these kind of teams they've had their tails up due to our shaky defence and lack of midfield.

 

[MrBest]

18 points is min

 

[shamans]

That's one negative take.

We're wining all of them

 

[Pintu]

5 wins from the "easier teams" and at least 4 points from the other 3 games... 19 should be minimum. 21 or more would be very good (and it seems very doable).

 

[Dominos]

It's very hard to get an "easy" run of fixtures on paper in this league right now, Newcastle have effectively made it 7 teams aiming for top 4 so you play 12 games against your rivals for CL spots over course of a league season. In an evenly distributed fixture list then you play one of the top teams every 3rd game.

Top 4 is looking good right now but I do worry about fixture congestion catching up with us. The extra round we have to play in Europe, still being in both domestic cups including likely 2 leg semi in league cup.

I expect it will get to a point in the 2nd half of the season where we'll have to forget about the hope of playing well and just hope we can grind out enough ugly wins to hang onto 3rd/4th.

 

[Adamsk7]

If we don’t lose and pick up at least one win in that City-Palace-Arsenal run, that will springboard us to win most of the remaining on that list.

 

[Red Royal]

15 points is only good enough if ay least 1of those are each at the Emirates and Juanfield. Key this year is not letting rivals take points of you. (I still think Arsenal will drop down to a top 4 race)

 

[Nicolarra90]

24/24

Antony with the 21

Cham21ons

 

[bosnian_red]

Guessing we get 16 points from this. 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss from the next 3. Loss to Liverpool away, win the rest.

 

[Rozay]

Well I’ve just today renewed my illegal satellite subscription for another year so I’m strapped in and ready to go.

We absolutely have to get Sancho back and preferably in some decent sort of form during this spell.

 

[PSV]

If we want to get somewhere this season we shouldn't be much short of 20 points, but I think City and Arsenal will be struggles and Liverpool is a "anything-can-happen" type of game.

If we get that mental knock early in this run I can see us getting something like 10 points from this.

 

[Rightnr]

I'd take 17 points.

 

[Cantonagotmehere]

Well I’ve just today renewed my illegal satellite subscription for another year so I’m strapped in and ready to go.

We absolutely have to get Sancho back and preferably in some decent sort of form during this spell.

So true, for so many reasons I hope this happens.

 

[Gazautd18]

24
Erik's at the wheel.
(is that a thing yet?)

 

[ayushreddevil9]

Dont think we can get anything against City or Arsenal so we should make sure to grab all the points against the minnows.

 

[USREDEVIL]

13 points

 

[Red the Bear]

The hawk in me says 24 but let's tone it down a bit and say 20.

Yeah I'm gonna get disappointed.

 

[RonaldoVII]

We'll get 15 and that will do.

 

[Harry190]

If we get 2 points from the City and Arsenal games, I'll be pleased.

 

[Red4Ever]

These threads are shite and usually singlehandedly ruin everything.

this

 

[Maurice Setters Training]

16 points would be great, considering that we play City and Arsenal. We have only averaged over 2 points a game in one season since Sir Alex left.

 

[SAFMUTD]

Some people can't help themselves can they?

Perfect jinx thread.

I'll blame no one else but you for this.

 

[Grunnn123]

City 3, Palace 3, Arsenal 0, Palace 3, Leeds 3, Leicester 3, Brentford 3, Liverpool 1 = 19 points

 

[city-puma]

We will win all or just drop two points.

 

[city-puma]

The hawk in me says 24 but let's tone it down a bit and say 20.

Yeah I'm gonna get disappointed.

Two draws? Your view is too bearish.

 

[Waynne]

City (H): Win
Palace (A): Win
Arsenal (A): Draw
Palace (H): Win
Leeds (A): Win
Leicester (H): Win
Brentford (H): Draw
Liverpool (A): Win

 

[Ole'sattheWheel]

Some people can't help themselves can they?

Perfect jinx thread.

I'll blame no one else but you for this.

Well my prediction is it'll be a tough run of fixtures we'd be lucky to get more than 15 points from. So therefore if it is a jinx thread then we'll actually do well and get 20+ points and you should be thanking me

 

[croadyman]

City (H): Win
Palace (A): Win
Arsenal (A): Draw
Palace (H): Win
Leeds (A): Win
Leicester (H): Win
Brentford (H): Draw
Liverpool (A): Win

Be astounded to see us beat City & Liverpool

 

[pav1790]

I will stay out of predicting because over my seven years I have done this exactly twice and it went horribly wrong both times.

 

[Okey]

I'm pretty confident we will be happy after these games (missed out 2 likely Carabao semis amongst the non league fixtures by the way), and very healthily in the top 4 spots.

 

[croadyman]

I'm pretty confident we will be happy after these games (missed out 2 likely Carabao semis amongst the non league fixtures by the way), and very healthily in the top 4 spots.

Let's just say we need the starting XI to do the majority of the work on Saturday and against scousers in March. They will have Jota and Diaz back by then and our bench is threadbare.