Match Day Thread Today's Games

Barnsley have got the wind in their sails, great result for them. I suspect the top 6 as now will be the same top 6 at season’s end.

 

Cardiff goalkeeping howler gives Watford a 94minute winner.

 

Why did we sell him again?

 

Bournemouth now 5 points outside the play-offs, that's pretty remarkable.

I still wonder if Reading might slip out of the play-off spots. Their form has been thoroughly mid-table for the last 10-12 games, and they had to come from behind to get a point at Forest today. 4 wins in 10 games. Compared to 8 for Barnsley, 7 for Cardiff (and Norwich).

 

I guess it's confirmation bias on my part, but why do opposing goalkeepers always seem to play a blinder against us while handing our opponents points on a plate?

 

Today's results puts the pressure on us tomorrow. A 10 point lead would be formidable with ten days to go, but if we were to slip up a 7 point lead over Watford and Swansea would be far less comfortable, especially as the swans still have a game in hand. Hopefully we'll be all right tomorrow, but I for one will be slightly more nervous.

 

I watched the Brentford Swansea and Watford games and all 3 were extremely fortunate to get the wins .

There was very little quality and none of the sides look anywhere near our level of consistency.

They are all scrambling for that second spot , win tomorrow and the 10 point cushion is back in play .

I don't want to get carried away but we have won the last 7 games relatively easily and I am fairly confident we will get another 3 points tomorrow.

Finishing 3rd and getting thrown into the play off mix must be terrifying for the other 3 sides.

 

So when does "successfully grinding out a win when you aren't playing well" become "being extremely fortunate to win"? I watched the Luton - Swansea game and no way were the Swans "extremely fortunate". They won because they did what they've done in nineteen other games this season, took the lead and then successfully defended it. They restricted Luton to a handful of poor quality chances, the best of which was actually Naismith's early header from the corner, from which Swansea then broke out and scored.

 

Nineteen matches is an exaggeration - for example, against Stoke their winner was practically the last kick of the game. So they hardly defended a lead there. Same for their other late winners.

Otherwise, I don’t disagree with you entirely (though I watched the second half and Luton definitely had more than a couple of half chances). But it is a stark contrast to how you have presented our defensive performances or our runs of good results without good performances, when it has suited you.

For instance, you seemed to have avoided that infogol measure the xG here as 0.78-0.76 in Luton’s favour...

 

Whether they were fortunate or not, they were clearly second best. The point made was that we are playing well, and in the main , our nearest rivals are not. Can you not just accept that or do you have to look for an argument or a wind up at every given opportunity ? It has all become very tedious and predictable I am afraid.

 

Blackburn v Brentford was won by a very soft penalty by a single goal


Luton v Swansea was won from the first shot of the game, during the 90 plus minutes Swansea only managed their second shot on target which was a soft shot from distance straight at the keeper.
In the previous game they scored from their solitary shot on target a penalty.

Watford scored a winner after 95 minutes due to a goalkeeping error with the last kick of the game .


Rather than lucky or fortunate all 3 were just clinical I guess ?

 

I could have this wrong but I think a win today would equal the Paul Lambert league 1 run of 8 consecutive wins in all competitions.

The record being 10 league wins in a row set back in 1986 although that run was tarnished by a 5-0 loss to Liverpool in the FA Cup.

 

Not at all. Swansea scored from the one big chance created in the game (0.51). Luton's best chance was Naismith's (0.14). As you yourself like to emphasise, it matters how the total xG is made up.

 

I gave up watching Swansea a while ago because of their boring play - lots and lots of passing to prevent anything happening. It's their prerogative of course, but it's not the kind of football I want to watch.

 

Er, I have never emphasised that. That’s what you have said. I have always said that xG is mildly interesting but not of real value.

 

Duncan made several different points. What I was questioning was his saying that those wins were "extremely fortunate" which, in the case of the one game I watched, is simply not true. Nor do I think it's true to say Swansea were "second best". They set out to defend the lead while only trying to score again on the counter -- and succeeded really quite comfortably.
Nothing in what I said had anything to do with our situation or performances. If you bothered to look back over my posts this season, I think you'd find I've been more certain of promotion, for longer, than anyone one else on the board!

 

Robbie I think you will find you are at odds on that opinion with the commentators, all viewers who are commenting on it, the post-match reporting and the statistics from the xG, which showed the fairest result was a draw.

Now I appreciate there is very little that is likely to cause you to change your mind or doubt you’re own rightness, but there must come a point where even you must wonder why you are a lone voice, declaring yourself right when the rest of us disagree, and whether the reality may just, possibly, be that you are wrong. As difficult as that might feel to contemplate.

 

The BBC had already written the match report as 1-1 with Cardiff and had to change it which was quite bizarre due to the late late goal and they describe Swansea's win as a smash and grab .


All 3 games were decided on tiny margins they are not blowing the opposition away controlling the tempo and scoring for fun , which is my point.
Norwich look like worthy Champions with most pundits praising our performances as better than Leeds and better than our last title the year before

In that season we had lots of dramatic late winners in high scoring games which was exciting but in the examples of the 4-4 with Forest and the 4-3 win against Millwall we handed out soft goals by making stupid defensive errors.

We have cut out most of the **** ups and look to dominate our opponents and scoring enough goals to make it look easy at times.

7 wins with 5 clean sheets scoring 16 and letting in 2 is phenomenal form and I'm left scratching my head as to how a Norwich fan can find fault .

The Greek boy didn't cover a run and Luton nearly scored last game so we are garbage even though we win 3-0 .

Almost as if someone is so sure of themselves and so critical of our playing set up and manager that they would rather look for minute errors than the big picture for fear of being proven wrong.

Handley and McLean shouldn't be playing apparently and Mo Leitner is our most influential player in upside down World

 

The 5 mins of the game I saw in the first half, Swansea were well on top and had a couple of what I would call 'close chances' where they were nearly connecting to chances and turned and got behind Luton a couple of times

 

Tonight's matches: