Our difficult 8 game start is over - and now...

We'll win some, lose some and draw some, same as all the other teams listed.  So long as we take 16 points minimum from the 8 it keeps us on track for remaining up near the main challengers.

Blasphemy...why was I not made aware of this development earlier? 

In all seriousness though....in my mind no reason we can't be unbeaten for the next 8.

We can take maximum points if we play to our best. I think the international knocked us off our stride massively before we played the mancs.

City have got a good run in the next 8 games as well, hopefully the wheels will come off there.

I'd like to see Ings get some minutes as well across these games, I'm excited by what I've seen from him in the U23's, I think he could do some damage in the first team.

I'm going 24 out of 24 

Every team in the league can set up to press us and unbalance us, to knock us off our stride but they can't do it for 90 minutes.

We can.

Course there'll be games like Burnley where they manage to score and shut up shop but Swansea couldn't, neither could the scum.

Really important point that Debs.

Every fibre and meticulous detail of Maureen's planning went into stopping us (they had no countering game plan at all) and it still took our lads starting like they'd spent Sunday night propping up the bar between Dean Martin and Oliver Reed to make it competitive..........

We will keep getting better and we will smash seven shades of the proverbial out of 'em at Old Toilet.

Blasphemy...why was I not made aware of this development earlier? 

In all seriousness though....in my mind no reason we can't be unbeaten for the next 8.

No reason in mine either mate.

No reason in mine either mate.

Nor me.

Lets do it.

Really important point that Debs.

Every fibre and meticulous detail of Maureen's planning went into stopping us (they had no countering game plan at all) and it still took our lads starting like they'd spent Sunday night propping up the bar between Dean Martin and Oliver Reed to make it competitive..........

We will keep getting better and we will smash seven shades of the proverbial out of 'em at Old Toilet.

We certainly will get better mate our stats are improving all the time.

Our leaky defense has shut up shop for starters.  Just 4 conceded in our last 5 League games which included the current Champions, Chelsea and the scum.  I believe we now have one of the lowest stats for opposition chances created, so we're not just stopping the goals, we're stopping them getting a sniff at goal.

We'll still have the odd game like the Burnley one but not many and like I posted at the start of the thread, aim for minimum 2 points per game and we won't be far off the top.  It helps keep the downs in check as the occasional loss or draw is not the end of the world.

 

Nor me.

Lets do it.

Already got my ticket and party frock Skip 

Really important point that Debs.

Every fibre and meticulous detail of Maureen's planning went into stopping us (they had no countering game plan at all) and it still took our lads starting like they'd spent Sunday night propping up the bar between Dean Martin and Oliver Reed to make it competitive..........

We will keep getting better and we will smash seven shades of the proverbial out of 'em at Old Toilet.

Completely agree with this.

I doubt we'll get 24 points in the next 8 games but we should be looking for something damned close to 20 and if we keep progressing then I see no reason why we can't.

Spurs and Saints are the only teams that press as a unit, although City, Swans and Arse do on occasions.

So majority of teams don't press and it's not something that can be set up a week before playing us.

Swansea did well for a half against us but they could not sustain it, the Mancs also did try on the first half but again could not sustain it. We probably helped them mind with our awful passing.

I think we have that speedy striker in Origi who can also use his strength to hold up the ball to release to the midfield runners.

I don't think it's that hard to coach mate, in truth you don't necessarily need to apply a full press I the way that Jürgen or Pep set it up. Gerry Francis has just been on SSN and he suggested that West Brom would be looking to play a higher line and prevent us from getting into a rhythm by playing out from the back all the time. More and more clubs will look to play us this way I think.

W.B. this week scares me most...Again will be parking the bus all 90 min...We need one lucky goal...

I don't think it's that hard to coach mate, in truth you don't necessarily need to apply a full press I the way that Jürgen or Pep set it up. Gerry Francis has just been on SSN and he suggested that West Brom would be looking to play a higher line and prevent us from getting into a rhythm by playing out from the back all the time. More and more clubs will look to play us this way I think.

Aye it's probably not hard to coach but it's all about having everyone in synch and that requires a lot of practice, it only takes one player out of synch to play through the press and suddenly a massive hole appears.

Like I said earlier I hope more teams try and press us high as I'm confident the likes of Lallana and Gini can play through it and it's better than facing teams camped on their own 18 yard box.

I will take one game at a time, starts with West Brom. Different folks diffrent strokes and the next 8 games will need that. 2 weeks away for the bloody international games has taken the rhythm out of our play and I'm sure the lads are back training together again and hope that the lads perform better in the coming games.

So the tricky start to the season is over? And it turned out to not be so tricky after all.  We've got 17 points out of 24 - somewhat surprisingly.

So now on to what was supposed to the least difficult quarter of our season.  Hopefully we'll get back to our attacking best.  Hopefully it will be more like the Hull and Leicester home games less like last night.

Although we can watch other teams taking points off each other - we will face a lot of teams, like United, who want to take a point from our games.



So does that make you optimistic or nervous?

on the contrary. Id be more worried now. We will always have a go against the top sides. Our problem is the less fancied sides. Just look at the Burnley result.

If our players have the mental approach right then we should be picking up all 24 points in my view. But we have a tendency to underperform in some games against weaker sides. If Jürgen      gets that sorted, which I would suspect he will, then were going to be sitting nice approaching the Christmas 

I'm working off the theory that we will need more that a 2 point average in a run of games against teams like these...

Logic being - that aiming to maintain a 2 point average, against 'lesser' teams, is working of the assumption that we will equal (or beat) it against 'better' outfits every time and that's less of a given imo.

I'm very confident we can do better than that, in these 8, to be honest and I'd imagine that the boss (and lads) feel the same.

Optimistic for at least 2.5 average 

I'm working off the theory that we will need more that a 2 point average in a run of games against teams like these...

Logic being - that aiming to maintain a 2 point average, against 'lesser' teams, is working of the assumption that we will equal (or beat) it against 'better' outfits every time and that's less of a given imo.

I'm very confident we can do better than that, in these 8, to be honest and I'd imagine that the boss (and lads) feel the same.

Optimistic for at least 2.5 average 

It's interesting. Do you think players/managers look at groups of games and say 'we should pick up x points from these games' or just take it game by game?

Doesn't really matter I guess, but it would lessen the pressure you'd feel placed on each game if you had a target for each group of games.

Easy, hard, in between, it doesn't really matter.

What matters is that those teams are trying to steal our 3 points in each and every game, as Klopp says to the players.

Do you think players/managers look at groups of games and say 'we should pick up x points from these games' or just take it game by game?

I seem to remember that, a while back, one or two managers made it known that they do indeed target certain games in that manner.

Whether or not Jürgen does that I don't know but my best guess would be that he does. (It's human nature at the very least).

WBA is definitely a Banana skin of a game... Mind you any game can be a Banana Skin, but just feel WBA will be our biggest test in these coming games

You can chalk one of those eight off and you can chalk it off with a big F***ing win!

Just keep going as the old adage says "one game at a time "👍

Looking at the next 7 fixtures, Man City seems to have an easier task than others but their form has been inconsistent of late and we have to ensure that they don't open up a wide gap between us and them while we remain focus and maintain our consistency. Arsenal has some difficult games coming up and they will feel the heat and may drop off the top four and the same goes for Chelsea, Spurs and MU.

Having said that, we have to be on our toes, the next 5 games 43 being Watford, Bournemouth, Southampton and Crystal palace are just lurking behind us and they can be very dangerous and potential banana skins.

Hope the lads stay focus and not take things for granted.

Including yesterday, there are 5 home games before we face City. West Brom, Watford, Sunderland, West Ham, and Stoke should see at least 13 points brought in. We already have the first 3, so if we took the full 15, we would be in business