Steady on.... You'll do yourself some damage....
With the league 16 games old, I was scanning our next 'third' of fixtures, and noticed something fascinating. On February 9th (15 games ahead) we play Middlesbrough away, which will be our final away game at any of the promotion ‘contenders’!
QPR, Bristol, Reading, Birmingham, Preston, Brentford, and Ipswich are our last seven away games. The way the league is settling out, none of those teams are strong.
In addition, by February we should have our long-term injured back fit.
Sure...that makes the next 15 games very tough (WBA, Sheff U, Villa, Forest, Stoke, Boro...away), but I’m starting to appreciate that if we can stay in contention until February, then we’ll have a real chance of automatic promotion.
Steady on.... You'll do yourself some damage....
and given our two defeats so far were against Brum and Bburn I don't think any easy vs. tough game analysis is of much use in this league. We're just as likely to win or lose at Brentford, QPR, Bristol, Preston as we are at WBA, Sheff U, Villa or Stoke on current form of those clubs.
Ifs/buts/maybe's..last 15 will be a roller-coaster ride of that you can be sure
So far so very good..Bielsa has been a miracle worker thus far..will need some help with a few quality editions come the Jan TW in my honest opinion..hopefully he will get what he wants/needs to complete the job!
The Rev is thinking play-offs..but will be more than happy to take automatic promotion.
As the Small Faces sang....All or Nothing.
Playing field down in this division is a lot more level.
Fully agree that the Championship is crazy league to predict individual results, but by season end the league usually sorts the wheat from the chaff. Looking at the league right now, both the top and bottom half is as most would have predicted (switch Villa and Stoke for Blackburn and Birmingham and it’s a near perfect have/have not split).
Individual results might be nonsensical, but the law of averages tends to make truer sense.
As an example, in 2017/18 the top six were Wolves, Cardiff, Fulham, Villa, Boro, Derby. The Championship may be a much more ‘level’ playing field than most leagues, but it still slopes towards the bigger teams….so I’m looking at our run in and seeing a fixture list that the law of averages tells me should be ‘relatively’ easy compared to our rivals. No guarantees, but after twenty seasons of despair by November, I’m enjoying the experience of feeling realistic hope.
Every match will be a challenge physically and mentally ........
It's going to be a difficult job but I'm sure we'll rise to the challenge.
I'm up for it as anything is possible - funiculi, funicula as they say ........
Wolves last season carved through their opponents winning a total of 30 matches and losing 7 creating on average 9 chances per game the stats show.......... comparing that to our current form losing 2 so far creating an average of 14.5 chances ............ big difference as Wolves had Jota banging 17 in but in fairness we've had Roofe banging them in to before that injury.......... so I understand where Flinty opinionates his observation.
Last season 2017/18 ............... Wolves stats.
Wolves lost in first half of season (Aug/Dec 2017) to Cardiff,Blunts and QPR.
Second half of season (Jan/May 2018) lost to Forest,Fulham,Villa and Sunderland.
The table (2017/18) shows not all those teams were challenging for promotion so NO guarantees result wise THEN or NOW ..................
As ever - promotion is in our hands to secure and I'm still positive as we've a squad mentally & physically capable and an owner financially flexible to get us over the line,IMO.
MOT
Leeds stats 2018/19 ....... https://footystats.org/clubs/england/leeds-united-fc