Quote Originally Posted by Nufcian View Post
Given we still have Man U, Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea to play in the remaining fixtures out PL survival is probably going to come down to pulling off a result no one expects in at least one of those games.
Definitely need a surprise result. I can only see two realistic wins from the remaining fixtures - Huddersfield and West Brom. It's not just those big clubs that are games we'd expect to lose at this point - Everton have picked up under Allardyce (despite the weekend's result), Southampton are a bit of a bogey team for us, Bournemouth have come back into form and dug themselves out of trouble, and Leicester are in form and in the top 8 despite a pretty ropey season overall. If we stay up from these fixtures it will mean we've had one hell of an end to the season because we'll have taken points in games we should have lost (as well as winning the two we have to aim to win).

Everybody knew we needed a quality striker to have a fighting chance, and we didn't get one in two transfer windows. We've taken a gamble on an injured Slimani, who has just less than one season of Premier League games under his belt, and just 8 league goals while playing for the Premier League champions (admittedly an anomaly) as their record signing. Even for those who think Rafa should be getting more out of this squad, there's precious little else to squeeze out of our 3 currently fit strikers (if Perez actually counts as a striker), so not bringing someone in is likely to have been the difference between us staying up and going down. We needed someone in for these last two games, which were both winnable, and we didn't do it, and now we have to hope for a miraculous result or two to help us out.