[Albion] Our victories this season

[Thunder Bolt]

Hasn't it always been this way? If teams are not at their best, we can beat them. If we are not at our best we can get beaten. Any team "of note" that we beat, will invariably be seen in the context of their poor performance, rather than our good one. The difference I hope to see this season vs. last (Jan - May at least) is that we beat the teams around us and so far, in my opinion, we have looked much more capable of doing that, but I cannot think of one team in the league that I would be confident of beating on any given day..
Bournemouth and Norwich look to be in trouble - but everyone else is also in trouble, until they're not! Watford, Everton and Southampton are now performing at levels which were expected at the beginning of the season, and really only Sheffield United and Newcastle are performing above where I expected them to be. All of them, plus West Ham, Villa and ourselves will be fine with a couple of wins, or right in the mire with a couple of losses. Plenty of surprises to come, but I would be very surprised if we put in a second half of a season that is as bad as the last one.
I think we will be fine, but it will be close. I think we may get something vs. Bournemouth and Villa, but don't expect us to beat Watford or West Ham, although on any given day we could!

An injury crisis or a couple of suspensions can turn any of the 14 other Premier League teams into basket cases. We are verging on a defender crisis ourselves with Burn out for weeks, and Duffy with a groin strain. If Dunk was sold we could be in trouble, not forgetting he's only 3 yellow cards away from a two match suspension.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Screaming for a policeman because your bed is a little damp.

No-one's screaming for anything. Except maybe you.

 

[CheeseRolls]

Bournemouth - basket case.
Aston Villa - borderline basket case.
Watford - no longer a basket case.
West Ham - who knows.

Just looked up the origins:

"By 'basket case' is meant a soldier who has lost both arms and legs and therefore must be carried in a basket." Might need a new term.

So if I've understood this correctly. Bozza has discovered that Graham Potter has mystic powers and that paraplegics, who can neither run away or cover their eyes are particularly susceptible. Presumably if he wears some sort of mirrored contact lenses, vain footballers will stop and check their hair and are then also susceptible to his mystic powers?

 

[schmunk]

Presumably if he wears some sort of mirrored contact lenses, vain footballers will stop and check their hair and are then also susceptible to his mystic powers?

That's us sorted for 3 points against Villa, then...

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

So if I've understood this correctly. Bozza has discovered that Graham Potter has mystic powers and that paraplegics, who can neither run away or cover their eyes are particularly susceptible. Presumably if he wears some sort of mirrored contact lenses, vain footballers will stop and check their hair and are then also susceptible to his mystic powers?

That'll be it!

 

[blue-shifted]

Hasn't it always been this way? If teams are not at their best, we can beat them. If we are not at our best we can get beaten. Any team "of note" that we beat, will invariably be seen in the context of their poor performance, rather than our good one. The difference I hope to see this season vs. last (Jan - May at least) is that we beat the teams around us and so far, in my opinion, we have looked much more capable of doing that, but I cannot think of one team in the league that I would be confident of beating on any given day..
Bournemouth and Norwich look to be in trouble - but everyone else is also in trouble, until they're not! Watford, Everton and Southampton are now performing at levels which were expected at the beginning of the season, and really only Sheffield United and Newcastle are performing above where I expected them to be. All of them, plus West Ham, Villa and ourselves will be fine with a couple of wins, or right in the mire with a couple of losses. Plenty of surprises to come, but I would be very surprised if we put in a second half of a season that is as bad as the last one.
I think we will be fine, but it will be close. I think we may get something vs. Bournemouth and Villa, but don't expect us to beat Watford or West Ham, although on any given day we could!

This is the best point made so far on the thread.

So if we beat Liverpool at home which is the more likely headline

"Brighton produce incredible home display" or "Liverpool lose first game in below par performance"?

 

[Stat Brother]

This is the best point made so far on the thread.

So if we beat Liverpool at home which is the more likely headline

"Brighton produce incredible home display" or "Liverpool lose first game in below par performance"?

"Liverpool with all eyes looking towards Europe, hand over 3 points to some inferior southern team".

 

[blue-shifted]

"Liverpool with all eyes looking towards Europe, hand over 3 points to some inferior southern team".

And it won't just be the newspaper headlines, after we beat Arsenal there was 3 minutes on what we did on the telly, and about 40 mins of dissection of the things Arsenal did wrong.

 

[Weststander]

I’m not confident just because nothing seems to happen in January anymore. It’s tinkering at best in the PL, usually a recall month or send out reserves to lower leagues. Let’s hope we buck the current trend.

Dean Smith confirmed yesterday that they’re bringing in strikers (plural).

 

[Weststander]

This is the best point made so far on the thread.

So if we beat Liverpool at home which is the more likely headline

"Brighton produce incredible home display" or "Liverpool lose first game in below par performance"?

Liverpool will get their regulation win against Brighton.

 

[Weststander]

An injury crisis or a couple of suspensions can turn any of the 14 other Premier League teams into basket cases. We are verging on a defender crisis ourselves with Burn out for weeks, and Duffy with a groin strain. If Dunk was sold we could be in trouble, not forgetting he's only 3 yellow cards away from a two match suspension.

An injury/suspension of Mooy would be a huge blow.

Where would our creativity come from?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

An injury/suspension of Mooy would be a huge blow.

Where would our creativity come from?

Gross although his assists seem to have dried up.

 

[peterward]

Not overly worried where the wins come from. 6 wins in 6 months is on par with the last two seasons of 9 wins over 9 months and we survived.

Don't care who we beat as long as we pick up sufficient points to avoid the drop, although obviously points against those around us are more important to gain. Roll on Villa, and let's roll over Villa!

9 wins aint going to cut it this season though. Last 2 seasons there's been 3 clearly shit teams. This season, so far its just Norwich.

Mid 30's points wont be enough, A lot more like it will be 40+ required and even that wasnt enough a couple of PL seasons. If we finish on last seasons points total we'll be down.

 

[Weststander]

9 wins aint going to cut it this season though. Last 2 seasons there's been 3 clearly shit teams. This season, so far its just Norwich.

Mid 30's points wont be enough, A lot more like it will be 40+ required and even that wasnt enough a couple of PL seasons. If we finish on last seasons points total we'll be down.

This. It will one of the rarer seasons where 40 or more will be the cut off.

 

[blue-shifted]

Liverpool will get their regulation win against Brighton.

Well yes, but the point stands

 

[schmunk]

Dean Smith confirmed yesterday that they’re bringing in strikers (plural).

And Benteke as well...?

 

[Bozza]

Spent a couple of hours driving earlier and my thoughts turned to our season to date, and it dawned on me that we've not really beaten anyone of note this season. By that, I mean...

Watford - basketcase at the time.
Spurs - basketcase at the time.
Everton - basketcase at the time.
Norwich - the sole shit team in the division.
Arsenal - basketcase at the time.
Bournemouth - maybe not in basketcase territory, but injury-plagued and in dreadful form.

...which is worrying.

Trying to look on the bright side, our next two games are against sides that are very much in shocking form and on the fast track to basketcase-ville, as after that, it's looking tricky for a while.

Do Palace, on their current run, qualify as a "basketcase club"?

Asking for a friend.

 

[Diablo]

With 12 games to go I reckon 12 more points should keep us up !
We`ve only got Norwich below us to play but with home games against Palace,Arsenal,Man U ,Liverpool,Man city and Newcastle we may need at least six away points !

 

[Arthritic Toe]

With 12 games to go I reckon 12 more points should keep us up !
We`ve only got Norwich below us to play but with home games against Palace,Arsenal,Man U ,Liverpool,Man city and Newcastle we may need at least six away points !

That's because there are hardly any teams below us

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

My growing theory is that we don't do well when teams work exceptionally hard against us. So the basket-case teams tend not to be closing down or doing the hard yards, and we can pass it through them. Most teams do work hard of course, especially those with new managers to impress or in a relegation dog-fight, or where it is just their DNA.

In those games we have to stay in the game, not concede the early goal, and they generally tire allowing us to look as good as we do in the latter stages of games. We have some players like Trossard and Propper who really come into their own later in games as they are super-fit and benefit from the other team tiring and giving more space, and we have loads of attacking bench options - we have, once again, been really fortunate with injuries this season. (Or maybe we should be giving lots of kudos to our physio department). So against teams that recently worked hard against us in midfield, West Ham, Everton, Chelsea, Watford - we have had major second half revivals.

But we have to be able to resist an early goal against those who close us down religiously for the first hour. And I just want a bit of luck to come our way, like West Ham got with their two deflected goals. A bit of luck to inject a bit of confidence.