The beginning of the end.

[1892]

You'll be absolutely fine, only lost 4 all season and got some very tough games out of the way that us, Reading, Leeds and co have not.

 

[Bob'n'weave]

I have a strong feeling this is the beginning of the end for us this season. We've been poor for a long time, no investment during the transfer window and 2 capitulations in 2 games.

I think we can hope for play-offs at best and we all know how that's likely to go.

Followed by a mass exodus of players who have stayed only for one last crack at promotion.

Oh dear. Better get yourself a Palarse scarf and be done with it.

 

[Insel affe]

The beginning of the end....

Nah....

We are sat a point clear of NEWCASTLE.
We are five points clear and a game in hand of 3rd place team.
We are fourteen points clear of 7th.
We have lost FOUR league games in twenty eight games...

Every team has a nightmare in a season, it is a fact....

Get over it.

How many people thought we would be in this position at the start of the season ?


"This is the beginning of the business end of the season" when games come thick and fast for all of us and hang on for this.....
Things maybe bumpy so buckle up, things may not go our way.....

One thing is for certain this is not the beginning of the end.....

Do you honestly think our squad will have gone back in the dressing room, shrug their shoulders and look discontentedly at each other and collectively agree "that's it, why bother" and throw the towel out the dressing room door.


Don't be so fecking silly

 

[Mtoto]

Playoffs at best? A top-six finish is 500-1 ON. A spectacular degree of glass half-emptiness, even by NSC standards.

 

[Bob'n'weave]

The beginning of the end....

Nah....

We are sat a point clear of NEWCASTLE.
We are five points clear and a game in hand of 3rd place team.
We are fourteen points clear of 7th.
We have lost FOUR league games in twenty eight games...

Every team has a nightmare in a season, it is a fact....

Get over it.

How many people thought we would be in this position at the start of the season ?


"This is the beginning of the business end of the season" when games come thick and fast for all of us and hang on for this.....
Things maybe bumpy so buckle up, things may not go our way.....

One thing is for certain this is not the beginning of the end.....

Do you honestly think our squad will have gone back in the dressing room, shrug their shoulders and look discontentedly at each other and collectively agree "that's it, why bother" and throw the towel out the dressing room door.


Don't be so fecking silly

This with bells on.

We have a different challenge/pressure to those chasing us. Staying hungry, committed, fighting for every ball like our lives depend on it, is maybe a little easier to do when you're actually chasing something. Keeping that mindset when you are at the top of the tree is the challenge that CH faces. Disappointed with how we played last night, yes, worried that we are in a nose dive/collapse, no, not at all. BIG wake up call for the boys, and I expect the hunger to return.

 

[neilbard]

This thread is equally as bad as some joker on her saying the Villa game will be our promotion party! One game at a time please!

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Fair bit of truth in that I have to admit. It's almost how you tell the difference between fans who really have followed us threw thin and thin and those who are new or as good as, having only turned up in 2005 and 1991 since 1983 despite being a regular at the Amex. I don't begrudge them following the club now, (where were you when we were shit...? Ow, shopping, ok...) but they have, crucially, missed so much dross they really don't know just how capable we are of f ucking it up. It's not pessimism, it's not arrogance, it's not uberism. It's just experience. And therefore after nights like tonight, no JCL, glory hunting, AWOL (war years), cup final only ticket grabbing fellow 'fan' is going to tell me that this club can't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Because we can. And have. So take your optimistic complacency and do one!

Christ I hate the hope. Give me despair anyday...

I'm not really sure about this at all. I've been following since mid-80's and there's very few examples of us ****ing up good positions. Perhaps the only season I can think of is the 91-92 relegation following the play-off final. Since then we've had three championship seasons, all of which we were top on October and drove on, four seasons where we were buried in the relegation zone at Christmas and stayed up; and several seasons of overachieving our squad capability, not least of which was last year when we really just wanted to consolidate following a scrape with relegation.

Which brings to my other point, how can people follow football for decades and not see what is in front of their eyes? This is a promotion-winning squad and its obvious, decades of following football should tell you that. How can people watch but not learn I'll never know.

It was also pretty obvious we'd lose last night, so I took my wife out for dinner instead and saved myself the hassle

 

[Ernest]

It's NOT the beginning of the END it is the END of our promotion chances this SEASON, we WILL be out of the TOP 2 by the Ipswich game and out of the top 6 by the end of THIS month. It's the USUAL Albion, refusing to SING a goalscorer like Ross McCormack as he might UPSET some of the DELICATE players we have whilst MASSIVE teams like Wednesday pay TEN MILLION for Jordan ROADS.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

The beginning of the end....

Nah....

We are sat a point clear of NEWCASTLE.
We are five points clear and a game in hand of 3rd place team.
We are fourteen points clear of 7th.
We have lost FOUR league games in twenty eight games...

Every team has a nightmare in a season, it is a fact....

Get over it.

How many people thought we would be in this position at the start of the season ?


"This is the beginning of the business end of the season" when games come thick and fast for all of us and hang on for this.....
Things maybe bumpy so buckle up, things may not go our way.....

One thing is for certain this is not the beginning of the end.....

Do you honestly think our squad will have gone back in the dressing room, shrug their shoulders and look discontentedly at each other and collectively agree "that's it, why bother" and throw the towel out the dressing room door.


Don't be so fecking silly

Obviously. Its like people will only be happy if we finish the season with a record haul of 110 points plus. Which, if we'd beaten Hudds last night, I reckon we would have been on for. But that's laughable, 15 points less on 95 will be absolutely fine. Which means losing another four games and drawing a few, so I do hope people can cope when that happens.

There's a reason why everyone bangs on about being 8 points clear, 5 points clear with a game in hand, etc etc. It means we can afford to slip up now and again. That's the point of having a points cushion! It doesn't mean we should panic if we happen to lose a game

 

[hans kraay fan club]

I have a strong feeling this is the beginning of the end for us this season. We've been poor for a long time, no investment during the transfer window and 2 capitulations in 2 games.

I think we can hope for play-offs at best and we all know how that's likely to go.

Followed by a mass exodus of players who have stayed only for one last crack at promotion.

I knew someone would start a thread like this, you were my second pick behind 'sir albion' though.

.

Presumably Norman Baker blah blah has lost his log-in details.

 

[cunningplan]

I have a strong feeling this is the beginning of the end for us this season. We've been poor for a long time, no investment during the transfer window and 2 capitulations in 2 games.

I think we can hope for play-offs at best and we all know how that's likely to go.

Followed by a mass exodus of players who have stayed only for one last crack at promotion.

You might be right
You might be wrong
If you are right, no one will remember you
If you are wrong, I for one will have a really good laugh at your expense.
Either way you are a complete tw@t.
Just saying.........

 

[fosters headband]

Which brings to my other point, how can people follow football for decades and not see what is in front of their eyes? This is a promotion-winning squad and its obvious, decades of following football should tell you that. How can people watch but not learn I'll never know.

I am in my 6th decade of watching the Albion and suffered 8 failures of Brighton teams that looked cert promotion winning squads, going back to two failures in the 50's and I still don't know how I can look at this Brighton team and tell myself this is the team that will get promotion.

How do you know that by looking at this team we will not suffer again being the victims of the Spurs/Southampton stitch up in 77/78 season. The Notts County play off final failure were we played so badly or even another season like last season, where the gods seem to conspire against the Albion, with injuries, ref decions to make us fail with such an enormous points tally

Please tell me how I can look at a team half way through a season and just say this is a promotion winning side and I will feel so much better.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I am in my 6th decade of watching the Albion and suffered 8 failures of Brighton teams that looked cert promotion winning squads, going back to two failures in the 50's and I still don't know how I can look at this Brighton team and tell myself this is the team that will get promotion.

How do you know that by looking at this team we will not suffer again being the victims of the Spurs/Southampton stitch up in 77/78 season. The Notts County play off final failure were we played so badly or even another season like last season, where the gods seem to conspire against the Albion, with injuries, ref decions to make us fail with such an enormous points tally

Please tell me how I can look at a team have way through a season and just say this is a promotion winning side and I will feel so much better.

8 season where certs didn't make it? Well you can't include last year, not certs and arguably overachieving. You obviously can't be including the Notts County season. I didn't see 77-78, were we as good as we are now?

In 6 decades a lot of title-winning teams have come and played us, and they have the same aura about them as we do now, as we did in the Poyet title-winning season, as we did during the Micky Adams title-winning season. There's just something about these teams.

But if you look at them and see something else, I guess you've got more experience than me.

 

[Berty23]

Has hughton been sacked yet? Sheesh.

Yes we have had some fairly fortunate wins but that happens in teams with amazing spirit who keep going. Last night's match was essentially a repeat of last year at Cardiff and everyone had a panic. We have to believe folks.

 

[fosters headband]

8 season where certs didn't make it? Well you can't include last year, not certs and arguably overachieving. You obviously can't be including the Notts County season. I didn't see 77-78, were we as good as we are now?

In 6 decades a lot of title-winning teams have come and played us, and they have the same aura about them as we do now, as we did in the Poyet title-winning season, as we did during the Micky Adams title-winning season. There's just something about these teams.

But if you look at them and see something else, I guess you've got more experience than me.

I certainly understand your having teams with an aura about them and that was certainly the case with the Mullery team that was cheated by Spurs and Saints, which proves you can have an aura and still be cheated or just fail. Also the teams under Adams and Poyet that won their championships had a certain confidence. I am not feeling that with this squad I'm afraid, this side has ground out some real edgy wins rather than completely outplaying teams much the same as we were outplayed last night.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

[MENTION=1517]junior[/MENTION] used some good bait to trap a lot of people. I know some of you can't resist wind up merchants, so he got the 114 posts replying.

I prefer to listen to people like Calde.

[tweet]827412911438041088[/tweet]

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

If we've been staying top of the league and been SO appalling, I can't WAIT until we start playing well.

 

[fosters headband]

[MENTION=1517]junior[/MENTION] used some good bait to trap a lot of people. I know some of you can't resist wind up merchants, so he got the 114 posts replying.

I prefer to listen to people like Calde.

[tweet]827412911438041088[/tweet]

I sincerely hope he is correct

 

[Nixonator]

Has hughton been sacked yet? Sheesh.

Yes we have had some fairly fortunate wins but that happens in teams with amazing spirit who keep going. Last night's match was essentially a repeat of last year at Cardiff and everyone had a panic. We have to believe folks.

I'm all for positivity, but how can you relate that to Cardiff last year? How do you know we will respond in the same way?

Why wasn't Preston our Cardiff of last season? They could have beaten us by more.

Just because we bounced back then with the pressure of staying in the fight doesn't mean we will now, especially as we seem quite complacent in our position, something I suggested we might be but got shot down with comments such as DONT BE STUPID HUGHTS WOULD NEVVA ALLOW THE PLAYERS TO BE COMPLACENT.

The pressure is on, hopefully we will get a response from what I hope was an extensive grilling from Chris after the game, because for all the praise we have been heaping on hudds, we were shocking. Hardest thing to take is they actually looked VERY vulnerable when we were running at them, unfortunately that was about 4 times the entire match. Hardly surprising without a midfield (Stephens) in the game.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

we seem quite complacent in our position,.

I'd love to know what your basing that on?

The late winner against Cardiff where the whole team celebrated wildly, knowing how important a win in that game was?
The late winner against Sheffield Wednesday where the whole team celebrated wildly, knowing how important a win in that game was?

The media may be complacent, some fans may be complacent (I doubt they are), but in NO WAY can I see anything that would suggest the manager or the team are.