Is there really any need to panic?

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PeruzziWatch

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Excuse me again for a putting a positive slant on things, but I'm just interested in assessing things in a different way than just saying things like 'we're shite', 'we're doomed, 'we don't attack enough', 'we're too negative' or 'Gus needs to go because our form is unacceptable'.

What if you take away the two games against City and the embarrassing Southampton defeat...

Sunderland - P19 / W3 / D11 / L5 / G16 / A18 / 20 points

This is half a season, so you'd expect around 40 points if we achieved about the same again (almost certainly enough to stay up, I'd imagine).

Ok, it's not spectacular, but it's not the worst form either. The lack of wins is obvious, but the lack of losses also suggests this is a pretty hard team to beat. Only conceding 18 goals in 19 games is very respectable for a team in the bottom half. I'm taking away Southampton because it was clearly a massive blip, and we shouldn't be very concerned about losing twice to City, a lot of teams in the bottom half will lose twice to them. 16 goals from 19 games isn't good enough, but with Defoe signed and Poyet working towards a more attacking ethos/formation, we should be able to improve on this.

We've had pretty tricky fixtures up until now but the home games get much easier, is there really any reason to panic right now? We are hard to beat, and we will surely improve on our win ratio with the home games we have coming up.

If you look at that form above, three defeats in a row is quite a blip for us (considering we'd only lost five all season before that), so why are some fans suddenly getting so impatient with Gus just because of one poor run of form? I'd also like to add that we've lost to City, Liverpool, and Spurs, there's really no shame in that, and we only lost each game by the odd goal.

It's fine to have grievances about how we are playing and I'm very frustrated with the mistakes our attacking players (in particular) have made, but isn't it a bit of an overreaction to be giving up hope about our season and our manager right now?

It's been a bit shit, but it hasn't been as bad as some people are making it out to be.
 


SebastienELLISbexter said:
I am still confident we won't go down.

Not exactly a great barometer of success is it though. Expected us to push on after stopping up last season.
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It's still possible that we could push on this season, obviously it seems a bit daft to suggest it but if we do turn things around and Defoe starts banging them in we could conceivably finish around 11th and not be in a relegation battle. It's only seven points between us and 11th right now, after all. If we did do that then that would qualify as pushing on for me. You'd have to be daft to expect us to be getting top ten this season in the first place (we just didn't sign enough quality) so I think something like 11th/12th would be perfectly acceptable.
 
PeruzziWatch said:
It's still possible that we could push on this season, obviously it seems a bit daft to suggest it but if we do turn things around and Defoe starts banging them in we could conceivably finish around 11th and not be in a relegation battle. It's only seven points between us and 11th right now, after all. If we did do that then that would qualify as pushing on for me. You'd have to be daft to expect us to be getting top ten this season in the first place (we just didn't sign enough quality) so I think something like 11th/12th would be perfectly acceptable.
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Anything is possible. But the way poyet has been speaking recently has made me less confident of 'pushing on'. We are in trouble, and that is reflected in his press conferences. Massive match on Saturday obviously. Always optimistic of a win, but in general, we are in a lot of trouble if we lose a couple of these next 4 home games. And that is entirely possible as well.
 
SebastienELLISbexter said:
Anything is possible. But the way poyet has been speaking recently has made me less confident of 'pushing on'. We are in trouble, and that is reflected in his press conferences. Massive match on Saturday obviously. Always optimistic of a win, but in general, we are in a lot of trouble if we lose a couple of these next 4 home games. And that is entirely possible as well.
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Sure, it's a huge moment in our season now, it's make or break time. It could go really well or everything could go tits up. It will feel pretty euphoric if we do go on a good run though over the next 4/5 games, the tensions are building and it feels like something's got to give, whether that means we finding ourselves deeper in the mire or celebrating the good times again is anyone's guess.
 
PeruzziWatch said:
It's still possible that we could push on this season, obviously it seems a bit daft to suggest it but if we do turn things around and Defoe starts banging them in we could conceivably finish around 11th and not be in a relegation battle. It's only seven points between us and 11th right now, after all. If we did do that then that would qualify as pushing on for me. You'd have to be daft to expect us to be getting top ten this season in the first place (we just didn't sign enough quality) so I think something like 11th/12th would be perfectly acceptable.
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if you think we are gonna finish any where near 11th or 12 your as backward as that muppet in your avatar
 
PeruzziWatch said:
Sure, it's a huge moment in our season now, it's make or break time. It could go really well or everything could go tits up. It will feel pretty euphoric if we do go on a good run though over the next 4/5 games, the tensions are building and it feels like something's got to give, whether that means we finding ourselves deeper in the mire or celebrating the good times again is anyone's guess.
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Aye.

It could go either way. So ye, a bit of panic is natural right now.
 
jamieboy said:
if you think we are gonna finish any where near 11th or 12 your as backward as that muppet in your avatar
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shepherd88 said:
2nd least amount of shots per game, just ahead of Villa suggests we arent creating enough
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Scored 8 more goals than them...

Christ, Villa fans probably look at our goal tally and think it's f***ing amazing in comparison. :lol:
 
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Wouldn't be concerned if we had a good record at home but normally it just feels like a rival can rock up and walk away with 3 points without us doing much to stop it.

Just look at a gash Hull side with no form turning up and beating us 3-1. We also must have kept Villa up last few seasons aswell
 
Johnsafc said:
Wouldn't be concerned if we had a good record at home but normally it just feels like a rival can rock up and walk away with 3 points without us doing much to stop it.
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It is a bit mad how our home games have been ordered this season, don't you think? I mean if we'd had Burnley, QPR, West Brom, Palace, Villa, Newcastle, Southampton and Leicester at home (instead of the home games we have had so far), would we not be in a much better position? It sounds like me just making excuses but f***ing hell that's a lot of promising home games we haven't played yet. I think I'd have preferred it if the fixture list was the other way round.
 
PeruzziWatch said:
It is a bit mad how our home games have been ordered this season, don't you think? I mean if we'd had Burnley, QPR, West Brom, Palace, Villa, Newcastle, Southampton and Leicester at home (instead of the home games we have had so far), would we not be in a much better position? It sounds like me just making excuses but f***ing hell that's a lot of promising home games we haven't played yet. I think I'd have preferred it if the fixture list was the other way round.
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We probably wouldn't be because it's us.

How many times last season did we say 'if we can just win this one', then we wouldn't and we'd say 'well we've got another one next week'. It seems like teams enjoy coming to the SoL as they know theyre going to leave with a result if they do a job on us defensively. We've had it this season aswell, Hull was the perfect oppertunity to kick on, what happened? They easily beat us.
 
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Johnsafc said:
We probably wouldn't be because it's us.

How many times last season did we say 'if we can just win this one', then we wouldn't and we'd say 'well we've got another one next week'. It seems like teams enjoy coming to the SoL as they know theyre going to leave with a result if they do a job on us defensively. We've had it this season aswell, Hull was the perfect oppertunity to kick on, what happened? They easily beat us.
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Yeah, it's a bit shit but it's been a bad habit we've had for a while now, it didn't just start last season. It doesn't seem to me like we should be really blaming Poyet so much for something that's plagued us for so long. He came in to fix not just this problem but also to stabilise the club by maintaining our status as a Premier League club. He's done the most important thing by keeping us up, now it's about fixing many other issues. This is why I think we need to have patience, it's psychological as much as anything. I would be really unhappy if we just decided to sacrifice a long-term recovery for some short-term solution to survival. I don't think we are really in that much trouble despite being dangerously close to the relegation zone. I think Poyet will keep us up, but the chronic problems cannot be fixed in 12 months, it takes longer than that to build a side that can overcome these issues. Burnley, QPR and West Brom in a row now, it's a big test for us, if we get at least two wins then it should instil some confidence again and relieve the pressure.
 
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