So, About our start…

[Silvio Dante]

It was said by quite a few on here that we’d had an easier batch of fixtures and are coming into a difficult period. This kind of crystallises that. 
 

Per Opta, we’ve had statistically the easiest start to the season but are sitting in a “poor results” quadrant. Interestingly, Boro have had about the same degree of difficulty as us but only have three more points and are the other side of the poor/good results line.

Says to me a couple of things; glass half full - fine margins. Two draws into wins and it’s an acceptable start from an easy run. Glass half empty - if we’re underperforming from this batch, then what comes next…?

[NDW4CITY]

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

It was said by quite a few on here that we’d had an easier batch of fixtures and are coming into a difficult period. This kind of crystallises that. 
 

Per Opta, we’ve had statistically the easiest start to the season but are sitting in a “poor results” quadrant. Interestingly, Boro have had about the same degree of difficulty as us but only have three more points and are the other side of the poor/good results line.

Says to me a couple of things; glass half full - fine margins. Two draws into wins and it’s an acceptable start from an easy run. Glass half empty - if we’re underperforming from this batch, then what comes next…?

Whether it’s thinking about things other than City over the international break and/or processing the awful news about Liam’s son, but I’ve resolved to look more for the positives going forward. For instance, losing 2 from 9 isn’t actually terrible plus our home form has been decent (notwithstanding all the usual caveats). There’s a kind of consensus that we do better against better teams, so I’ll hope that plays out over the next 10 games or so. Maybe clutching at straws and I may feel differently by about 3:05 on Saturday, but going glass half full for the time being.

[Lorenzos Only Goal]

Our start has been woeful given the difficulty of the opposition.  I think we will struggle in the games running into Christmas.  The block of 10 after Middlesbrough is a huge step Up in quality.  At least 6 teams better than what we've faced and a bunch of horrid away fixtures.

 

Tue, Oct 22nd – Stoke City A
Sat, Oct 26 – Leeds United H
Sat, Nov 2nd – Preston North End A

Tue, Nov 5th – Sheffield United H

Sat, Nov 9th – Norwich City A
Sat, Nov 23rd – Burnley H
Tue, Nov 26th – Watford A
Sat, Nov 30th – Plymouth Argyle H

DECEMBER

Sat, Dec 7th – Portsmouth A
Tue, Dec 10th – Sunderland A

Edited 6 hours ago by Lorenzos Only Goal

[Harry]

48 minutes ago, Lorenzos Only Goal said:

Our start has been woeful given the difficulty of the opposition.  I think we will struggle in the games running into Christmas.  The block of 10 after Middlesbrough is a huge step Up in quality.  At least 6 teams better than what we've faced and a bunch of horrid away fixtures.

 

Tue, Oct 22nd – Stoke City A
Sat, Oct 26 – Leeds United H
Sat, Nov 2nd – Preston North End A

Tue, Nov 5th – Sheffield United H

Sat, Nov 9th – Norwich City A
Sat, Nov 23rd – Burnley H
Tue, Nov 26th – Watford A
Sat, Nov 30th – Plymouth Argyle H

DECEMBER

Sat, Dec 7th – Portsmouth A
Tue, Dec 10th – Sunderland A

This sounds really sad, but I’d be happy with 7 points from that lot. 
Can’t see much more than that!  

[Lorenzos Only Goal]

15 minutes ago, Harry said:

This sounds really sad, but I’d be happy with 7 points from that lot. 
Can’t see much more than that!  

I think that's close to what my spreadsheet says.  I'll have a look tomorrow.

[38MC]

2 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

It was said by quite a few on here that we’d had an easier batch of fixtures and are coming into a difficult period. This kind of crystallises that. 
 

Per Opta, we’ve had statistically the easiest start to the season but are sitting in a “poor results” quadrant. Interestingly, Boro have had about the same degree of difficulty as us but only have three more points and are the other side of the poor/good results line.

Says to me a couple of things; glass half full - fine margins. Two draws into wins and it’s an acceptable start from an easy run. Glass half empty - if we’re underperforming from this batch, then what comes next…?

Half empty for me.

This explains far better than I could my feelings on a thread that talked towards our stats maybe pointing to us being unlucky in our points return.

The problem for me is these were a solid run of games which were on paper finer margins. We needed to get some points in the bag so we had some credit going into what appears to be a very tough run of games. 

To me Preston looks important in that run of fixtures because Nov looks a tough month.