This Is It

[redebreck]

OK this is it for our season.
Three massive games AND a premier league game that could see us getting into the top four OR missing out!
Including two games against PSG with the added bonus of PSG being given a full week off between the two games thanks to the French F.A.
First up Manchester City away in the FA Cup.
Second game PSG away in the Champs League
Third game Fulham at home in the EPL.
Fourth game PSG home Champs League.
These games could define our season and Arne's second season on charge.
How will we do?
Will Arne still be in charge after the four games?
We're certainly capable of beating UAE115 with the right mentality.
PSG I'm not sure. We lost on penalties against them last season but we had a stable, winning mentality back then.
We should beat Fulham and ease into the top four if the planets align.
Each performance and result can give us an impetus for the next games to come.
Exciting times.

[RedMagic]

In previous seasons a game against Fulham would definitely have been seen as a 'should win' game. This season however all our games no matter the opposition are more 'could well lose' games. Would anybody be surprised if we lose the game with Harry Wilson causing us all sorts of problems? I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

I wouldn't call our up and coming games "exciting", especially our PL games. Unless we win the CL, Slot should 100% not be out manager going into next season. His ways have increasingly infected us. We need to undergo a major amputation before the infection fatally sets in.

[Insidious]

I think Slot stays until the end of the season unless it gets truly "ugly" with a few 4-0 defeats back-to-back.

Not saying that's "right" - just my feeling on it.

Hopefully we can find a way to not disgrace ourselves in either the FA Cup or Champion's League.

Main focus is finishing 5th or ideally 4th - in short, making sure we're in the Champion's League next season. Hopefully that happens, we shake hands with Slot, thank him for the League title and it's relatively amicable even if he won't have the "love" of a Benitez or a Klopp - and then next season we are able to continue rebuilding whilst in a respectable decision and the financial boost of Champion's League football to do so.

It would be absolutely brilliant if we can go on a surprising European run - fingers and toes very tightly crossed.

[eggy81]

Meh. We won’t disgrace disgrace ourselves against psg or city imo. Could well progress in both cups. It’s the Fulham game and games like it all season that has found us wanting.

[Steveo]

That’s it - the big games take care of themselves…. It’s management that is needed for the bread and butter

[Insidious]

Man City
Man United
Brighton

Those are the next 3 games for Chelsea in the League.

We seriously, SERIOUSLY need to do better than them across our corresponding fixtures.

Can't process thinking about Brentford and Everton sneaking up just now.

[Insidious]

Meh. We won’t disgrace disgrace ourselves against psg or city imo. Could well progress in both cups. It’s the Fulham game and games like it all season that has found us wanting.

The Man City game sadly was rather pathetic in the end - a shame as we played quite well for the first 33/34 minutes or so.

The second goal killed us. Hopefully better to come in the PSG tie and a lack of despair from the lads if we go behind, given it's a 180-190 minute tie rather than a 90-95 minute one. If we concede an early goal and the lads cave it's a shocking indictment, as 180+ minutes is a lot of time in football. We have to have something to go back to Anfield with. Even a 2-1 loss tonight where we play pretty well I would take - we can't have another meek 4-0 loss.

As for the League, the crunch Fulham weekend is massive, really is. Whenever you have battles for Champion's League spots, you occasionally get a weekend that will make or break your campaign, due to the sides in-and-around that area of the table gunning for Europe and who plays who.

Game-week 32, this coming weekend, I think is ours.

As it stands things look like this -

Liverpool - 49 points
Chelsea - 48 points
Brentford - 46 points
Everton - 46 points

It's far too close there at the moment. We are at least at Anfield for the Fulham clash and the other fixtures could potentially work in our favour with a slice of luck. Chelsea have the task of playing Man City whilst Everton and Brentford face off. It's a bit "the hope that kills you" right now, but if the right three things were all to occur, ie -

- We beat Fulham
- Man City beat Chelsea
- Everton and Brentford draw

- then the table would look as follows -

Liverpool - 52 points
Chelsea - 48 points
Brentford - 47 points
Everton - 47 points

If that were to transpire (doubt it does, but let's hope) then you're looking at a 4-point gap over Chelsea and a 5-point gap over both Brentford and Everton with just 6 games left to go. That wouldn't guarantee anything given our capacity to draw and lose games that we should be winning, but if we could conspire to acquire that little bit of a cushion then we could probably juuuuust about limp over the line on Game-week 38 and look forward to more Champion's League football next season plus more activity in the transfer market to try to balance this squad up a little better. Despite the emotional factor of the upcoming Everton and Man United fixtures, I would say that this weekend, depending on results in other games, is actually our biggest weekend of the season, as it's the one that yields the best opportunity to create that little bit of a cushion.

Knowing our luck at the moment we'll lose to Fulham, Chelsea will beat Man City and Everton will beat Brentford to go level with us before we have to travel to their place where a hard-working Moyes side gets them a 2-0 against us but that's a problem for later. Hopefully a big performance tonight so that we go into the Fulham game with something resembling belief.