nPower Football League Thread 2010/2011

[Regia]

Guess they did get a hell of a team talk at half time then.

[IAceI]

Reading resurgent? Swansea complacent? Both? Either way it's game on and the momentum is well and truly with Reading now.

[HailtotheYo]

GAAHHH ... how the hell did they not put one of those in ? GAHH

[Colly]

Bit of a game this then?

[HailtotheYo]

Shit.

[Lineker]

Another penalty to Swansea!

[Lineker]

Hat trick for Sinclair, the first since Clive Mendonca apparently. No way back for the Royals now.

[IAceI]

Good to see Andy Griffin is as clumsy as he always was. Also, urgh, really hate seeing players celebrate penalties. Borini looked happier for winning it than Sinclair was for scoring a hat-trick.

[stokeriño]

Congrats to Scott "oh look, yet another Chelsea cast-off doing very well for himself" Sinclair on his hat-trick.

[Baddar]

Sinclair is clearly a 20 goal a season man, even in the PL.

[MBDTF]

You have to give Swansea credit where its due. This time 8 years ago they nearly dropped out of the Football League altogether, and look at them now.

[Summers]

I'm glad you bolded nearly. I was lost without that bold.

[TCO]

Millwall are just a horrible football club with despicable fans, I truly hope they never see the light of the Premier League.

QPR are up now and if I had my choice it'd be Leeds and Cardiff with them but Leeds will miss out on the top 6 it seems.

I'm predicting Norwich automatically and Swansea to win the Playoffs.

Called it!

[Matt]

Swansea to "beat" Derby's low points total record. Unless they get in 3-4 quality players, of course, but I can't see that happening.

[Lineker]

We all thought that about Blackpool though. They have a similar style. And they almost stayed up. If they can supplement Ashley Williams with some experienced names, they could scrape it.

[Matt]

I suppose, I just don't see any of their players being anything better than "alright" at Premiership level.

[Pesci]

Swansea aren't going to beat Derby's record. Nobody will be beating that for quite some time. Swansea will be competitive but they'll go down, just as Burnley and Blackpool weren't good enough to stay up either.

[stokeriño]

Do people now always predict the playoff-winners "do a Derby" simply as a lazy reflex or what?

They said the same of Blackpool last year and, although eventually relegated, they in no way approached Derby's low record.

The fact that only three teams* have finished with fewer than 20 points in the history of the Premier League - and two of those were Sunderland - would infer that even utterly abysmal teams (of which there have been a fair few) require a particular combination of bad luck and other unfortunate circumstances to finish that low.

(* - discounting Portsmouth who would have had 28 points without the deduction)

[Colly]

You never know, there's no Sam Allardyce led Newcastle team to give them 40% of their points for the season like Derby got. It's beatable, but Swansea won't do it, they're far better than that team.

[IAceI]

Having supported a team through the 19 and 15 point totals, only for Derby to somehow make them look like lofty amounts I can definitely confirm you need to be utterly, utterly abysmal to record those kind of scores. I'm talking no money invested whatsoever (like, not even able to spend over £1m net) and a poor team to start with (or at least lacking in Premiership class in too many areas).

Like said, people thought Blackpool would do a Derby and the only reason I didn't is because I know truly how bad you have to be to not do that. 3 wins and 2 draws out of 38 matches? They will be facing the other promoted teams, and the likes of Wolverhampton, Wigan and hell, I wouldn't shocked if they get at least a point off Sunderland either.

I think a part of why Sunderland and Derby got such poor totals as well is they had been in the Premiership before. Look at Hull and Blackpool who, yes, unfortunately went down, but pretty much spent the first six months on a buzz of just being in the Premier League, their fans were just loving every single second of it (until Christmas or so when they decided survival was no longer the objective but instead mid-table (in Hull's case even more when I heard some talk) and it all went a bit pear shaped.)

I don't necessarily believe Swansea will stay up, but they play some nice football and will go out with their fans behind them, everyone just ecstatic to be in the Premiership and pick up points most likely in places they have no right to. Sure they may end up with only 25 points, which will undoubtedly seem them finish last, but it's still double what Derby achieved. Like I say, it takes almost unfound levels of poor football to be as bad as that.