The next six games

Sure, after our difficult run, we could. And then, with slightly easier games, we could get back in. Who knows?

Probably 6 wins to get into the top 5, maybe only 5. Looking through our remaining fixtures, there's at least 8 pretty good opportunities to get them (and none of those are in the next 3).

Look. In those six games we played at the start. We didn’t get diddly apart from Brighton. This time round we smashed Brighton. We lost against Newcastle, Citeh and Arsenal by three goals apiece.

Newcastle are schizo. Although Isak is a monster. Citeh are still a bit disappointing by their standards and they may have just lost Haaland. Arsenal are down attacking players so might be less deadly.

We gave Liverpool a hell of a go. There is no reason to be scared. Our only problem is that we were very docile against Pep’s boys. I would really like for us to get in their faces and give it a go.

I would be happy with 3 points from these next games (three draws), Any win would be marvelous. The only team that really troubles me is Bournmouth and we don’t have to play them now so it’s out of our hands.

I still think we will make Europe.

Chicago: optimistic.

While the next three are obviously tough, they're also the sort of games that more naturally fit our preferred style of play. As tricky said before the Fulham game, they're the kind of team we're always going to struggle with because they do require us to change our approach. I'm not saying we're going to win the next three, but I do fancy us to get something from at least one of those games.

After I wrote this, I ranked the remaining games for difficulty based on their points per game (split home and away) and put them in those slots. Because of course I was going to.

The three we've played ranked 4th, 6th and 7th, which made my target LDD, so we are currently a point ahead.

As it happens, the next three ranked 3rd, 5th and 8th, so LDD again.

If the next three do go badly, it’s worth remembering that after Man City we don’t play anyone in the current top 8 until Chelsea on the last day. So it would be reasonable to believe we’ll finish higher than we are on the 8th March.

That kind of presumes that up until this point the par position for this squad is our current ish position. Whereas I think most would agree we've significantly overachieved.

Par for this squad to me feels about 13th/14th. A great season for them would be 7-8th. We'll probably finish somewhere around 8-9th.

My reasoning is that I think we've been found out a bit tactically and that it's going to be a very long way to the end of the season. Plus surely we'll have another bad injury or two.

Knowing our tactics is only half the battle though. We're going to break fast as fuck and overrun you dates back to at least the Mongolian empire but just because you know what the plan is it doesn't mean you have the personnel to conteract it. We are where we are because we can deliver the plan.

That was working because we didn't concede goals though - which we have started to do. 12 in our last 6 games, including 2 against Southampton, 2 against Fulham, 5 against Bournemouth and 2 against Exeter (I know). My tactical comment was more about our defence than attack tbh. Teams have started to figure out how to score against us.

We are not obliged to be tactically stagnant. We can tweak our approach as well and Nuno seems quite good at that.

I don't think there's any real pattern to the goals we've conceded recently. Likely it's just a bit of a correction to the earlier overperformance. Similar to when Wood stops scoring at his current, insane, rate.

This is how I see it too.
Surely Wood's purple patch can't last forever, but I'm definitely enjoying it.

Also Arsenal on Wednesday is the best chance of these three to pick up points.

Today couldn’t have been better for us. Just got to make it count against the Geordies by picking up at least a point. A win would be massive.

Then unfortunately we have to hope the Scouse do something against shitty.

Chicago: Catching up on the day.

Looks like a draw to me, and I'll be smirking plenty if we get a point at least.

Great set of results.