by john68 » Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:33 am
Dropped Points League
1...Chelsea....Dropped 15pts
2...Arsenal....Dropped 16pts
3...the rags...Dropped 17pts
4...Villa........Dropped 22pts
5...CITY.......Dropped 22pts
6...Spurs......Dropped 23pts
7...L'Pool.....Dropped 27pts
....Fulham....Dropped 27pts
In the short term; Villa and Spurs are our immediate rivals but if L'Pool take anything tonight, we push ahead of them and are on schedule for the top 4.
In the longer term; The rags are only 5pts away and the with their injury list, a CL campaign to exhaust them and a derby at CoMS still to play, they are still well within our sights...for top 3.
Arsenal are 6pts ahead but I can see the CL being their main target and this may mean a wobble or 2 later in the season to let us in.
Chelsea are only 7pts ahead but they have a month without their Africans and also a CL campaign to battle through. They seem to be having their problems with confidence and have dropped a lot of points lately...They could still be within range if we put a run together.
Historically, we are 9pts ahead of our League winning 1937 campaign at the same stage and only 1 pt behind where we were after 19 games in 1968.
I always believed that even under Hughes, we had the depth of squad to go for the title and that we would be stronger in the 2nd half of the season. Mancini seems to gone some way to stabilise our defence, even with a makeshift back 4. I don't see our rivals being able to afford to do much strengthening in the transfer window and I think the top 3 will all suffer from the effects of the harder games in the later stages of the CL.
Will we do it?...Who knows?...Can we do it?...Put a decent run together and...WHY NOT?
I KNOW THAT YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU THINK I WROTE, BUT I AM NOT SURE YOU REALISE THAT WHAT YOU READ IS NOT WHAT I MEANT