Are City going up this season?

I read that about Carlisle and started to think the old grey matter was playing tricks .

 

Short term vs season expectations in August.

The latter is bloody good. We'd lap this up as a nearing Roy of the rovers effort. Budget wise particularly.

The former and, as a fee have said, it gives some cause for concern.

January window, lack of any tangible goal scorer, lack of depth etc

Lets hope the capable collective at city evaulate and address.

Pivotal, as with the lack of funding and intent to sell at the helm, we could see next season somewhat more of what we might have expected for this season. A battle.

That early season spirit and near swashbuckling press seems fewer and fewer on show at present.

 

Up the Swanny, Automatic thrown away

 

I disagree. The worst thing would be chasing the game after the away leg 1 or 2 goals down because although our home form is excellent, we rarely score more than twice and very frequently struggle to score more than once against teams who come to defend / time waste.
I’d rather take a lead into the 2nd leg making the home team attack, creating chances to counter.
Just my opinion of course.

 

Just realised something...

In terms of 3-match segments, we are on our second worst run of the season.

1 point from a possible 9.

Only once have we done worse than that, and that's when we lost consecutive games to Cardiff, Huddersfield and Lincoln.

Worryingly, the teams this time were Wigan, Mansfield and Burton... all in the bottom half, with two of them in a relegation battle.

That's kinda sneaked up on me, TBH, and while we can just say "oh well, two of them were away", it's not a good sign... at all... win against Northampton sorta rectifies it a bit, but we're gonna have to sit back and watch what happens next weekend. I guess we have to hope Wigan beat Reading. If Reading win, our cushion is down to 5 points.

Stockport also have a game in hand, and are still on to overtake us despite being on crap form.

It's squeaky bum time.

 

Stockport have 2 games in hand and Stevenage have 1 game in hand and Plymouth the form team. Those are the 3 teams immediately below us.

I think we can overtake Bolton though who have the hardest run in on paper by far, having to still play Cardiff, Stockport, Stevenage, Plymouth, Luton, Huddersfield and of course us.

 

I would love to see Bradford get back to back promotion but realistically I just don't think it will happen.
The team I watched earlier in the season disappeared well before the January transfer window, before my very eyes you could say almost overnight.
I've seen nothing in our style of play of late to suggest we are returning to the form and performances required to secure that winning play off place at Wembley.
Yes the home form gives you hope but for me it's not enough.
The away performances speak volumes shooting ourselves in the foot on several occasions ending in the inevitable defeat
If you had told me we would be in a playoff position most of the season in our first season back in league one I wouldn't have thought it possible but here we are fourth and what ever happens it's been a successful campaign in my opinion.
I'm usually really optimistic about our chances but forgive me being negative about our chances.
Having only missed a handful of away games this season the results and poor performances on the road have definitely taken their toll on my train of thought.
Please prove me wrong City.

 

Ideally we can escape with a draw away. I just think we play best when we press and properly get at teams. If we are at home first GA will possibly pap his pants and we’ll risk going safety first and not attacking teams.

if we are at home in second leg its a ‘now or never’ mentality and we’d have to throw caution to the wind, which is when we are best?

 

If we manage to stay in the playoffs my view is if we can is stay in 3/4th position so we play away first.

We should view playoff matches as cup matches. We must set up to defend not to lose. Now GA might say we don’t have the capacity to do that, but we have tried to play each match exactly as we play at home and we are just awful away. This is a one off away game and we should look to maximise our home advantage by coming away with a 0-0 or a win. I am not worried about the home match it will be packed and lively at VP.

 

It was now or never against Fleetwood last season and they almost prevented us from going up. We huffed and puffed but simply struggled to break them down.
My gut feeling is we are at our best when teams are open and are also trying to win the game.
A home leg first, taking even just a single goal lead gives us the edge where we aren’t facing a team parking the bus.

 

Our away form is atrocious, our January business was poor, our strikers can't find the back of the net. All of this is true yet we are still enjoying a phenomenal first season back in league 1. Take a look at the graphic below if you need a reminder of just how impressive we've been this season - so far.

 

Crazy that we haven't been out of the top five all season despite it being our first season back in league one.

 

The problem with your scenario, is teams will happily take a 1 goal defeat because we struggle to score more than 1 goal away and often concede at least 2 quite easily.

 

Looking at that, I wouldn't bet against Plymouth going up. Look at their trajectory...

 

Yep, I'd be very surprised if they don't finish in the top 6 now and with that sort of momentum, you wouldn't bet against them in the playoffs.

 

Yep, they are my tip for promotion. Seen them a few times on TV and they just get the ball to Tolaj and Pepple so quickly and their physicality is too much for some defences. They bullied Cardiffs lads off the park not too long back.

I think their approach would be a nightmare over two legs to hold off now they are clicking and at the same time us, Stockport and Bolton are limping through.

 

All we can hope for if we finish in the playoffs and come up against them in the semis or final is for a Wright fairytale winner. That would be magnificent.

 

I wouldn't want to face them at Wembley, maybe over two legs if we get the run on them at home and stay tight away you never know. But their forwards are physical but have a bit of pace too for a massive pitch like that, our back line at the minute don't look like there's much legs in there. Wouldn't mind a Stockport or Bolton on the big Wembley pitch, they have big lads up top without a great deal of mobility at the moment and that might play into our hands more.

Going to be a very tight run-in. Looking at the fixtures, it wouldn't surprise me at all if there's 2 or 3 teams still going for that 6th slot on the final day. Hopefully we are all signed and sealed in there by then and then there's just the headache of resting/rotating for Exeter away or trying to get momentum in the first 11.

 

City will be in the playoffs next Saturday at 5pm if we win and Plymouth don’t win and Huddersfield either don’t win on Tuesday or Saturday and Luton drop 3 points on Wednesday and Saturday

 

So very unlikely we will be at that point then with all the permutations required to go our way