Relegation 2022/23

[Pittsburgh Footy]

The eye test tells me we are miles better than last season, regardless of our points haul to this point.

We should be fine

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

I mean, clearly we shouldn't

An argument could be made that we fully deserved to get relegated. If we had last season, we certainly could not have said it was an unfair result

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

An argument could be made that we fully deserved to get relegated. If we had last season, we certainly could not have said it was an unfair result

I'd say it would have been a pretty damn unfair result, since we got more points than 4 other teams.

 

[Lanolin]

Honestly the only way we go down this season is if we get the mother of all injury crises.

No team with the midfield and defence we have will get relegated. Even with a very middling attack (better when Dominic Calvert-Lewin is available, obviously) we're liable to nick enough goals to stay safe, because we'll very rarely be in a position of needing >1 goal to get something out of a game.

I think people are going slightly overboard about the defence personally. It's improved, no doubt about that, but i'm not seeing this impregnable unit that some people seem to be. We've definitely rode our luck in recent games and a combination of poor finishing, good last ditch defending/goalkeeping, and the woodwork has meant that we've conceded less than you'd probably expect given the amount/quality of chances that we've given up. If we continue to allow the same thing to happen then at some point I think you'd have to expect us to stop getting away with it. They do look less likely to completely implode, which is a very big plus.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I think people are going slightly overboard about the defence personally. It's improved, no doubt about that, but i'm not seeing this impregnable unit that some people seem to be. We've definitely rode our luck in recent games and a combination of poor finishing, good last ditch defending/goalkeeping, and the woodwork has meant that we've conceded less than you'd probably expect given the amount/quality of chances that we've given up. If we continue to allow the same thing to happen then at some point I think you'd have to expect us to stop getting away with it. They do look less likely to completely implode, which is a very big plus.

It's hard to go down conceding one a game. It's unlikely, but possible, to go down conceding one-and-a-half scoring the way we do. Burnley just managed it.

It boils down to: if Bournemouth, Forest and Leicester keep picking the ball out of their net like they do, we have nothing to worry about. That will doom them. If one or more of them clean up their act at the back, adding a few goals in January if at all possible becomes a very smart play to hedge against an injury crisis or drop in form at the back.

If we can shift part or all of Allan's wages to a club in the UAE, as reports suggest, doing that becomes a possibility.

 

[Lanolin]

It's hard to go down conceding one a game. It's unlikely, but possible, to go down conceding one-and-a-half scoring the way we do. Burnley just managed it.

It boils down to: if Bournemouth, Forest and Leicester keep picking the ball out of their net like they do, we have nothing to worry about. That will doom them. If one or more of them clean up their act at the back, adding a few goals in January if at all possible becomes a very smart play to hedge against an injury crisis or drop in form at the back.

If we can shift part or all of Allan's wages to a club in the UAE, as reports suggest, doing that becomes a possibility.

Yeah I think that's a decent way of looking at it.

 

[RomanReigns]

The eye test tells me we are miles better than last season, regardless of our points haul to this point.

We should be fine

better defensively and in midfield but still struggling in that final third with creativity and chances created

last time we scored more than 1 goal was against palace on 19th May 2022

hopefully DCL coming back will help with scoring more goals

 

[JohnRoss23]

It’s too bad we didn’t have the same squad for the first hand full of games. We would be sitting pretty I’d like to think if we did. I just looked at recent betting odds for relegation and we are slowly making our way outside of the bottom 3. Bournemouth, Forest, and Leicester go down for me.

 

[mikel_88]

I think people are going slightly overboard about the defence personally. It's improved, no doubt about that, but i'm not seeing this impregnable unit that some people seem to be. We've definitely rode our luck in recent games and a combination of poor finishing, good last ditch defending/goalkeeping, and the woodwork has meant that we've conceded less than you'd probably expect given the amount/quality of chances that we've given up. If we continue to allow the same thing to happen then at some point I think you'd have to expect us to stop getting away with it. They do look less likely to completely implode, which is a very big plus.

I kno for myself it is a massive difference from last season every time we defended was just awful. Not sure why people think fulham aint in it just because have started the season good does not mean it will last. Hopefully when it comes to jan we can inprove the squad again for a strong finish

 

[mistuhp]

Think Forest have gone completely overboard with signings personally, you cannot hope to integrate that many players into a cohesive unit

My thing with the Forest signings is that it's not just that they signed a ton of guys, but it's like they looked at QPR in 2011-12 (signing guys who just weren't all that good, like Shaun Wright-Phillips, Joey Barton, Anton Ferdinand, Bobby Zamora, Djibril Cissé, and Nedum Onuoha) and thought it was a good idea. A couple of them are young enough that it may pay off down the road, and there may have been one or two of them that Everton fans wanted before they signed there, but mostly there's just not much there.

 

[MikeH72]

My thing with the Forest signings is that it's not just that they signed a ton of guys, but it's like they looked at QPR in 2011-12 (signing guys who just weren't all that good, like Shaun Wright-Phillips, Joey Barton, Anton Ferdinand, Bobby Zamora, Djibril Cissé, and Nedum Onuoha) and thought it was a good idea. A couple of them are young enough that it may pay off down the road, and there may have been one or two of them that Everton fans wanted before they signed there, but mostly there's just not much there.

Yeah they remind me a lot of QPR. I remember they had about 7 centre forwards and they just kept signing more, while they still had Shaun Derry starting in midfield. Why Forest have signed so many strikers and attacking midfielders I’ll never know, what was the point spending decent money on Emmanuel Dennis and he can’t even get off the bench for them? They look an absolute mess.

 

[Toffe3m4n]

Why are we finishing outside of the top 10?

To be honest that was just a hypothetical. GD is important anyway, relegation battle or not!

 

[ToffeeScot]

It's one of those at the moment. Watching us and watching other teams I don't think we will be in a relegation battle this season but we need to start picking up more wins. I'd say 3 wins in October and I'd feel relatively comfortable but we have quite a tough run and only 2 home games.

 

[Saint Domingo]

We’re still just an injury or two away from Keane and Coleman being back in the first 11. If DCL also reoccurred an injury we’d have a terrible defence and an extremely average front line.

I think there’s enough depth now in midfield, you’d like to think we have enough bodies we don’t need to ever see some of the shoehorned midfields we’ve seen in recent times with Holgate stepping in or Davies Iwobi in a two.

The first choice back 4 is good. We’d be ok at CB if any of Mina Godfrey Holgate were fit but Keane is a one man relegation wrecking ball so if Tarkowski and Patterson pulled up tomorrow I’d be severely worried. No idea what Vinagre is like but I doubt he’s as solid defensively as Mykolenko either.

Would be nice to be like a normal club and just get DCL back fit and then not have any more season ending injuries and have an ok season for once without a key player dropping every single week.

 

[knowing your history]

It's one of those at the moment. Watching us and watching other teams I don't think we will be in a relegation battle this season but we need to start picking up more wins. I'd say 3 wins in October and I'd feel relatively comfortable but we have quite a tough run and only 2 home games.

That's why I think it's very important to get back to back wins so Southampton is a sort of must win for mid table obscurity season.

We saw it last season. Surviving relegation wasn't just beating Chelsea at home, it was then backing that up by going to Leicester the following week and winning aswell.

After Southampton it's then a tricky run of Man. United, Spurs and Newcastle. Could easily be draws and losses so that won't get you too far up the league.