Ask me at 8pm Boxing Day - I think at this time we will have a very good idea of where we will finish.

After yesterday, the Spurs game is not just "any other game" , it is a statement of where this club is, and wants to be. If the players show fight, and show they will not be humiliated ever again, then we will be OK , surrender against Spurs - we are history !

When I made my prediction of 10th I fully expected there to be some pretty major blips along the way, so I'm gonna stick with it for now.

I have no doubt we'll pick up more points in the 2nd half of the season than we have in the 1st half.

I think we'll get a point on Boxing day giving us a grand total of 19 points from the 1st half of the season.

The last 2 seasons, 47 points has been required to finish 10th, meaning we'd need 28 points from the 2nd half of the season...

I don't think that's beyond the realms of possibility. It's only 3 more wins than the first half of the season.

A win against Wigan would set us up nicely.

15th is my thinking at the moment.

Even that would be an improvement on last season though to be fair.

And isn't that what we all wanted? A move away from hoof ball, trying to play football the right way and some steady and slow improvement?

Don't think any of us expected miracles. 15th and a cup final wouldn't be a disaster.

Still think we'll be higher though.

we have 18 points from 18 games.Last season we had 19 points from 17 games at Xmas.

I have quoted before that although everyone speaks of the "magical" 40 points,in fact in the 16 seasons since the PL became 38 games only in 5 seasons did the 18th place club achieve 36 points or more.

to get to 36 points Reading and QPR need to earn about 1.5 points a game which if repeated over a whole season produces a 7th or 8th placed finish.I just cannot see them being capable of doing this which leaves one relegation slot out of Southampton,Wigan.Sunderland,Villa and maybe even Newcastle and Fulham.

Yes it was a truly terrible result yesterday but at least it wasn't against one of those teams.It has done great damage to our goal difference though,now the worst in PL.

Ten points from 18 in the 6 matches against the 5 teams above ( we have two games against Wigan) with 5 of those games at home will take us to 28 points ( and yes I am aware that the matches do not come in that fashion) leaving potentially only 8-10 to get in the other remaining 14 matches which surely we can achieve.

I agree with Deano that 15th and a cup final would not be a disaster.Yesterday really casts great doubt on those who predict a top half finish but Wigan have taken a couple of heavy hammerings in the past 2/3 seasons and survived an I think we can too but no more than 14th or 15th at the very most

Edited by hanboroughvilla 24/12/2012 13:01