Another international break, another chance to catch up on our favourites for the promotion and playoff places.
You might remember they were, in no particular order, Fulham, Leeds, Aston Villa, Middlesbrough, Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland. How have they done?
(If you’re new to this series, or if you want to catch up, you can trot over to Mccormick’s dodgy numbers, find the first post in the series (27th June) and work your way up the page).
Wolves
Cardiff, Ipswich, Forest, Wolves and Sheffield Utd leave Villa, Fulham, Wednesday, Middlesbrough and SAFC standing
Do we know owt about football?
That’s what I asked a couple of years ago, when I was comparing a pre-season poll with end-of season positions. And that’s more or less what the Mrs said when I showed her the graph I’d done to compare the current championship placings with our readers’ pre-season expectations.
Just as the last time, the expectation is nothing like the reality, although it must be said that this time around it’s still early days.
Birmingham, Wolves, Brentford, Forest, Cardiff, Preston, QPR and Ipswich go missing from our poll
I have to say I’m a bit surprised by the poll results to date.
‘Boro being top is reasonable. They have proved they are capable of handling the Championship, have money coming and have a decent manager.
Sunderland in the top six is understandable. It’s a Sunderland site, and no matter how jaundiced the fans are, no matter how concerned over the owner, there will always be a loyal following willing to vote for them.
But last season’s form has gone out of the window with this poll. Villa, who finished bang in the middle of the championship, are up there in second place, while Hull and Derby are out of the running. What’s going on?
Relegation watch: still looking at Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich, with Leicester hanging on
What a website! On 15th June, in response to my “who went down, who’s going down?” Dave left a comment which included:
“… I think Pearson will, at some point, have a big row with a player or a fan, and the team’s spirit that kept them up will dissipate…”
Two weeks later Leicester City’s website contained the following:
“…it has become clear to the Club that fundamental differences in perspective exist between us. Regrettably, the Club believes that the working relationship between Nigel and the Board is no longer viable…”
The effect on team spirit remains to be seen but as I said at the start, what a website!
A week ago I left you with a poll whose results were suggesting the targets of my dodgy numbers “relegation watch” would be the three promoted clubs and Leicester. Since then another couple of thousand votes have been cast but they didn’t make much difference, despite the turmoil at the Kingpower . Here are last Friday’s and this Friday’s results:
Relegation: it’s still Bournemouth and Watford. Can Leicester and Norwich relax?
Strange, isn’t it? I spend Monday evening idly browsing the MLS (aka Major League Soccer) website trying to work out how it (the league, not the website) operates and then along comes David Millward with a piece about a football convention in the USA. I wonder if the fans he mixed with can get their heads around relegation and promotion better than I can handle the subtleties of the MLS.
Dodgy-ng relegation
This post is about relegation, something never far from our minds, and who this season’s three might be. Over the summer I looked over a little bit of history and generated some numbers in order to bring you more of my dodgy predictions. Enjoy them or argue with them as you will. Just don’t nick the family allowance and run off to the bookies.
Black’s Bluster on dismal Wolves surrender: the ‘pivotal moment’
Call it stating the bleeding obvious if you will. Eric Black sends his first and last post-match SAFC e-mail …
Dear Colin,
I thought we deserved to take the lead, but the penalty changed things.
I don’t want to take anything away from Seb [Larsson], though, as he has been fantastic for us.
Wolves, the North East and a love-in that stops at Newcastle
Not everyone goes to the message boards and sites of other clubs. I have to quite often, in search of Who are You? candidates, and I have to say Molineux Mix has been a happy hunting ground. You’ve seen Andy Nicholls’s award-winning contributions. Today you saw the reason some Wolfies thought he was getting our awards: he’s married to a Mackem, which must make La Nicholls – Jo – the ultimate trophy wife. Here, for those who share my view and Jeremy’s (see comments in Jo’s piece) that WWFC is a grand old club with cracking supporters, is part of a thread from that Wolves site (but why should they so dislike our friends from the Tyne>) …
Sunderland fans
Visited Sunderland when I was in the Navy. Had a great time, genuine people.
– tiggerkev
Had to go to sunderland this morning to pick up some steel rails. Anyway some lads at the stell depo noticed my wolves sticker on the cab window,and they all said that they hoped we beat them on saturday and stay up,they also said how much they liked mick and hated bruce,they feel mick was very hard done to at sunderland seems like they still have a very soft spot for mick.
– mister-T
I can’t work out from their main forum whether they’re ever-pessimistic or just resigned to their fate, started a quick thread on there asking about away pubs and it’s turned into an 11 page monster lol. Much prefer them to Newcastle fans anyway
– Bossworld
Wolves maul Sunderland in another Hetton horror show
Is going to watch the Reserves becoming a pointless exercise, in more ways than one? Pete Sixsmith reports from a Little & Large show …
Reserve nights at Hetton are beginning to lose their allure for me. After a dispiriting 3-0 defeat on Tuesday, I am beginning to wonder if there are other things I could be doing like marking books or cutting my toe nails.
Wolves fans deserve a refund, but what’s gone wrong for us?
The dreadful run continues. Sunderland cannot finish off lowly teams – or even score against some of them – and can hardly count on doing fairly well, fairly consistently when confronted by the elite. Cana’s heroics have not been forgotten but he starts to look like a liability, the only question each game being how many minutes will elapse before he is shown a card. The first of our forlorn post-Villa reflections is, in part, a tale of two managers …
Steve Bruce, admittedly struggling with a squad hit by injuries and suspensions, plays his best available teams and gets a single point from two home games. Mick McCarthy gets slated for fielding reserves at Old Trafford (and yes, the travelling Wolves fans should be given £100 a head refunds for their wasted evening), but emerges with three points from two tough away games.