Season turning point?

[PaulWinch again]

Maybe, possibly, not buying anyone except Sylla in January. That must have been a confidence boost to the team. 

What an important signing he has been though. His signing could actually have been the turning point in hindsight.

Yep look at the points we've accumulated when he's played.

[robbo1874]

Always been reasonably confident we had enough quality to survive, but the last few months have been nerve-shredding admittedly.

For me the turning point was the QPR and Reading games. Failing to beat your closest relegation rivals when they were still in touch with us at that point would have put us in a very difficult position. Winning those two matches gave me great heart we'd stay up.

The Sunderland match was I think the first one I classed as must-win. That result removed any lingering doubts that may have remained and made me think we could maybe go on and win our last three games.

I'd love to get revenge over Chelsea for the earlier hammering and whilst I've got nothing against Wigan supporters, it would be pleasing to see whelan eating his 'not big enough for Martinez' words. Football can be cruel like that and its little things like that which in a small way make up for the pain most of us have experienced for a large part of the season.

[KevinGage]

West Ham at home for me. 

Not just the win, but how we held on and actually defended crosses coming into the box late in the game. 

We were wretched around that time, couldn't win a league game for love nor money.

But we held on in that match, and that maybe gave players whose confidence had taken a battering a bit of belief.

I get the argument for Newcastle, the formation that we have stuck with kicked in second half- but we still lost. Reading and QPR were crucial too.  But I don't believe either would have happened without the West Ham victory.

[Damo70]

I'm not a big one for special 'Adrian Heath' turning points. I think it hinges on the result of a game more than incidents in a game. That is why the second half against Newcastle doesn't mean a lot to me. I would go for the West Ham game, backed up by the QPR game and it has all gone from there.

[ozzjim]

Maybe, possibly, not buying anyone except Sylla in January. That must have been a confidence boost to the team. 

I think buying Sylla might have had a huge impact, you look at the results in the games he's played and that's where most of the points have come from.

9 games, 6 wins, 2 draws and a defeat to Liverpool in his games. I would say, if offered in January, a player that will have that kind of impact, we would have all bitten hands, arms and torsos off for it.

I realise, it is not completely down to Sylla, but him in the side allows Westwood more time to play metronome to the side as a whole, allows Delph to make his odd, marauding runs past people knowing Sylla will cover him, the 3 work well as a unit.

But I am with Soccer. I think on the post match thread I tried to make the point of how unlucky we had been, and how well we had done second half to pull it out the way we did. Everything about that night was a turning point, we had missed out on Sissokho and as fans watched him have a superb first half, then we were rousing in the second and as important as anything, the fans in the ground stuck with them that night.

We have a terrific future if we can keep this lot together, despite worrying about the drop, I have maintained how much I think this side is my favourite in years, and hopefully Randy will back Lambert in a similar manner to last summer.

I think a massive donning of the cap has to go to Lambert though, he put his reputation on the line completely with this side. He spent 23 million or so last summer, and signed a lot of players no one had heard of, and backed himself. Over the season we have seen a lot of them show why he backed them, and we have seen a lot of players here, that we knew had talent but were not performing come on leaps and bounds. I hope we have another thread in 3-4 years time, that acknowledges this season, and maybe January as the turning point to better things to come.

[kippaxvilla2]

Two turning points for me.

1. The signing of Sylla which we all took the piss out of has turned out to be an extraordinarily important signing for protecting the shambolic defence prior to that.

2. The launch of my plot an escape from relegation thread shortly after the Newcastle game when no one gave us a prayer :-).

[Dave]

1. The signing of Sylla which we all took the piss out of

Did we?

[kippaxvilla2]

Oh lighten up figurative speech!

[ozzjim]

To me Bradford was worse than 15-0.

Of course it was embarrassing to lose by big margins but that happens and in any case we've lost plenty of games to Spurs and Chelsea in recent seasons.

Not beating a league 2 team in a cup semi over two legs was far worse and that is Lambert's black mark for this season in my mind so up to him to put that right next season.

Bradford bullied our back 4 on set pieces in 2 games, and it worked. I would say though, since we have been much, much better from them, so I do wonder if getting beaten by Bradford on essentially 3-4 corners, made them work on it without rest for a week or so to get it right. Benteke is not man for man on them anymore either, or at least does not appear to be.

[kippaxvilla2]

I'll rephrase. I don't recall many being massively enamoured by the signing.

[PeterWithesShin]

Two turning points for me.

1. The signing of Sylla which we all took the piss out of has turned out to be an extraordinarily important signing for protecting the shambolic defence prior to that.

2. The launch of my plot an escape from relegation thread shortly after the Newcastle game when no one gave us a prayer :-).

1: Some weren't impressed with his signing. But some were.

2: And some of us did!

Interesting to look back on this thread. The "Will Sylla and Dawkins help keep us up" thread.

http://www.heroesandvillains.info/forumv3/index.php?topic=49036.0

[Dave]

I'll rephrase. I don't recall many being massively enamoured by the signing.

I don't remember many being unhappy with it as it strengthened a position that we were weak in.

The ire was at the fact that it was thought that it should have been supplemented by at least one and probably two others.

[not3bad]

I missed Chelsea away but I saw the Spurs and Wigan matches and I was at the second leg against Bradford.  Tough times but you go through the pain to get to the gain.

[eamonn]

Two others that have not been mentioned:

There were the smallest green-shoots of recovery in the second half of the Newcastle game yet the change in formation to accomodate Gabby-Benteke-Andi was yet to bear fruit. But the next game, when we went to a high-flying Everton side and scored three fantastic goals, especially the last one, showed that the system change could yield great results despite conceding the last minute equaliser.

Also, people rightly mention the Guzan save and Gabby goal against QPR. Here's a third one - Clint feckin Hill, inches away from a last-second screamer. 3-2 becomes 3-3 and we're no longer 3 points ahead of QPR. They get a confidence-boosting last-gasp point, we rue yet another late fuck-up. QPR had won their previous two I think so a late point earned at VP could well have kept them battling and seen us falter.

[Andyg]

Not totally impressed by Sylla at all, still gives the ball away far too much for me and never plays a forward pass. I think Gabby's second goal on Saturday and Lowton's goal at Stoke were the important moments so far, but it's not totally over yet. I still want to see Chelsea have their 3rd place taken away from them by a win on Saturday, pay back for the xmas collapse.