Will we qualify for the CL?

[AV82EC]

I don’t think we’ll know until the end of Feb personally. Our Feb schedule is:

Brentford H
Bournemouth A
Brighton H
Leeds H
Wolves A

Win 4 of those and depending on what’s happened in Dec/Jan and it’s probably pretty nailed on.

[Dave]

A game further on, and the gap with our (assumed) rivals for 5th now stands at 10, 13 and 14 points (Yernited, Jaudis, Spudz).

Does that tip any other punters into the “nailed on for CL” camp?

Not quite for me personally, but I do think it could be a matter of a few games away

The likes of Palace / Brighton / Sunderland don't have wide enough squads to keep the pace and it feels probable that Liverpool / Chelsea (and us) are the most likely to finish somewhere in the third - fifth positions.

So I think "a few games" is correct, but they're at the end of January and in March. If the only plausible (albeit, in no way likely) teams who could conceivably go on an us-style winning run to stop the current top five being the same in May are Man Utd / Newcastle / Spurs as you say, then the away games at the first two are probably the clincher.

Given we typically fall apart at both, the potential six-point swings that those two matches give are probably the thing that could make it nailed on.

[eye digress]

I’d included Spurs as they have traditionally challenged for CL and have a chunky squad. But it seems that last year wasn’t just an Ange-induced blip and they are genuinely pretty poor. So I think they can be discounted.

On the other hand, United are, I think, slightly better than we generally appreciate (as befits their transfer spend, albeit mostly on players from poorer teams). Newcastle have a pretty deep and genuinely powerful squad, and I think they will have a good spell at some point.

[LeeB]

The Jawdies have a bit of imbalance in their squad I think, they have lots of similar players but lack a bit of guile and finesse. Spurs are just shite. Man Utd have some decent players but a guy working through his apprenticeship on the job in charge.

If we keep our heads and do some good work in Jan it should be a cakewalk to the Champions League spots.

[Dave]

The Jawdies have a bit of imbalance in their squad I think, they have lots of similar players but lack a bit of guile and finesse.

Think their two successful recent seasons were also built on a surprisingly solid defence, obviously with a strong midfield in front of them - but they've now not kept a clean sheet in ten matches, and it's not been the hardest run of fixtures they could have had in that time.

[LeeB]

The Jawdies have a bit of imbalance in their squad I think, they have lots of similar players but lack a bit of guile and finesse.

Think their two successful recent seasons were also built on a surprisingly solid defence, obviously with a strong midfield in front of them - but they've now not kept a clean sheet in ten matches, and it's not been the hardest run of fixtures they could have had in that time.

Their defenders all seem to be the same profile, a bit like their midfield. Feels like if they can't over power teams there's little else.

[eye digress]

The Jawdies have a bit of imbalance in their squad I think, they have lots of similar players but lack a bit of guile and finesse.

Think their two successful recent seasons were also built on a surprisingly solid defence, obviously with a strong midfield in front of them - but they've now not kept a clean sheet in ten matches, and it's not been the hardest run of fixtures they could have had in that time.

We are a year behind them in our development/Big 6 tilt. But in each comparable year, we’ve outperformed them - with the exception of the trophy in hand (e.g., our maiden CL campaign was better, as was our league performance in that year; our response to no CL qualification has been stronger, etc.). Now it is beginning to look the other way around, that they have fallen a year behind us, including the leaky defence of 12 months ago.