Monday’s defeat to Chelsea felt like a real setback, not only halting our momentum but allowing a Premier League rival to move just one point behind us in the Premier League.
It’s been a season full of injuries, inconsistency and surprisingly poor defensive displays, yet I still believe we have a very real chance of finishing 7th.
We’ll have to improve, but the fixture swing coming our way after the upcoming international break gives me real hope, especially when we’re still just three points behind 7th-placed West Ham.
Six of our final 10 games are against teams currently in the bottom half. Our toughest game left is a trip to Old Trafford – where we won 3-0 in the cup a few months ago. We have Sheffield United, Burnley, Palace, Brentford, Fulham and Everton still to play, along with winnable home games against West Ham and Brighton.
Looking at our run in below, followed by the current Premier League table, I don’t see why we can’t come out on top if 7th place is between ourselves, West Ham, Brighton, Wolves and Chelsea:
6th may be beyond us now – the seven point gap to Man Utd doesn’t look like something we’ll overturn based on current form – but with Joe Willock back, hope Anthony Gordon won’t be out long, Nick Pope to return next month and Kieran Trippier and Harvey Barnes expected to be fit for our first game back after the break, I’m hopeful we’ll have enough.
Brighton and Wolves are still missing key attackers to injury, we can go above West Ham with a win later this month and Chelsea – the new favourites for 7th – are nothing special despite their win on Monday.
So, for all the worries that our season will be over if we’re knocked out by Man City on Saturday, we still have every chance of getting ourselves back into Europe next season.
What momentum???
Check the results prior to the Wolves games – the only momentum we had was downward.
Yes the fixtures look promising – but so did Forest, Luton & Bmth and look what happened in those fixtures.
Howe needs to make big changes or we will do well for a top half finish – and injuries will have played their part but so will a manager who failed to adapt.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Love your optimism, Olly, but nothing that I’ve seen in the last few weeks suggests that we will do any better against the bottom half than we have done so far.
Daveys **** mate(Quote)
The momentum from beating Wolves. That win, the clean sheets and much improved performance can create momentum on its own, but losing at Chelsea like we did halted all of that.
Not saying we were on some winning streak, but you can’t deny that the win over Wolves had the potential to be a turning point. Just a shame Howe altered tactics that worked.
As I say though, I’m still hopeful we can get 7th.
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
Olly:-
We beat Wolves who offered very little up front due to injuries otherwise our defence (if you can call it that) would have probably conceded more than we scored.
Botman and Burn are hopeless together and Schar goes walkabout.
Bruno imo has had his head turned and is a shadow of the player he was in his first half season, Longstaff and Almiron very poor.
We lack consistency regards performance and it’s not all down to injuries, there appears to be a mindset that we just turn up and other teams will roll over.
No Chance for Europe!
Joseph(Quote)
You honestly think we concede 4 to Wolves if they had Neto/Cunha?
Personally, I struggle to see how we have ‘no chance’ of Europe when A) every team in the mix has been inconsistent B) we have the best fixtures C) we have players coming back from injury. But each to their own! I understand the pessimism, just don’t get how fans can rule it out.
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
Have to admit had a feeling this season would be harder even without the freak injuries which made it double hard liverpool would back stronger Tottenham were never going to be as bad throw teams like Villa in the mix so this season was going to be more difficult reminds me of other seasons keegans second season in prem league injuries and players losing form the season Bobby Robson had the one before we finished 4th injuries killed us we’ve had them before and we’ve come back stronger it happens let’s get to the summer and see what we do in sales and signings we bring in
Darren Bebb(Quote)
Olly:-
If Wolves had any decent attackers on the pitch we would have struggled and they probably wouldn’t need to score four goals, the whole game would have had a different balance.
You say our fixtures are the best but we have failed miserably against Luton Bournemouth to name but two and there are no easy fixtures when teams are fighting for their lives.
I hope you are correct with you optimistic view but reality says otherwise.
Joseph(Quote)