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"Champions of 3rd place, we know what we are"

I do think this this ‘playing away all season thing’ is a bit OTT. Once we’d got the Wembley monkey off our back we were always going to be fine there. Yes it’s not WHL but you can’t claim it to be an away game when you have 80,000 fans cheering you on...
 
harr1984 said:
I do think this this ‘playing away all season thing’ is a bit OTT. Once we’d got the Wembley monkey off our back we were always going to be fine there. Yes it’s not WHL but you can’t claim it to be an away game when you have 80,000 fans cheering you on...
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The key is what you say though 'Once we’d got the Wembley monkey off our back' - coming into the season, it was unclear how long that would take though pretty much everyone agreed that it would be an issue. The top 5 teams, probably 6 with Arse, always looked relatively close so losing a few points from the Wembley issue could well have been decisive. None of us knew how many games it would have taken to get over that issue, but in my view it seemed highly possible that it would have been enough to drop us to say 5th

As it happens, we took 2 points from the first 3 games against Chelsea, Swansea and Burnley when 7 points wouldnt have been an unreasonable expectation so it seems clear that it impacted to us. Add 5 points to where we are now and we'd be 2nd
 
AdamB said:
The key is what you say though 'Once we’d got the Wembley monkey off our back' - coming into the season, it was unclear how long that would take though pretty much everyone agreed that it would be an issue. The top 5 teams, probably 6 with Arse, always looked relatively close so losing a few points from the Wembley issue could well have been decisive. None of us knew how many games it would have taken to get over that issue, but in my view it seemed highly possible that it would have been enough to drop us to say 5th

As it happens, we took 2 points from the first 3 games against Chelsea, Swansea and Burnley when 7 points wouldnt have been an unreasonable expectation so it seems clear that it impacted to us. Add 5 points to where we are now and we'd be 2nd
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This is all hypothetical- Burnley have taken points away against plenty of the top teams this season. We also ALWAYS drop points against poor teams so you can’t just put that down to Wembley. We had a brilliant final season at WHL last season, would we of had the same record this season and gone unbeaten? Not impossible but unlikely. All I’m saying is making out like we’ve been at some major disadvantage due to playing at Wembley is a bit of a stretch....
 
billyiddo said:
Yep even though we have dropped considerably more points at home this season compared to last it's not down to the reason everyone was worried about, it's just a coincidence
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Did I say it had no impact at all? People have been saying ‘we’ve been playing away all season’ Yet we have 80,000 fans cheering us on each week and we have a much better record at Wembley than playing away. But yeah, like you say - that’s just a coincidence too....
 
mjc23 said:
Do 4th place still have to play a champions league qualifier?
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Usually not. I think 4th place plays in the qualifiers if the Champions League winner hasn't qualified, i.e. if Liverpool win the CL and finish 5th. I'm not certain, though.
 
harr1984 said:
Did I say it had no impact at all? People have been saying ‘we’ve been playing away all season’ Yet we have 80,000 fans cheering us on each week and we have a much better record at Wembley than playing away. But yeah, like you say - that’s just a coincidence too....
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Yeah your issue there is a pedantic one with how people are choosing to describe it 'away from home' is just a way of saying away from WHL - everyone was predicting us dropping off because of the ground situation you just can't dismiss it a year later because it's suits your new angle.
 
billyiddo said:
Yeah your issue there is a pedantic one with how people are choosing to describe it 'away from home' is just a way of saying away from WHL - everyone was predicting us dropping off because of the ground situation you just can't dismiss it a year later because it's suits your new angle.
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Sorry to disappoint but I have no angle. Not everyone was predicting us dropping off - many pointed out our poor record at Wembley was playing against top teams and in the league it wouldn’t be such an issue. And low and behold, who have we lost to at Wembley?Chelsea and Emirates Marketing Project....
 
We've dropped 10 more points at home this season compared to last - you'll obviously point to it being the last year at WHL which means we over performed rather than just because that's this teams level.

So taking a quick look at other sides who had similar situations to us last season :

In their last season at Upton Park West Ham earned themselves 3 more points than the season prior and in their last season at Highbury Arsenal earned a single point more than the season prior (for reference we were 12 points better off in 16/17 than we were in 15/16) these are the last two clubs in the PL to move away from their traditional home ground and neither appeared to have raised their game the way we supposedly did last season, strange...

Personally i think last season was us setting the benchmark in performance as we continued our improvement as a team, this season we're off the pace by a similar amount of points to the ones we have dropped at home - seems pretty cut and dry to me
 
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harr1984 said:
I do think this this ‘playing away all season thing’ is a bit OTT. Once we’d got the Wembley monkey off our back we were always going to be fine there. Yes it’s not WHL but you can’t claim it to be an away game when you have 80,000 fans cheering you on...
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"Once we’d got the Wembley monkey off our back" Yes but we first had to shoot "the monkey" no easy feat. So many people ramping up the pressure, please do under estimate the amount of pressure heaped on the whole team by the media and fans regarding Wembley.
It is now easy ' in hindsight' to belittle our achievements at Wembley this season.
 
billyiddo said:
We've dropped 10 more points at home this season compared to last - you'll obviously point to it being the last year at WHL which means we over performed rather than just because that's this teams level.

So taking a quick look at other sides who had similar situations to us last season :

In their last season at Upton Park West Ham earned themselves 3 more points than the season prior and in their last season at Highbury Arsenal earned a single point more than the season prior (for reference we were 12 points better off in 16/17 than we were in 15/16) these are the last two clubs in the PL to move away from their traditional home ground and neither appeared to have raised their game the way we supposedly did last season, strange...

Personally i think last season was us setting the benchmark in performance as we continued our improvement as a team, this season we're off the pace by a similar amount of points to the ones we have dropped at home - seems pretty cut and dry to me
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Agree with this

Wembley is not easy for anyone to settle into and we have proven ALL doubters wrong

Getting back to a home has huge advantages for us
 
Need to bounce back on Tuesday night, otherwise the media will circle that we are going to bottle it. Really dont want to be in a position where we need a point v Leicester to secure 4th
 
I didn’t think we would lose a game for the rest of the season after the city away game and that’s because we are that good compared to everyone else

We will get the results we need to finish 3rd I’m sure
 
billyiddo said:
We've dropped 10 more points at home this season compared to last - you'll obviously point to it being the last year at WHL which means we over performed rather than just because that's this teams level.

So taking a quick look at other sides who had similar situations to us last season :

In their last season at Upton Park West Ham earned themselves 3 more points than the season prior and in their last season at Highbury Arsenal earned a single point more than the season prior (for reference we were 12 points better off in 16/17 than we were in 15/16) these are the last two clubs in the PL to move away from their traditional home ground and neither appeared to have raised their game the way we supposedly did last season, strange...

Personally i think last season was us setting the benchmark in performance as we continued our improvement as a team, this season we're off the pace by a similar amount of points to the ones we have dropped at home - seems pretty cut and dry to me
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But not all those 'lost' ten points would have been down to the move. Other factors also need to be put into the mix, eg adjusting to the loss of Walker and later the injury in November to Aldereiweld, both of whom were a big part of our success last season; plus having to bed in the new arrivals Sanchez and Aurier.

Of course the process of adjusting to Wembley also impacted, especially early season, but all things considered the team has coped surprisingly well with the move.
 
Tuesday becomes a massive game.

Drop points and Chelsea will really fancy the odds of finishing above us and the pressure really is on.
 
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