It was Roeder's terrible luck in 2002/03 to manage a team relegated with a record number of points banked. 35 would have kept you up last season but we went down with an incredible 42, enough to finish in 13th place last season! Who says God doesn't hate West Ham?
Well, get this, the team going down third from bottom this season could feasibly have 43 points or even more. Why? Because with the incredibly low number of draws so far this season, points are not disappearing. In case that makes no sense, a draw sees two points shared, so one of the three points secured by a winning team has evaporated, never again to reappear.
If this trend continues, then there will be a lot more points in the eventual finishing pot, a lot more points to be shared around. Today we really wanted the teams at the bottom to draw with each other, but Hull claimed three points and so did Pompey and that has deepened our crisis as a result. Should we draw at home, that will be a virtually useless point, and Fulham will feel the same, so the pressure increases on both teams to go for victory - and so that pressure will be felt by every team from top to bottom. Suddenly a draw becomes a bad result. Look at Burnley, prime candidates for the drop. They have banked 12 points from 4 home wins already; in a normal season that might be two wins and two daws, and 8 points, keeping them in touch with ourselves.
It is probably significant that the two draws today saw four goals shared rather than the more typical two or none. Teams are attacking, scoring and conceding. It could be a pulsating season but anybody thinking they need 40 points to survive could be in for a nasty shock.
Still, Anton annihilated a point at Old Trafford today!
Roeders terrible luck??? he has been relegated, or sacked just before, with every team he has managed, to get relegated with a team that included Di Canio, Cole, Carrick, Johnson, James, Defoe, Sinclair, and Kanoute wasn't bad luck, just downright bad management.
ReplyDeletetonyboy
I'm not calling him as a good manager Tony but it was terrible luck to go down with 42 points wasn't it?
ReplyDeleteAll part of Terry Brown's master plan, Glen Roeder that is, relegation meant he had an excuse to sell the best talent we've seen for a long while, get in journeymen at lower wages get promotion and sell the club at a vastly inflated price the money just rolled in for him and all that time he was paying himself more than any premiership chairman Trevor Brooking nearly ruined it all though
ReplyDeleteNo it wasn;t terrible luck to go down with 42 points. with the players we had we should have been well away from relegation that year. but roeder let his petty squabbles with players actually blind him from the fact they should have been in the team. the fact that 44 points were needed to stay up doesn't detract from roeder being inept
ReplyDeletetonyboy