What final position would you take now?

[Otto42]

Sixth would be progress on last season, that would probably give us a decent building block for automatic the following season should we miss out. If we were to go up the mindset of us fans needs to be different to last time, it will be a struggle and odds on we would come back down, but again that’s progress!

 

[wilkos_perm]

Sheff utd are on course for 93 points ish based on ppg but their form is better than that. We'd have to win 16 out of 17 games to achieve that. Its very unlikely, they would have to start losing games regularly

 

[London_Boro]

The way we've played under Carrick, it'd be gutting to not be involved in playoffs, so I'd say anywhere from 6th Upwards would be acceptable.

 

[madlad7773]

I think play-offs is a shoe in bar a massive loss of form or a Devon Loch style capitulation. Never gonna be a better time to nail it as we look to be the best of an also ran bunch this season. Had we not given Burnley and Sheff Utd a head start, we could arguably been in with a shout of automatic promotion. That's tempered with the thought that, from where we were to where we are, we're in the best position we could hope to be.
I also feel like going into each game, I'm no longer thinking we might get a hiding - we seem to have found that ability to grind out results, either coming from behind or by digging in and not losing stupid last minute goals.
Love what I'm seeing at the moment.

 

[Laughing]

Yee

their away record says otherwise and they will remember why they lost and combat it, plus Rotherham's lost a pretty good player too lol

Yee of little faith.

To catch them they will have to be a little bit worse than they have been and we will have to be a little bit better.

Not impossible.

 

[Ipad1977]

their away record says otherwise and they will remember why they lost and combat it, plus Rotherham's lost a pretty good player too lol

This game is very tricky to predict. On analysis of each side, you'd have to say the Blades are stronger, only a fool would suggest otherwise. They're in better form too.

For Berge leaving read Barlaser for Rotherham.

However; it's a derby. And for derby games form often goes flying out the window. For an example of this look no further than our two games against the deckchairs. Under Wilder this season we were drastically underperforming, along come the Mackems at our place, a win, yes please. Then take the reverse fixture at their place. We're flying, shooting up the table then along they come and spoil the party for a weekend.
On both occasions the home side won, against what the form table would suggest.
Looking specifically at derby games this tends to happen more often than not unless the gulf is huge eg Newcastle playing Hartlepool in a cup game.

 

[Ipad1977]

I can see Sheff Utd losing 5 games before the end of the season but I think we lose a few as well so I don't expect us to catch them. I hope/expect us to get in the playoffs from our recent improvement but the way we largely rolled over to Burnely and Sunderland was more disappointing than the actual result so I hope in the remaining few weeks we learn to get a real edge in big matches because however improved we are now it won't matter in the big tense matches of the playoffs if we can't withstand quality teams fighting for a result.

The Big games IMHO are the ones that on the evidence so far are likely to affect our league positioning the most, ie eventual six-pointers. I don't see the sides outside the top ten having such an impact (though perhaps one of them may charge into the playoffs late on, it's not unusual and the midtable is tight this year) neither do I see our games against Burnley as affecting whether we finish above or below them much really. Sheff Utd is less likely to affect us than the other results, but in terms of working our Big Game performance levels since Carrick came along out they're null and void as we haven't played them since that anyway.

These sides from 2nd-10th have also either been in form when we have or been up around that area of the table already when we played them, ie a known more likely opponent for the playoffs or getting in them.

Our Carrick-led results against these 8 sides have thus far yielded 5 wins, 1 loss and the other 2 yet to play.. The 1 loss came at Sunderland, our derby game when form goes out the window at theirs (the home side wins far more than it's usual amount in derby games, look no further than our win against them earlier in the season when we were turds and their form was half decent) So I'd argue that whilst not nailed on our results so far in perceived big games has actually not been too bad at all?