I've said it since early in the season - you can't build a side that can sustain PL existence in 2 windows. 3, maybe, with a Florist style spunking, but I think 5 windows is the sweet spot. Perversely, after last night, I've been quite upbeat and philosophical about promotion. If we do it, and I think CWAK have the best chance of all the managers that have tried to get us up via playoffs, so be it. Take the PL money and run, again. But, if another season in the Champ is our future, I'm okay with that. I like winning more football games in a season than I can count on one hand and I think after another 3 windows, we'll be MUCH better equipped to stay up next time.
Look at the stats against Burnley.
There was hardly anything between us.
Touches in each box were the same. We outshot them.
We just made one more critical error than they did.
We need to stop the self-flagellation.
We’re potentially looking at our best points tally at this level since it went to 3 points for a win.
We’ll finish second to the two teams with greater resources and more stable squads.
For the first time in a while, the top three are miles ahead of anyone else.
We’ll play Bristol City or Coventry City. That’s like Man U facing off against Leicester over two legs given the points difference. We should have put 5 or 6 past Coventry at home and only drew away because of that little cheat getting us down to 10 men. Bristol City did well at the Lane but we still took 4 points off them.
Over two legs I’m confident we can put away whoever finishes 6th.
Then it’s the final. We’ll either face a similar team to the one who finishes 6th or Sunderland. We beat them at home and in the away defeat we were all over them. They have some decent young players but in Hamer I still feel we have the outstanding player.
For the first time in a while, I feel we can enter the Play Offs in confident mood. Also, unlike Sunderland who have been managing their squad and losing their edge for a few weeks with them being out of the running, two games feels just right to rest some, increase match fitness in others without feeling we’re just seeing things out.
In a weird way the Burnley match serve us well. It must now register with Wilder that Cannon works better with Moore. So hopefully he can settle in O’Hare/Campbell and Cannon/Moore as alternative pairings. Though I also feel BBD is better up front or on the left than on the right. Other than sub I’m not sure Brewster can be relied upon.
Either way, we have options the other teams simply do not. Whilst our depth suffered in comparison to Leeds and Burnley, the same can’t be said of the three teams we may face.
Time to get this Play Off Monkey off our backs now. We can certainly do this and make it an ultimately successful season, even if we had to do it the hard way.
