A bit of perspective by Guthrum 20 May 2024 10:26
I keep seeing, even on here, people talking about the Prem as if every team apart from us is going to be at or near Manchester City's quality. That is manifestly not true.

There is about a quarter of the division which is genuinely very strong. But even they can slip up to lesser teams away from home - ManC lost at Wolves, Arsenal at Fulham and Liverpool at Everton in the last season.

There is also about a quarter of the teams who are of no more than Championship standard. They swap between the two divisions on a fairly regular basis, after all. Not even necessarily top Champ standard, either. Over the ten seasons preceding that just finished, only once have all three finished in the top six post relegation. One team did in every case, another averaged 8th position, the third 13th-14th.

Then you have the middle group, who are somewhat better than Champ, but not outstanding. Quite capable of losing to Champ teams in cup games, as Wolves did to both us and Coventry during the season.

To survive, we need about 40 points. 10 wins and 10 draws will do it. If we can beat the bottom six and draw with about half the rest, we're there, irrespective of what the strongest group do to us. Grabbing a few more wins here and there could push us to mid-table or beyond. Not losing too often will be the key, something we've been very good at the last two and a half years. Don't worry about the top six (some of whom will be in transition after changing managers), they are almost irrelevant to our prospects.

Basically, we have to treat this like our season in the Championship. Trust ourselves, get a bit of confidence and push on from that. There is little pressure, almost no expectation. All we can do is excel.