| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month 20:53 - Oct 29 with 3361 views | Dubtractor |
But looking at the current positions of the team's we are playing shows the following.
20th
10th
16th
17th
3rd
1st
23rd
Is there a danger that we're basing the challenge on team reputation rather than the reality of their current teams? I think the run of Norwich/Leeds/Leicester will be a test, but otherwise it looks no different to any run of games we're had so far this season.
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 20:56 - Oct 29 with 3311 views | SitfcB |
Still a lot of football to be played before December. |  |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 20:58 - Oct 29 with 3284 views | MK1 |
Every month is a tough month. Our start has just heightened our belief I guess. |  |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:00 - Oct 29 with 3265 views | Swansea_Blue |
Isn’t every month a tough month? We’ve had to give everything and hang on against teams from all sorts of table positions. I know what you mean though, and it is a feature of fans and pundits alike. The names often trump the current form.
There’s only Leeds and Leicester who are top drawer in that lot, plus ‘Boro on a great run (but who knows by then - they lost yesterday). |  |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:01 - Oct 29 with 3262 views | Dubtractor |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 20:58 - Oct 29 by MK1 |
Every month is a tough month. Our start has just heightened our belief I guess. |
Absolutely agree with your first sentence, the old cliche about there being no easy games in the Championship is spot on, just that a lot of our support have highlighted December being particularly tough and I don't see it as being much different to other months. | |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:04 - Oct 29 with 3237 views | Ftnfwest |
When the teams playing as well as it is, I only ever look forward to the next game. Enjoying it too much to look forward much beyond that tbh |  | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:06 - Oct 29 with 3217 views | MK1 |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:01 - Oct 29 by Dubtractor |
Absolutely agree with your first sentence, the old cliche about there being no easy games in the Championship is spot on, just that a lot of our support have highlighted December being particularly tough and I don't see it as being much different to other months. |
I guess the Leicester, Leeds and Middlesbrough games look a bit formidable and add in the derby with that lot, then on paper it is a tough month. | |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:08 - Oct 29 with 3207 views | MK1 |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:04 - Oct 29 by Ftnfwest |
When the teams playing as well as it is, I only ever look forward to the next game. Enjoying it too much to look forward much beyond that tbh |
That's the way I am looking at it. Loving being back in the Championship and take nothing for granted. Just enjoying the ride. | |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:11 - Oct 29 with 3181 views | wkj |
It doesn't matter who you play, that run of games in such a short period is tough |  |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:11 - Oct 29 with 3184 views | _clive_baker_ |
January looks just as tough, then we perhaps lose some key players for international duty. It’s all tough though innit, 1 game at a time and enjoy the journey. |  | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:15 - Oct 29 with 3163 views | JohnTy |
We have played only 5 teams in the bottom half of the table so far. |  | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:18 - Oct 29 with 3148 views | MK1 |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:15 - Oct 29 by JohnTy |
We have played only 5 teams in the bottom half of the table so far. |
Yeah, but Norwich have had it tougher.  | |
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:34 - Oct 29 with 3015 views | Vegtablue |
The tough period as I see it is Dec 9th to Jan 20th:
Middlesbrough away
Watford away
Norwich home
Leeds away
Leicester home
QPR home
Stoke away
Sunderland home
Leicester away
The 5 big guns (IMO) and Norwich. After that it's 18 matches left with only Southampton home and Middlesbrough home to go of the 'big 5' I've invented in my head. |  | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:40 - Oct 29 with 2976 views | Vegtablue |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:34 - Oct 29 by Vegtablue |
The tough period as I see it is Dec 9th to Jan 20th:
Middlesbrough away
Watford away
Norwich home
Leeds away
Leicester home
QPR home
Stoke away
Sunderland home
Leicester away
The 5 big guns (IMO) and Norwich. After that it's 18 matches left with only Southampton home and Middlesbrough home to go of the 'big 5' I've invented in my head. |
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Big 5 | | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:50 - Oct 29 with 2912 views | DarkBrandon |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:40 - Oct 29 by Vegtablue |
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Big 5 |
Are we just … lucky? |  | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 22:05 - Oct 29 with 2851 views | Vegtablue |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:50 - Oct 29 by DarkBrandon |
Are we just … lucky? |
Aha well we've played one game less and the table hasn't updated this weekend, but I won't deny good fortune has accounted for some of the gap we enjoy. Much of the gap is accounted for elsewhere though in my opinion:
He's been in a class of his own and doesn't look to be slowing down. What's great to see is we're pacing nicely alongside the top contenders in the performances stakes on top of our gap in hand. | | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 22:18 - Oct 29 with 2776 views | BigCommon |
I think, us , as fans , do , psychologically associate "big names" as harder games... Likewise, smaller names, as easier matches... Huddersfield gave us a really hard game. Likewise, whose to say that Rotherham away, won't be equally as difficult as a "bigger, on paper" fixture?.. They are all tough games..... But that horrendous looking run in, last season, and they way we dealt with it. Gives me confidence, that we can pick up points at some tough grounds. |  | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 08:06 - Oct 30 with 2319 views | Churchman |
It’s only tough from the perspective of the number of games that have to be played, not the opposition particularly. They’ve every reason to be as worried about us as we are of them. In any case, December is busy for every club so I don’t see that we will be at any disadvantage.
Obviously, Leeds, Leicester and Boro stand out fixtures wise, but we do have four home games which will help, including the mob up the road who seem a little bit upset about something at the moment.
The old cliche of game at a time, don’t look too far ahead holds good. We have three league games before the next international break. These are all that matter. December will take care of itself. |  | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 10:40 - Oct 30 with 2086 views | Simonds92 |
With the game in hand and Leeds playing Leicester on Friday, hopefully we can get to a 14/15 point lead over them going in to Boxing day. Then we effectively have a free hit in those games. But I guess pretty pointless trying to work it out this early in the season. Just keep going at it game by game. [Post edited 30 Oct 2023 11:49]
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| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 11:19 - Oct 30 with 2008 views | Daninthecampo |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 21:34 - Oct 29 by Vegtablue |
The tough period as I see it is Dec 9th to Jan 20th:
Middlesbrough away
Watford away
Norwich home
Leeds away
Leicester home
QPR home
Stoke away
Sunderland home
Leicester away
The 5 big guns (IMO) and Norwich. After that it's 18 matches left with only Southampton home and Middlesbrough home to go of the 'big 5' I've invented in my head. |
We should be too strong for Norwich but first Derby in years,anything can happen! Heading to Elland Rd after a bad result will be very difficult, we could potentially be playing Leicester at home trying to get our first points in 3 games! We haven't lost many games under KM, so we don't know how they'll react to a few losses in a row, have we even lost 2 games in a row under KM?
This is my small fear but I'm hopeful we should be fine | | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 12:01 - Oct 30 with 1936 views | BigCommon |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 11:19 - Oct 30 by Daninthecampo |
We should be too strong for Norwich but first Derby in years,anything can happen! Heading to Elland Rd after a bad result will be very difficult, we could potentially be playing Leicester at home trying to get our first points in 3 games! We haven't lost many games under KM, so we don't know how they'll react to a few losses in a row, have we even lost 2 games in a row under KM?
This is my small fear but I'm hopeful we should be fine |
We've never lost two league games on the bounce under KM... He has a good knack of addressing problems instantly and getting the players up for the next one.. | | | |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 15:42 - Oct 30 with 1652 views | Vegtablue |
| Everyone keeps talking about December being a tough month on 10:40 - Oct 30 by Simonds92 |
With the game in hand and Leeds playing Leicester on Friday, hopefully we can get to a 14/15 point lead over them going in to Boxing day. Then we effectively have a free hit in those games. But I guess pretty pointless trying to work it out this early in the season. Just keep going at it game by game. [Post edited 30 Oct 2023 11:49]
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Leeds away is the match before Leicester on Boxing Day. This may be pessimistic but I still think a gap of 7+ points to 3rd after those two games would be brilliant. People are right to point out the easiest games on paper are sometimes the hardest, but it's the top sides who have the quality to take the points away even when we're performing near our best. I'm not worried about heads dropping or nervousness creeping in re Dan's point, but equally we've never had consecutive games as tough as those in McKenna's tenure - this run still feels unknowable to me in respect to performance demands and Kieran's historic records.
Southampton have the easiest run of sides wanting to chip away at our lead over the next few months. In the performance/xG table I posted above, they next play one of the 'big 5' on 9th March. They only play the current top 10 sides 4 times in their next 21 games: West Brom home, Cardiff home, Hull home and West Brom away. The top 10 will continue to change of course but it's a remarkably good run on paper. They played the 'big 5' consecutively earlier in the season, a horrendous scheduling quirk for them: lost to four of us, beat Leeds. So they've earned this easier period and will be looking to take advantage. | | | |
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