rubberman

Palace, West Ham with a Moyes double and Swansea - as it is now. Boggies to just scrape out of it on the final day. There will be another 4-5 sides flirting with the drop, but should have just enough to keep clear. It's such a low standard outside the top 6 - real shame we dropped out. Then again, we need to improve a fair bit to even be at the shit PL level.

Yes. Strong line up and bench. Please play well...

3 points today, beat wolves at VP and there's only one win between us. Still plenty to do, but not insurmountable with 2/3 of the season to go. Keep winning and keep up the pressure.

Hat-trick in an hour is a good evening's work then.

Or bring Taylor back in, Hutton back to RB (ugh) or De Laet, Elmo moves forward and Albert on the left. That gets rid of Thor, but might be too much meddling. Or 4-4-2 : Johnstone Elmo - Chester - Terry - Hutton Hourihane - Whelan - O'Hare - Adomah Davis - Hogan

TBH I'll let Bruce off Weds as O'Hare had just played 90mins on Monday, but expect to see him on the bench for Sat.

Blimey - we're confident about the Villa result aren't we!

Name Home Team Away Team Guess Villa 2 0 Shef Wednesday Villa Stoke 1 1 Leicester Draw Huddersfield 1 0 West Brom Huddersfield Newcastle 1 0 Bournemouth Newcastle Southampton 1 1 Burnley Draw Swansea 0 1 Brighton Brighton West Ham 0 2 Liverpool Liverpool Spurs 3 1 Palace Spurs Man City 3 1 Arsenal Man City Chelsea 0 1 Man Utd Man Utd Everton 1 1 Watford Draw rubberman

I hope Nuno goes there - it would help us out putting Wolves into a bit of turmoil. Whoever takes it on is in a bad situation though - even BFS will struggle with that squad and 2 months before any changes. Imagine they've got just about enough quality to be safe over a season though.

Same starting line up. Add Kodjia (if fit), O'hare and Grealish to the bench in place of Samba, Hogan and Thor. Gives us a lot more options to attack later on if needed, but still enough to shore things up defensively. Another 2-0 win and up to 4th please. Cardiff - Bristol draw and hopefully at least one of Wolves and Sheff Utd have a stumble. Ideally Derby too.

Very pleased with that. I was not happy with the line-up pre-match and am still bemused how we can perform so differently from match to match with pretty much the same formation and players. Anyway, well done SB - you shoved that criticism down my throat. Can we please start to do this consistently now. Big calls to make for the weekend if Kodjia is fit again, Taylor ready etc. Not to mention Grealish and O'Hare. Don't screw it up.

Unnecessarily defensive. Another 'set up not to lose' team. C'mon Bruce - grow a pair.

^ agreed. The IF is soo big though. Given the opportunity we seem to naturally settle back instead of pushing on and having a potentially negative set-up always turns into a permanently defensive set-up.

Yeah this. I suppose a spare LB would be useful, but Hutton's done OK there. We've still got Grealish & Green to come back, O'Hare to fit in etc. Not sure we need anyone else - it's going to be hard enough keeping everyone happy as it is and as Junxs said, it's not going to change our style of play.

5 wins should be achievable and will put us bang on track for 2 pts / game. I'll accept 13 though. Momentum back going into December which will be another tough month.

I'd like to see him get a start - Weds prob too soon, but Sat definitely.

Statistically, the higher you finish, the better the chance of promotion. As one would expect. Though in the Championship alone, it's only really the team finishing third that has a significantly better chance of winning the playoffs: Positions of teams promoted in play-offs Position Championship League One League Two Total Percentage 3rd (4th in L2) 10 9 13 32 39.50% 4th (5th in L2) 5 7 5 17 21% 5th (6th in L2) 7 5 4 16 19.80% 6th (7th in L2) 5 6 5 16 19.80%

Wow. Quietest it's been in here for sometime. Sunday win please thankyou.

Also, the rules and punishments have changed since QPR got done. From here... We have to submit our forecast for this season (to add to the last 2) on 1st March. That needs to get us in the black (or rather not too deep in the red) for the combined three seasons to escape punishment. Given we hope / expect to be in the promotion hunt we can't risk losing that through busting FFP which is very close so far...so Jan will be very quiet I expect. I think the EFL will be keen to use the demotion option to show they have teeth.

Name Home Team Away Team Guess Birmingham 0 2 Villa Villa Man Utd 1 2 Spurs Spurs Arsenal 3 0 Swansea Arsenal Palace 0 1 West Ham West Ham Liverpool 2 1 Huddersfield Liverpool Watford 1 0 Stoke Watford West Brom 0 3 Man City Man City Bournemouth 1 2 Chelsea Chelsea Brighton 1 1 Southampton Draw Leicester 1 0 Everton Leicester Burnley 1 1 Newcastle Draw rubberman

Same for me, but with the proviso that if it's not working, Bruce is prepared to change it up earlier than the 70th minute.

Name Home Team Away Team Guess Villa 1 0 Fulham Villa West Ham 1 1 Brighton Draw Chelsea 2 1 Watford Chelsea Huddersfield 0 3 Man Utd Man Utd Man City 3 1 Burnley Man City Newcastle 2 0 Palace Newcastle Stoke 1 0 Bournemouth Stoke Swansea 1 1 Leicester Draw Southampton 1 1 West Brom Draw Everton 0 2 Arsenal Arsenal Spurs 2 1 Liverpool Spurs rubberman

Hutton just stay at the back and does your job. There's enough up front to do the attacking thing.

Hutton for Talyor the only change. Let's do this.

I think you probably will. Unsure of whether it'll be the team you want it to be though...