Hopes and Fears

[Day]

23 minutes ago, ram59 said:

You say it is a pointless tabe, but if you posted it on the boro forum, I would expect plenty of their fans to be worried about their play off chances. 

Maybe, but would probably need another post Pulis, didn’t pay much attention to the dates when collecting the results

[Van der MoodHoover]

1 hour ago, curtains said:

Yes he had been injured . 

He will need watching if we play them he’s their playmaker and he’s very good. 

That's going to be tough, as he occupies a part of the pitch where we have struggled badly. If Huddlestone/Ledley/Johnson play in midfield they will probably be too deep to get anywhere near him and vydra will be too far forward.

How Gary Rowett approaches that conundrum could well define many fan's continued to support for him - he needs to have a plan, as just turning up and doing the same old same old is very unlikely to be successful. So some tactical wizardry is needed to give us a chance!

[Rev]

4 hours ago, HantsRam said:

That's going to be tough, as he occupies a part of the pitch where we have struggled badly. If Huddlestone/Ledley/Johnson play in midfield they will probably be too deep to get anywhere near him and vydra will be too far forward.

How Gary Rowett approaches that conundrum could well define many fan's continued to support for him - he needs to have a plan, as just turning up and doing the same old same old is very unlikely to be successful. So some tactical wizardry is needed to give us a chance!

Hanson man marking special required, with the emphasis on marking.

[jono]

Hopes : we get Cardiff and play them off the park in both legs. Then we beat Villa fair and square and a thumping play off final that is an advert for the game. Richard Keogh clears off the line and heads the winner. 

Fears : we get Fulham, they play lovely football, they beat us in both legs and we look agricultural in to the bargain

 

[TigerTedd]

9 hours ago, David said:

We haven't beaten Fulham either.

Derby 0-2 Wolves
Wolves 2-0 Derby

Derby 3-1 Cardiff
Cardiff 0-0 Derby

Derby 1-2 Fulham
Fulham 1-1 Derby

Derby 2-0 Villa
Villa 1-1  Derby

Derby 1-2 Boro
Boro 0-3 Derby

That’s what i meant. If we could beat Fulham in the play offs, then we’ll have beaten everyone outside the top 1 at some point this season. 

I don’t know why that matters, but it would please me. 

[Day]

2 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

That’s what i meant. If we could beat Fulham in the play offs, then we’ll have beaten everyone outside the top 1 at some point this season. 

I don’t know why that matters, but it would please me. 

Gotcha, I'm not that bothered if which way we do it to be honest, those that say we won't have deserved it can suck on their thumb. Play offs have been like this for years now, if you're there you deserve it as you won the 4 team knockout, simple as. 

[Abu Derby]

I think Fulham will be beaten by Birmingham on Sunday, thereby denting their confidence. We’ll dent it further with a home win in the home leg, followed by a draw away. 

Im confident that victory will follow at Wembley regardless of the opposition. 

[Sparkle]

Assuming we do the most important thing and make the play offs !

i can’t see Cardiff fail against reading as we usually do so they will go up ( just what the premiership won’t want)

i would want to play Fulham - they have only ever failed in the play offs and will be very nervous and whilst confident they would quickly melt away if we took hold of the tie - everyone would want us in the play offs but we would be the most dangerous opponent out of the four teams

i can see Middlesbrough winning against villa over two legs as bruce’s Luck will go against him at some point and the villa meltdown will be fascinating to watch

[BramcoteRam84]

Fulham or Cardiff. Don’t care who, the key for us is finishing 6th so we get to play 3rd. Whoever loses out on automatic will be gutted and will only have 5 days to pick themselves up before an away game at PP under the lights!! That’s a big ask regardless of how talented a team is.

However it only becomes an opportunity if we’re really bold and go for it from the first minute. If its Cardiff we have an opportunity to kill the tie in the first leg, if Fulham we can get a cushion we will very much need for the return leg at the Cottage.

[RadioactiveWaste]

We'll probably bugger it up and play villa and lose.

[Van der MoodHoover]

3 hours ago, reveldevil said:

Hanson man marking special required, with the emphasis on marking.

Now THAT'S not a bad idea at all........will Gary have the tactical cojones? A pair as fulsome as old Buster Gonad may be required....?

[ram1964]

Should we qualify for the play offs, I don't think it really matters who we play.League positions go out of the window and it's just how well your team wants it on the day.Should we show some of our earlier form and with the experience within in the team we have every chance of holding it together on the day.We have the potential it will be more to do with the tactics and formation GR  chooses to use that I expect will determine success of failure in the play offs.

[maxjam]

Over two legs, it has to be Cardiff.  It will be tough cos Warnock will whip them up but we have a better chance than against Fulham or Aston Villa.

The final we'll be underdogs whoever we play, but thats not stopped teams (us included) pulling off the win in the past.

Of course we have to get there first, Sunday probably isn't going to be as straight forwards as I'd like to think it will be...

 

[Van der MoodHoover]

19 hours ago, ram1964 said:

Should we qualify for the play offs, I don't think it really matters who we play.League positions go out of the window and it's just how well your team wants it on the day.Should we show some of our earlier form and with the experience within in the team we have every chance of holding it together on the day.We have the potential it will be more to do with the tactics and formation GR  chooses to use that I expect will determine success of failure in the play offs.

Uh-oh.......?

[ram1964]

9 hours ago, HantsRam said:

Uh-oh.......?

My sentiments entirely?

[Roboram]

It doesn’t really matter, we’ll only be there to make the numbers up. All the others will want us

if only we could actually play to our potential for 3 games on the spin .........

[Curtains]

I have only hope. 

The Cardiff game was amazing .

I hope the playoffs are amazing 

[Ellafella]

On 29/04/2018 at 23:57, Carl Sagan said:

At the risk of derailing my excellent thread, I will say I'm lucky to work and be mates with many of the world's top scientists and popularisers of science - everyone holds Sagan in awe. Sadly I only got to meet him once but he was lovely then and inspired so many future "cosmologists". Where did you hear Neil deGrasse Tyson?

And did you ever meet Stevie Hawking @Carl Sagan? ?

[Carl Sagan]

28 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

And did you ever meet Stevie Hawking @Carl Sagan? ?

Yeah - though I'm much more pally with his big black hole collaborator, Roger Penrose. Though me and Hawking both worked at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in Cambridge in my youth. Then, in recent times, we've both worked on ideas about saving humanity from extinction so I've been invited to a few of his talks. And we've met at book festivals as we've both written kids' scifi stories! Though he probably never forgave me for writing him a letter when I was still at school, explaining why there couldn't be such a thing as Hawking radiation because he'd misunderstood quantum gravity theory. Oops!!!? ??

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

6 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Yeah - though I'm much more pally with his big black hole collaborator, Roger Penrose. Though me and Hawking both worked at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in Cambridge in my youth. Then, in recent times, we've both worked on ideas about saving humanity from extinction so I've been invited to a few of his talks. And we've met at book festivals as we've both written kids' scifi stories! Though he probably never forgave me for writing him a letter when I was still at school, explaining why there couldn't be such a thing as Hawking radiation because he'd misunderstood quantum gravity theory. Oops!!!? ??

That explains our struggle to rise up to the Premier league.