Sixth Place IMPERATIVE

[Kingsmills]

I don't know about bum twitching but between 4th and 11th this must be one of the tightest and most competitive top leagues in Europe. Another vtal game today especially with some tough fixtures coming up now we are entering the business end of the season.

Win today and we leapfrog our opponents into the top six breathing down County's neck for top Highland team yet again. Lose and we could be within a single point of the dreaded play off place.

Today's one day I'd happily settle for a scrappy and fortunate win at Dens.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Yip. We don't want to win or we may get in the Top Six and a boring end to the season.

[+Feb82000]

if we do not win today our top 6 place is over for the season

[12th Man]

28 minutes ago, scottishhighlands said:

if we do not win today our top 6 place is over for the season

I know, if we lose today we can only achieve a potential 68 points and I'm not even sure if we can avoid relegation with that. 

I think every match is deemed a must win and this ones no different.

 

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Thank you Kane Hemmings fer keeping our season alive 

 

[Alex MacLeod]

5 hours ago, scottishhighlands said:

if we do not win today our top 6 place is over for the season

The negativityis mind blowing. We are three pts of 4th with game in hand over St J. Two in hand against RC. 5 pts clear of 11th with 2 games in hand.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

4	St. Johnstone	6	10	6	11	42	44	-2	36
5	Ross County	5	11	3	14	42	46	-4	36
6	Dundee	6	8	11	8	40	42	-2	35
7	Inverness	7	8	9	9	34	37	-3	33
8	Motherwell	5	9	5	14	33	44	-11	32
9	Partick	8	8	7	10	25	31	-6	31
10	Hamilton	5	7	9	12	32	48	-16	30
11	Kilmarnock	5	7	7	14	29	49	-20	28
12	Dundee United	6	5	5	17	29	50	-21	20

 

[PerfICT]

47 minutes ago, Alex MacLeod said:

The negativityis mind blowing. We are three pts of 4th with game in hand over St J. Two in hand against RC. 5 pts clear of 11th with 2 games in hand.

Agree with Alex MacL. This was a must not lose game, not a must win. Job done (just). The games we need to win for top 6 are Hamilton and Motherwell at home. Any points from the two Hearts games in hand are a bonus. Don't lose to RC and St J away and we'd be on 40-odd points which would be enough! Relax!

[+jagster]

4 hours ago, Alex MacLeod said:

The negativityis mind blowing. We are three pts of 4th with game in hand over St J. Two in hand against RC. 5 pts clear of 11th with 2 games in hand.

I think I'm one of the most optimistic/positive guys you could meet but for some reason I'm just not getting that feeling this season. It seems to have been a struggle all along from that Richie Foran goal where we managed to beat the mighty Nairn County 1-0 in pre season with a full strength squad right up to beating the Dons 3-1 I just don't see us as a top 6 team

i think of Yogis signings like Sekaja, Sho Silva and Lopez and think WTF? 

Mutombo has done ok as did Miles(who wears a magic hat) Storey originally , there has obviously been injury problems along the way though we have pretty much had our strongest squad with the exception of Doran and More recently Meekings and Vincent for some time now 

Down at Stirling a few weeks back we looked really poor against a team that were approx 30 places behind us at that time and even after beating them up here we still seemed to plod along with the pissy passy this way and that way stuff with little or no end product, I don't ever seem to recall as much frustration in the North stand over the last 20 years as I did that night. Who knows maybe we expect too much these days ?  Many times At work  I've had people saying to me that the first season or two under Hughes is great and then it usually goes awry when he takes in his own players Fisher Ryan Williams and Liam Hughes the verdict is out yet as they haven't had time 

But what really seems to get to me is the sheer lack of entertainment this season. Week in week out we sit in the stands hoping for something as most fans do yet more often than not at the end of the game we all seem to be glad it's over and rarely seem to see huge grins on the faces with a Lets go to the Caley club to celebrate attitude. 

I could well be talking bulls*** as I've had copious amounts of jd and Coke with a few lagers on the side but right at this moment I'd love to be sitting at Kingsmills again watching the 3-0 demolition of Kilmarnock or even down at Parkhead watching us getting beat with Mo Johnstone scoring or dare I say it even the game where the other lot drew with st Johnstone . There seems to be a lack of excitement and enjoyment this season, maybe it's a come down after last season which was pretty special but I don't see anything that will bring fans to the ground . I don't think I've ever written so much some will agree with some of it some will disagree and TBH I've pretty much forgotten where I started . Never drinking again!! I think I've prob said that before as well  p.s. Back to the Nairn county game I enjoyed the pies the weather was great The football was shoite but I was still optimistic. Where did that go??

[IBM]

Hope your ok today jagster..........a win on Tuesday night will set us up fine for Sunday...........think positive!

[PerfICT]

Here's a really speculative stab at what I reckon each of the teams in the mix will score at the split, based loosely on form and remaining matches:

St J  43

Dundee 41

ICT 41

RC 41

PT 36

Mot 36

Killie 32

Ham 31

DU 30

I doubt this is in any way accurate: form is temporary, particularly with these teams at the moment, so anybody could go on a good/crap run and turn this on its head! Goal difference might well be a decisive factor (and ours is pretty good).

Still think that 36 will be good enough to avoid 12th at the end of the season and 40 to avoid 11th. 40/41 should be good enough for top six at split this year IMO.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

11 to go

[bdu98196]

Its exciting however you look at it, every team is inconsistent and evenly matched, predicting positions and results is almost impossible. Lets hope we can pick up a few wins and have a more comfortable position in the top 6.

i'm assuming next year will be even better though, once the newco arrive, armageddon will be over so no more of this dull SPFL we are seeing and an exciting season will lie ahead....................

[finmack]

If we make the top six, it will be a miracle!

 

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

11 to go. Cue song - "I believe in miracles"!! - it is still all to play fer.

 

[Murchison]

Top 6 would obviously be preferred but I don't think its vital. While this has obviously been a harder season than last year (understandable with the players lost, and the success of last year), i'm not panicing yet. We have managed 32 points from 27 games, so over a point a game. Even averaging a point a game for the last 11, we should be fine.

[+HawkeyeTheGnu]

58 minutes ago, Murchison said:

Top 6 would obviously be preferred but I don't think its vital. While this has obviously been a harder season than last year (understandable with the players lost, and the success of last year), i'm not panicing yet. We have managed 32 points from 27 games, so over a point a game. Even averaging a point a game for the last 11, we should be fine.

My concern would be that if we miss out on the top 6, our form against the other bottom 6 teams is patchy at best. I would be genuinely concerned that we would finish 11th.

[Alex MacLeod]

12 minutes ago, HawkeyeTheGnu said:

My concern would be that if we miss out on the top 6, our form against the other bottom 6 teams is patchy at best. I would be genuinely concerned that we would finish 11th.

I look at the table and look at the upcoming fixtures for all around us and I still think, if we could get all our injured back soon, we still have a good chance of top six. Some still have to play the top three and we have a couple of games in hand against one or two others. Nothing is lost yet.

[Ronaldo]

I agree completly with this, we could easily do a Hibs of two seasons ago and slide down the table if we werre to be in the bottom six. Loved to be proved wrong though.

There is nothing I have seen from my team this year that has got me very exicited as this obsession with posession passing stuff is not for me. And it is not working. We are losing more goals than we are scoring wake up and smell the coffee those who are able to change things.

In some ways it is typical of our season that our Manager has signed a nice tall centre forward to maybe change the tactics and he gets injured.

 

  

[PerfICT]

So, we took 4 points from our last four games against Aberdeen (h), Celtic (a), Dundee (a) and Hearts (a) - I think that's pretty much what you might have expected? - you could even argue that 1 point away to Dundee might have been all we'd have got from these games. No need to panic yet. Top 6 is definitely still a possibility - the home games against Motherwell and Hamilton are crucial, followed by the away game at RC; with any luck DU's race will have been run by the time we play them too. Hearts (h) and St J (a) are our bonus (in-hand) matches.

Looking at that fixture list, you have to think that we should get 7-10 points. 10 points would almost certainly be enough for top 6. Frankly, if we don't get at least 7 points, we deserve to go down.

[Murchison]

If you look at the form over the past 10 games, we are exactly where we should be. There are 5 teams with worse record, and 6 teams better. Only team below us on better form are Partick, but still have St Johnstone ahead of us on a worse run. We have 6 games to the split, and even if the current form continues it should be enough, will be close anyway.

[Kingsmills]

7 hours ago, HawkeyeTheGnu said:

My concern would be that if we miss out on the top 6, our form against the other bottom 6 teams is patchy at best. I would be genuinely concerned that we would finish 11th.

We ought to avoid relegation but there is very little between the teams and the others tend to play at least one striker which could yet be our undoing.

A big game at Tannadice this evening for all of the teams in and around us. The last thing any of us need is for United to build on their recent momentum and enter the mix for avoiding the bottom two places. For this evening at least....COYR !

[Kingsmills]

Partick's win tonight and Dundee's unlikely point at Parkhead do little to improve our position. Our next two league games are away to St Johnstone then at home to Hamilton. St Johnstone are on an even worse run than us just now so it's vital that we take at least a point if not three from Perth and win at home against the Accies. Fail to win both matches and we could be in real trouble.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Tinkerville – 4 to play – minus 2 – 39 points

St Jones Town (a); ICT (h); Dungdee (a); Plastic Whistle (h)

Dungdee – 5 to play – minus 2 – 36 points

Jam Tarts (h); Arabs (a); Tinkerville (h); Hamilton (a); Cellic (h) TBC

St Jones Town – 5 to play – minus 3 – 36 points

ICT (h); Tinkerville (h); Jam Tarts (a); Arabs (h); Killie (a)

Plastic Whistle – 7 to play – minus 5 – 34 points

Jam Tarts (a); Aberdire (h); Cellic (h); Hamilton (a); Killie (h); Arabs (h); Tinkerville (a)

ICT – 6 to play – minus 5 – 33 points

St Jones Town (a); Hamilton (h); Hearts (h); Tinkerville (a); Muvversmell (h); Arabs (a)

Muvversmell -  5 to play – minus 11 – 32 points

Hamilton (a); Arabs (h); Aberdire  (h); ICT (a); Cellic (h)

Hamilton – 5 to play – minus 16 – 30 points

Muvversmell (h); ICT (a); Plastic Whistle (a); Aberdire (a); Dungdee (h)

Killie – 4 to play – minus 22 – 28 points

Aberdire (a); Cellic (h); Plastic Whistle (a); St Jones Town (h)

Arabs – 5 to play – minus 22 – 20 points

Muvversmell (a); Dundee (h); St Jones Town (a); Plastic Whistle (a); ICT (h)

 

Jhesus – does that look scary or wot ??”” – But at least it is still in our own hands. From a “till the end of the season” perspective we will finish 10^th at worst. The Arabs playthe “other 9” but have too much to do to catch us. Killie may not get another point before the split.

Tinkerville look set fer 4^th. Plastic Whistle have a real difficult run of games. Our 3 home games are crucial.

[PerfICT]

May as well close this thread - that ship has now sailed.

The next thread should be "staying up IMPERATIVE". We need another 10 points from God knows where to be safe from the play-off spot. As I've said for months, the 2 games against the Lanarkshire teams are vital. On this form, the other games before the split look beyond us, which is a good indication of exactly how deep in the sh!te we are. Indeed, I'd take a draw against Motherwell too.