Should we start looking over our shoulders?

[Warren]

Tuesday night is an ever so big game. Hereford are second bottom and in the relegation zone with 35 points. We have 43. If we win we are 11 above them with 8 games to go. If we lose we are 5 above them with 8 to go.

 

The spine of the team is damaged with Griff suspended as well as McDonald I understand. It depends on what Hereford's main strengths are, but if they put a couple of big lads up front, we have to be able to do the heading and tackling. If Davies isn't ready, then Pope to centre half for me. Remember Brian Clough and Kenny Burns!

 

The other approach might be to concentrate on attack and seek to outscore.

 

Adams has a problem to solve. If Barcelona can play Mascherano at centre half regularly, by not giving away cheap free kicks and corners, maybe we can get away with someone who is a midfield player there. Their whole approach is to press with the whole team high up the pitch when losing possession. Of course they normally have 70% possession and complete 700 - 900 passes per game.

 

This is a must win game.

[sandyford_valiant]

Warren,

 

Tom Pope at centre half is a massive no no.

 

Tom struggles for pace as we all know, i know hes decent in the air but what positional sense will he have at the back? None.

 

It would be madness to play him in that role mate IMO.

 

Are Owen and Yates available or injured?

 

I think i would be tempted to play Davis with McCombe and like yuou said earlier, lets make sure we hurt them when attacking with Loft and Taylor from the back and Dodds and Rigg from wide and Rico up top to fire the goals hopefully.

[Terry Tibbs]

You only have to look at what has happened to the form of Rangers and Portsmouth since they went into admin to see that we are not safe yet.

[Warren]

Sandyford Valiant

 

I am assuming Yates and Owen out. If as you say Pope isn't the solution then we will have to chance a midfielder or Davies. But we are in danger of being done by the keeper hoofing high balls down the middle and only people who play centre half or who are naturally good in the air can deal with that. If only McCombe is there he will be easy for their keeper to miss. I think Pope has to come in up front so that he can be there for corners and free kicks against. I guess it is not clear how fit he is because I would expect him to have played more recently if he was 100%.

 

I guess Adams just has to judge their team. If they have no quality in the final third we risk things more than if they have signed some decent players on loan in January.

 

Looking at the table, they have played one game more, so we can give them a really blo.dy nose on Tuesday if we win - they will be 11 points behind with us having 8 left and them 7. But we have 2 difficult away games after this before a run of games where we would expect a points haul including Dagenham, Macclesfield and Morecambe.

[Lady_Vale]

Wasn't Yates on the bench today?

[Warren]

Wasn't Yates on the bench today?

 

No, afraid not.

[BIRCHES HEAD WHITES]

As the question states should we now start looking over our shoulders and focus on avoiding relegation or do you think the Hereford match will be vital?

We need to get off this blip we are currently having but I have faith the players dedication and key performances will see us get a few important results to keep away from the danger area.

 

With 4 or so big away games it is important now to get the results at home.

 

like i said in the week we need at least 6 more points to feel more comfortable , twitchy bum time

[Vale Away]

I don't see what people are worrying about were 8 points clear of relegation and we have a much better goal difference. Even draws against D&R and Hereford would not be a disaster. We also have a game in hand season is over its just about who buys us now.

[sandyford_valiant]

I don't see what people are worrying about were 8 points clear of relegation and we have a much better goal difference. Even draws against D&R and Hereford would not be a disaster. We also have a game in hand season is over its just about who buys us now.

 

Game in hand is Shrewsbury away.

 

We have to go to high flying Torquay, Top of the league Swindon...

 

Oxford at home and then massive massive games against Hereford and Dagenham who are fighting the drop.

 

So if we lose on Tuesday, then we have Torquay away Dagenham at home then Shrewsbury away, the pressure will be certainly mounting thats for sure.

 

Win Tuesday and it looks like we will be ok. Thats how big Tuesday is for me,

[Lady_Vale]

No, afraid not.

 

Oh right, sure I saw someone rate him out of 10 for today

[George is here]

To me it looks like it is down really to 4 home games starting Tuesday night v Hereford. We then have Dagenham & Red on 31/3, Macc on 6/4 and Bristol Rovers on 21/4. These are 12 points where despite our problems, we do have a realistic chance of picking up the 2 wins we probably need to be safe.

 

Advantages for us in these games are we are at home and they are struggling teams down the league with us so despite our obvious problems they are games realistically the squad we have should still win. Yes we have lost 7 home games this season already but these teams should not make it 10/11 by the time we play Oxford.

 

IMO if we were to keep the players we had now, I truly believe we would win at least two of these games. There lies the problem.... Will the Administrator allow us to do this with vultures from other clubs waiting in the wings to get their hands on our best players before Thursday's loan deadline? Unfortunately I do fear the worse here because we just do not know where he would stop once he started.

 

Injurys/suspensions will also be key for us. Defensively as others have posted, we are down to the bare bones. McDonald on top of the sending off today is nursing a hamstring problem that could end his season if it went fully. We need to wrap McCombe up in cotton wool because if anything happened to him, we really are knackered defensively.

 

So starting Tuesday we have to get 110% behind Micky and the boys and through all the nailbiting to come over the next few weeks, cross our fingers because in one way or another we will need some lady luck to see us through to safety by the end of the season.

[Woodward]

Yes , we should.

[Burt]

Yates looked fit enough today, Davis is a HUGE no.

[steauavaliant]

Through no fault of our own we got deducted 10 pts. Admin has affected the players - of that there is no doubt.

We battled today despite playing half a game with 10 men.

The qualities shown by a team that were pushing for the play-off's are not that of team that will be struggling with relegation.

A ruined season........ Yes. Relegation.........No.

 

No fault of our own?

[fraggle]

Looking back at the relegated clubs since 2004, 47 points seems like almost certain safety other than 05/06 when Oxford were relegated with 49 points...

 

Lincoln went down with 47 last season but the goal diff was -36!

 

We'll be fine if we continue with today's evdevour...