Three to Four more wins

[dontCallMeOwlCallYou]

1 minute ago, Gresh said:

Agree, we had injuries to key players at crucial times but the depth of our squad should have been good enough.  Yes, will definitely be harder next season with the relegated teams hoping to bounce straight back up and Norwich and Villa looking to make amends this season.

Very true think we missed a great chance this season's and had the squad to take it to the next level even with the injuries. But if Hooper had played all season for example I still think we would be up now. 

[dc88]

47 minutes ago, Southie_Owl said:

Personally I don't feel sheffield wednesday will ever be able to qualify through the playoffs of this league as we are an unlucky side. So the top two is the only way we'll do it 

 

please evidence this theory

[Road Runner]

42 minutes ago, Gresh said:

but I wonder whether if we had finished 5th instead of 4th and played the first leg at home (ala Brighton last season) that we would have been more positive in the first leg and won at home and blanked Huddersfield out in the second leg away. 

 

 

 

We would still have played for a point even if we were at home the first leg. 

[Flat Owl]

Statto.com is not working but it would be interesting to see whether the points per game by the 2015-16 team from the game after the Burnley away is in fact better or comparable with the whole of 2016-17.

I suspect it's a lot closer than folk believe and therefore not substantively better?

Yes we have more points this year but CC only had the side he wanted after game 11 last year.

[Southie_Owl]

2 minutes ago, dc88 said:

 

please evidence this theory

 

Not a theory it's just how I feel. The playoffs are always a 1 in 4 lottery and you can't plan to win the playoffs. You get your most influential player like Hooper injured before the game and then your best winger injured 2 minutes in and you are in trouble. Brighton had the same thing last season. 

 

We won the playoffs in league 1 but I would say that is because we are superior club to those in that league. But in the championship it's always going to be tough as we're on more of an equal footing with our competitors. Anyway, just my own views and I'm a negative b*stard

[torres]

7 minutes ago, A12owl said:

There are a lot of criticism of Loovens for being slow. If a player can read a game then he will be in the right place at the right time. Many top class CB are not blessed with great pace. As a matter of interest how many games have we lost when  loovens has played against how many have we won. With Lees and Sasso alongside perhaps they give the pace needed. Its positioning thats important as well as pace for defenders. Agreed in the not too distant future Loovens will need to be replaced. 

 

It's Loovens slowness of play that annoys rather than his lack of speed 

 

Overall though I think he's had a good season 

[Gresh]

5 minutes ago, tuttuttut said:

 

 

 

We would still have played for a point even if we were at home the first leg. 

I'm not sure about that.  I think we would have been more positive in the first leg if we had played at home and then tried to protect a lead in the second leg away.

[Tamworthowl]

7 minutes ago, Flat Owl said:

Statto.com is not working but it would be interesting to see whether the points per game by the 2015-16 team from the game after the Burnley away is in fact better or comparable with the whole of 2016-17.

I suspect it's a lot closer than folk believe and therefore not substantively better?

Yes we have more points this year but CC only had the side he wanted after game 11 last year.

 

If you discount the poor start last season, for whatever reason, you should also discount this season's poor start which was disrupted for reasons well outside Carlos' control.

[Gresh]

11 minutes ago, torres said:

 

It's Loovens slowness of play that annoys rather than his lack of speed 

 

Overall though I think he's had a good season 

Someone who is good at stats can probably confirm it but I think we won more games with Loovens in the side than when he wasn't in the side.

[Flat Owl]

3 minutes ago, Tamworthowl said:

 

If you discount the poor start last season, for whatever reason, you should also discount this season's poor start which was disrupted for reasons well outside Carlos' control.

 

In CC's first season he didn't have 'his team' in the building until after the first international break, they had not had a pre-season together.

2016-17 he had everything in place and a full pre season.

The loss of Fletcher who hadn't played last year  and FFs distraction for a game or two are not the equivalent of not having the heartbeat of the team in place IMO.

[Tamworthowl]

1 minute ago, Flat Owl said:

 

In CC's first season he didn't have 'his team' in the building until after the first international break, they had not had a pre-season together.

2016-17 he had everything in place and a full pre season.

The loss of Fletcher who hadn't played last year  and FFs distraction for a game or two are not the equivalent of not having the heartbeat of the team in place IMO.

 

Fair enough, but I think you greatly underestimate the duration of the negative impact that FF's distraction caused.

[torres]

11 minutes ago, Gresh said:

Someone who is good at stats can probably confirm it but I think we won more games with Loovens in the side than when he wasn't in the side.

Without knowing the stats and almost contrary to what I said, I think we are a better team with him in it 

[the third man]

We didn't need those extra wins to have a chance of going up this season, we had to play attacking football in the last two matches, that would have given us a great chance of going up, a one off match against Reading, not a team like Hull last season, Reading

 

no matter who we sign will CC play them?

 

we all knew what players we have needed, maybe we already had them but they couldn't even make the subs bench, while others that could contribute very little on the pitch did.

 

so if we had an attacking minded manager for the whole season, not just a few matches because at least one of the favourite few was injured, we would have had a great chance of going up this season, in the top two or by the play offs

[Gresh]

For whatever reason we didn't start either of the last two campaigns very well.  I think this is something that we need to address and may add weight to keeping CC for next season.

[Owls2k]

The farcical collapse at Brighton proved to me that we are not mentally strong enough for a top 2 challenge, Tom Lees said something similar after the match. 

 

Whenever we've got close to the top 2 in the last 2 season we lose.

[saf]

1 hour ago, Warringtonowl said:

We need to beat burton albion, thats for sure. No disrespect but not winning the games we were expected to win cost us this season as it did the previous one. 

 

Quite simply need to start taking chances. From a stats point of view we have created bucket loads across the season. Time to start putting teams away. 

This. There are several home games where we dropped points. 

Burton- they defended well but we had chances

Reading- Al Habsi had a stormer

Brentford- should have won

Ipswich- Leading with 10 mins to go.

That's an extra 10 points.

Then Brighton and Leeds away - two penalties that could have added another 2-6 points.

[Gresh]

5 minutes ago, the third man said:

We didn't need those extra wins to have a chance of going up this season, we had to play attacking football in the last two matches, that would have given us a great chance of going up, a one off match against Reading, not a team like Hull last season, Reading

 

no matter who we sign will CC play them?

 

we all knew what players we have needed, maybe we already had them but they couldn't even make the subs bench, while others that could contribute very little on the pitch did.

 

so if we had an attacking minded manager for the whole season, not just a few matches because at least one of the favourite few was injured, we would have had a great chance of going up this season, in the top two or by the play offs

But if we had won 4 more games and one of those was against Brighton then we would have been promoted automatically.

 

In CC's first season we were more attacking and played attractive football but this cost us in some games and we scraped into 6th spot.  This season we were more compact and didn't play an attacking game style, which yielded more points.  You could argue that games that we lost previously against lower teams we didn't do this season.  Maybe we need to mix it up a bit more to get those extra 4 wins that we need.

[SiJ]

7 minutes ago, Owls2k said:

The farcical collapse at Brighton proved to me that we are not mentally strong enough for a top 2 challenge, Tom Lees said something similar after the match. 

 

Whenever we've got close to the top 2 in the last 2 season we lose.

Yep. 

 

We had two, three opportunities to kick on this season and challenge for automatic and came up short every time. 

 

It's strange as the players showed how mentally tough they can be by going on a 6 game winning streak, which at any level is pretty impressive...

 

But then you could see some of that mental fragility come back in the play offs. 

 

We didn't play with any real confidence or great attacking intent. Instead we were hoping to get a goal and sneak through. I think that in turn gave Huddersfield confidence. They'd been on a so-so run prior to the play offs, but then we rocked up at their place and asked no questions of them, aside from showing up their inability to score goals. Fast forward to Wednesday and we take the lead...but instead of going for the jugular we opted to defend again. I honestly think if we'd have turned the screw at that point we'd have likely got the second and wrapped the tie up. 

 

Joys of hindsight...

[twolaptops]

Reading Huddersfield Fulham as play off opponents this year..............potential next season Derby Norwich Leeds Villa Sunderland Boro............big chance missed.

[Gresh]

2 minutes ago, twolaptops said:

Reading Huddersfield Fulham as play off opponents this year..............potential next season Derby Norwich Leeds Villa Sunderland Boro............big chance missed.

It doesn't get any easier that's for sure.