Unlucky Thirteen.

Well folks, with thirteen games to go it's looking like muck or nettles for the remainder of the season.

We are currently in the bottom three with just 20 points. Last season 40 points was enough for survival.

Realistically, where are the next 20 points going to come from ?

Here is a hypothetical breakdown of how we just might get to the magic 40.

1) Chelsea away. They are not firing on all cylinders at the moment and can't keep a clean sheet. A draw is not beyond us. 1 point.

2) Man City away. A home win for high flying City. 0 points.

3) QPR home. A must win for us. 3 points.

4) Aston Villa away. A score draw ? 1 point.

5) Blackburn home. Another 6 pointer and a must win game. 3 pts.

6) Wolves away. Wolves will be up for this one. I see us losing by one goal. 0 points.

7) Fulham home. We can win this one and we need to. 3 points.

Newcastle away. Best we can hope for is a point. 1 point.

9) Tottenham home. Spurs are pushing for 4th spot. It's time for us to bring them down a peg or two. Draw. 1 point.

10) Swansea home. The Swans may have dropped into the bottom six at this point so a draw is the likely result. 1 point.

11) Sunderland away. The Mackems will be too strong for us under O'Neill's leadership. 0 points.

12) West Brom home. Woys Boys will be safe by now so it's a home win. 3 points.

13) Stoke away. What a finale to round off the season but Stokes long season will have taken its toll. 3 points.

And there you have the 20 points we need. If only it was so simple!

The trouble is we don't have the fight for those 6 pointer home games.

A change now and we'd have a chance, but Coyle is clearly driving us all the way to the Championship.

Oh shut up you fool. A lot of those games are winnable and Owen will make sure we do. I don't doubt it will be tight, but we will stay up.

In the Summer the dead wood will be released and with Holden, Lee and a handful of young signings we will be top 8 contenders.

Keep the faith.

I just did a little tally and managed to get us 6 points.

Is that enough to keep us up?

It's taken us 25 games to get 20 points - I can't see us getting the next 20 in just 13 games - not whilst Coyle thinks planning for games and using tactics are not important!

I think the team finishing 17th may not require 40 points this season but I guess that is immaterial if Coyle keeps playing 4-4-2 with Knight and Kevin Davies in the side and Muamba out of it!

I really hope Coyle has learned his lesson after the Wigan humiliation - but somehow I don't think he has - do you?

Realistically, it doesn't seem possible. Of our six remaining home games I have got us down as winning four and drawing two.

Away from home I have us winning one, drawing three and losing three. It's highly unlikely that my predictions will come to fruition but in order to survive, this is the form we will have to produce.

I don't think we will need 40 points to survive but I am not confident that we will get whatever number it takes. Coyle is just too tactically stupid to give me any confidence. I just hope I am wrong because I really do believe that if we drop out of the Prem we aren't coming back for a long time.

From the last 13 I have us picking up 6-9 points.

If we only have 13 games left to save our season then I can't see it happening, Coyle isn't going to change to a tactical genius over night is he.

You don't normally spend most of the season in the bottom 3 and live to tell the tale.

You can pretty much write off our chances of getting points in the next two games, so that leaves us needing probably between 17-20 points from our last 11, to even have a chance of survival.

I don't know who QPR, Wolves and Rovers have in the next 2 games but we could be in serious shit come 10th march before we face QPR.

Wolves have two away games at Newcastle and Fulham

Blackburn play City away and Villa at Home

QPR play Fulham and Everton both at home.

Wigan play Villa and Swansea at home.

Think looking at them fixtures the best case scenario is we will be bottom but only 4 points from safety.

QPR will win both of their games.

Just a quick prediction on the bottom 5 next 2 fixtures: -

16th QPR - 6 points (27 points)
17th Blackburn - 3 points (24 points)
18th Wigan - 4 points (23 points)
19th Wolves - 1 point (22 points)
20th Bolton - nill points (20 points)

The chances of us staying up are extremely slim.

True, especially with our leading goalscorer being on the bench every week.

Yes, he gives us goals but unfortunately his work rate is abysmal. It's better to have Ngog who at least chases the lost causes punted over his head 4000 times a game.

True, I think Klasnic would be more affective in a 4-5-1 if we kept it on the floor but that seems to be like asking someone to walk to the moon and back in half hour these days.

I'll grant you N'gog has good work rate but sadly I can't see that being enough to keep us up.

Well you sacrifice one thing for the other, Klasnic hurts in some ways, Ngog in others.

It's not as if Ngog has been missing chances galore, i honestly can't think of any "sitters" he's missed.

most of his chances he creates himself, or with snap shots.

It's very rare we create clear cut chances in any game to be honest, we apparantly have one of the best shots on target percentage in the league, but if you look at how many shots in one game we have its amazing we are not 20th now.

Somehow Wigan create less than us per game.

After Davies and Robinson, the name I least like to see on the teamsheet is Klasnic. Off the ball he is shocking. On the ball, he isn't much better unless he's in front of goal in which case he just instinctively whacks it and there's a decent chance it will go in.
People underestimate the damage his being in the side can do to the defensive side of our game, and ultimately results. Not that he can't have an excellent effect if he's used in the right way.