Looking back over the season I just wanted to put down in print the games where I feel it all went wrong! Pointless exercie I know at this stage of the game but I cannot believe we missed the PO's whilst the likes of Palace, Hull and Bristol City all got in there.
I feel we dropped at least 15 points over the season which would have seen us well into the PO's and even challenging for automatic promotion....
1] Scuthorpe (H) 1-1: Marcus Bent loses their huge centre-half from a corner and we lose a 1-0 lead against a relegation bound team. Two points dropped.
2] Coventry (A) 1-1: Bossed the game and should have been home and dry by the time they equalised. Iwelumo then missed the easiest of headers from Reid's cross in the last-minute which would have guaranteed 3 points. Two points dropped.
3] Barnsley (H) 1-1: ZZ gives us the lead in the last 10 minutes only for a weak defensive header to gift them a last-minute equaliser. Two points dropped.
4] QPR (H) 0-1: Bottom of the table opposition gifted a soft goal in a terrible game. A point dropped.
5] Colchester (H) 1-2: An unbelievably inept start saw us gift the bottom of the table side a two goal lead which we could not claw back from. Three points dropped.
6] Watford (A) 1-1: Dominated the game against the long-ball merchants only to gift them the lead. Equalised and then missed several great chances - especially from ZZ - to win the game. Two points dropped.
7] Scunthorpe (A) 0-1: Crap game from which we should have got at least a point but a poor clearance gifted them the winner. A point dropped.
8] Watford (H) 2-2: Two nil up after 30 minutes and we threw it away. Two points dropped.
9] Wolves (H) 2-3: Only Charlton could equalise in injury time and still bloody lose. A point dropped.
Discuss....
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Next year we have to grind out results against the weaker teams come what may, be a bit more ruthless.
Here's to next season and that everyone learns from the season that's just gone.
Very good point, thank God we kept Reidy for as long as we did.....
Hopefully Pardew will have learned from this and with more consistency next time we will be promoted as the gap is very small. More days like yesterday will bring us nearer promotion.
Bring on August.
1) Southampton (A) 1-0. last minute goal gets us 3 points when down to 10 men for 60 mins - easily could have lost 1-0. 3 ponis gained
2) Bristol City (A) 1-0. last minute goal gives us 3 points when could have been 0-0. 2 points gained.
30 Leicester (A) 1-1. last minute goal gives us a poinr - on another day we could have lost 1.-0 . 1 point gained.
need I go on ? If we had finished with 6 points less than we had we could have been looking over our shoulders come the last few weeks of the season. No point in "what-ifs" or "could haves" What's done is done. time to look forward to a new season with a clean slate. good luck to palace and the other 3 teams in thr play-offs. they got the points over a 46 game season - we didn't 'caus ewe wern't good enough. just hope we arn't saying the same thing this time next year.
However, I think its also fair to say that the Southampton and Bristol City wins were both gained from top-class late winners and the game at Leicester would have been a very harsh loss.
The broader point is that many of the dropped points I have outlined occurred when sloppy individual mistakes cost us goals and points.
Sorry, I give them respect for who they are etc but we should be winning those games no matter how hard they "battle". 10 points would have seen us in fourth.