MATCHWATCH : Birmingham City (a)

[Snowflake Royal]

Weren't Millwall in the auto spots in December one year and got relegated?

Must be closer to 20 years ago now tho.

[Ascotexgunner]

Weren't Millwall in the auto spots in December one year and got relegated?

Must be closer to 20 years ago now tho.

Yep....incredibly bizarre. They signed 2 top russians somehow.....Sergei Yuran and Vasili Kulkov both were sought after by top PL clubs and had played in the CL for Spartak Moscow.....both landed a 6 month deal at Millwall who then went on an unbelievable losing streak and got relegated. Kulkov I think passed away with cancer recently.

[Sutekh]

Weren't Millwall in the auto spots in December one year and got relegated?

Must be closer to 20 years ago now tho.

Yep....incredibly bizarre. They signed 2 top russians somehow.....Sergei Yuran and Vasili Kulkov both were sought after by top PL clubs and had played in the CL for Spartak Moscow.....both landed a 6 month deal at Millwall who then went on an unbelievable losing streak and got relegated. Kulkov I think passed away with cancer recently.

Millwall were top of the table after 24 games in 1995/96. On the 9th December they went to Sunderland to play game 25 and were stuffed 6-0 after which they plummeted down the table, collecting just 18 points from the remaining 22 games. They eventually finished in 22nd place on 52 points (so another tight close season like this table wise) going down on goal difference from Portsmouth (-20 v -8).

The Russians didn’t work out, Kulkov played just 6 games on loan from Spartak Moscow “never really looking the part” according to some supporters and Yuran scored just once in 13 after joining permanently in January and left in the summer for Fortuna Düsseldorf.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

11th place, 10 wins and 32 points at half way is way better than I guess anyone predicted at the start of the season...we are only 2 points off the top 6.

Yet there is still this fear of relegation on this forum, including me.

Is this because of what Ince continually says in the pressers?

I can only recall one side in the past 15 seasons going bad and getting relegated from where we are...Millwall I think, can't even remember when it was

Hull City from a couple of years ago, 8th in January and subsequently finished bottom of the league?

Game number 26 they won and were sitting 8th in the table, they went on to win 1 of their remaining 20 games (collecting just 6 points in the process) and finished bottom of the league.

Although a lot of that had to do with losing key players Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki without replacing them, however.

[Snowflake Royal]

11th place, 10 wins and 32 points at half way is way better than I guess anyone predicted at the start of the season...we are only 2 points off the top 6.

Yet there is still this fear of relegation on this forum, including me.

Is this because of what Ince continually says in the pressers?

I can only recall one side in the past 15 seasons going bad and getting relegated from where we are...Millwall I think, can't even remember when it was

Hull City from a couple of years ago, 8th in January and subsequently finished bottom of the league?

Game number 26 they won and were sitting 8th in the table, they went on to win 1 of their remaining 20 games (collecting just 6 points in the process) and finished bottom of the league.

Although a lot of that had to do with losing key players Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki without replacing them, however.

Weren't Blackpool top after about 10 games a few years back and got relegated? Obviously much less of the season gone to plummet there.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

11th place, 10 wins and 32 points at half way is way better than I guess anyone predicted at the start of the season...we are only 2 points off the top 6.

Yet there is still this fear of relegation on this forum, including me.

Is this because of what Ince continually says in the pressers?

I can only recall one side in the past 15 seasons going bad and getting relegated from where we are...Millwall I think, can't even remember when it was

Hull City from a couple of years ago, 8th in January and subsequently finished bottom of the league?

Game number 26 they won and were sitting 8th in the table, they went on to win 1 of their remaining 20 games (collecting just 6 points in the process) and finished bottom of the league.

Although a lot of that had to do with losing key players Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki without replacing them, however.

Weren't Blackpool top after about 10 games a few years back and got relegated? Obviously much less of the season gone to plummet there.

Possibly although not sure what season as the last time I remember them in the Championship prior to these last couple of seasons was when they were in a mess with the Oyston's and dropped down a few divisions. That may have been the season, although seem to remember them perpetually being in the drop zone that season.

[Royal_jimmy]

I also remember Bolton starting really well the year they dropped and were 12 points clear of the bottom 3 after 10 games and went down.

This is why as fans we can only take one game at a time

[Royal_jimmy]

I also remember Bolton starting really well the year they dropped and were 12 points clear of the bottom 3 after 10 games and went down.

This is why as fans we can only take one game at a time

[Snowflake Royal]

And why people frustrated that we're all still cautiously looking down should check themselves before getting upset.

It's far from impossible we could drop, even if its increasingly unlikely.

Lose 8 games in a row again and we're in real trouble quite quickly.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

And why people frustrated that we're all still cautiously looking down should check themselves before getting upset.

It's far from impossible we could drop, even if its increasingly unlikely.

Lose 8 games in a row again and we're in real trouble quite quickly.

It's strange how the league this year leaves us at a bit of double-edged sword in a way. The league is pretty close, so a not unreasonable bad spell of form (say no wins in 6/7 games) can potentially put you in a lot of danger, but because there are still so many teams between us and the drop zone, you don't end up moving that far down the table because teams are taking points off each other.

Providing we don't have a sustained spell (and by that I mean a dozen games+) where we are only collecting say 0.9 points per game, then we should be ok.

[tidus_mi2]

I remember a few seasons back Charlton had a great start to the season including beating us at the Madejski that put them 2nd, I made a comment at the time that they didn't look special and were quite fortunate that got picked up on their forum, they were relegated in 22nd place.

The slide for them started very early though, for comparison, after 23 games they were already 18th.

[Sutekh]

I remember a few seasons back Charlton had a great start to the season including beating us at the Madejski that put them 2nd, I made a comment at the time that they didn't look special and were quite fortunate that got picked up on their forum, they were relegated in 22nd place.

The slide for them started very early though, for comparison, after 23 games they were already 18th.

Yes, they went on the slide pretty much straight after they’d won at the Mad Stad.

[RoyalBlue]

We are but really have to expect better than those errors. Mbengue is obvs young and inexperienced but 3 errors of that magnitude- we’re a lot better than that

It’s just 3 massive individual errors.

2 awful Brum passes ended in goals for them which is incredibly disappointing

We do have to keep on reminding ourselves that survival this season is everything.
I get a bit fed up with reading about "individual errors" from posters and managers.
When it happens so often it is really that the players are just crap defenders.

The other thing about "playing well".
You can look as though you are "playing well" if the other side sits back and defends a 3 goal lead (it might have been 5 with the Chong and Deeney chances in the second half but in fairness we might have scored 2 with less clear cut chances in the first).

Football is mainly about creating chances and scoring goals-obviously if you don't do that the best that can be hoped for is a 0-0 and if you draw every game you are likely to get relegated.
We heard it about England the other night that they played well-they scored one goal from a penalty and made about 3 other chances.

Our team just does not make enough chances and defensively we are erratic.
The players are all so-so apart from Ince and after a win (when we didn't "play well") last week our expectations once again rise.

We can comment on each game on here which releases some of our frustration which is natural but I come back to Zip's point that whatever personnel we put out they are a bang average lot who need to be on top of their game to get points.
Survive this season and we can then really hope for better IF the manager can bring in players of a better standard rather than a few inexperienced hopefuls and ageing injury-prone seniors that we have this season.

Yes , people can argue whether it should be Long/Carroll up front or any other combination but overall IMHO Ince, both senior and junior, are doing ok for now.

I wouldn't even say any of those goals were just an individual error. They were general poor play amongst multiple players with some individual errors too.

Mbengue's is the closest and at his age you shrug your shoulders at one of those. It happens.

At what age should defenders (or indeed players in any position) learn not to kneel down and do up their boot laces at the point the opposition are about to take a free kick in the attacking half?

[Hendo]

I remember a few seasons back Charlton had a great start to the season including beating us at the Madejski that put them 2nd, I made a comment at the time that they didn't look special and were quite fortunate that got picked up on their forum, they were relegated in 22nd place.

The slide for them started very early though, for comparison, after 23 games they were already 18th.

Yes, they went on the slide pretty much straight after they’d won at the Mad Stad.

Was that the day Lyle Taylor scored a pen and give it the biggun.

[Snowflake Royal]

We do have to keep on reminding ourselves that survival this season is everything.
I get a bit fed up with reading about "individual errors" from posters and managers.
When it happens so often it is really that the players are just crap defenders.

The other thing about "playing well".
You can look as though you are "playing well" if the other side sits back and defends a 3 goal lead (it might have been 5 with the Chong and Deeney chances in the second half but in fairness we might have scored 2 with less clear cut chances in the first).

Football is mainly about creating chances and scoring goals-obviously if you don't do that the best that can be hoped for is a 0-0 and if you draw every game you are likely to get relegated.
We heard it about England the other night that they played well-they scored one goal from a penalty and made about 3 other chances.

Our team just does not make enough chances and defensively we are erratic.
The players are all so-so apart from Ince and after a win (when we didn't "play well") last week our expectations once again rise.

We can comment on each game on here which releases some of our frustration which is natural but I come back to Zip's point that whatever personnel we put out they are a bang average lot who need to be on top of their game to get points.
Survive this season and we can then really hope for better IF the manager can bring in players of a better standard rather than a few inexperienced hopefuls and ageing injury-prone seniors that we have this season.

Yes , people can argue whether it should be Long/Carroll up front or any other combination but overall IMHO Ince, both senior and junior, are doing ok for now.

I wouldn't even say any of those goals were just an individual error. They were general poor play amongst multiple players with some individual errors too.

Mbengue's is the closest and at his age you shrug your shoulders at one of those. It happens.

At what age should defenders (or indeed players in any position) learn not to kneel down and do up their boot laces at the point the opposition are about to take a free kick in the attacking half?

I'll go with ~15 on that one. Although there's an argument for doing nothing about your laces coming undone in the same situation being similarly risky as kneeling to take the time to do them up properly.

[Vision]

I remember a few seasons back Charlton had a great start to the season including beating us at the Madejski that put them 2nd, I made a comment at the time that they didn't look special and were quite fortunate that got picked up on their forum, they were relegated in 22nd place.

The slide for them started very early though, for comparison, after 23 games they were already 18th.

Yes, they went on the slide pretty much straight after they’d won at the Mad Stad.

Was that the day Lyle Taylor scored a pen and give it the biggun.

As I recall the thing that truly oxf*rd them though was a young Conor Gallagher being recalled by Chelsea in January.

[stealthpapes]

Weren't Millwall in the auto spots in December one year and got relegated?

Must be closer to 20 years ago now tho.

Yep....incredibly bizarre. They signed 2 top russians somehow.....Sergei Yuran and Vasili Kulkov both were sought after by top PL clubs and had played in the CL for Spartak Moscow.....both landed a 6 month deal at Millwall who then went on an unbelievable losing streak and got relegated. Kulkov I think passed away with cancer recently.

Millwall were top of the table after 24 games in 1995/96. On the 9th December they went to Sunderland to play game 25 and were stuffed 6-0 after which they plummeted down the table, collecting just 18 points from the remaining 22 games. They eventually finished in 22nd place on 52 points (so another tight close season like this table wise) going down on goal difference from Portsmouth (-20 v -8).

The Russians didn’t work out, Kulkov played just 6 games on loan from Spartak Moscow “never really looking the part” according to some supporters and Yuran scored just once in 13 after joining permanently in January and left in the summer for Fortuna Düsseldorf.

The big thing that did Millwall was probably Mick McCarthy leaving to manage Eire. The playoff at Anfield that saw Charlton resign/retire was mid-December 1995.

Anyway, for us, now, it really is about grinding out wins. We could surprise on the upside, we've already tolerated one rather drastic slump (after norwich, we played 9 games for 10 points, over approximately a month ), I'm not sure the table nor the squad could easily tolerate another.

[Sutekh]

Yep....incredibly bizarre. They signed 2 top russians somehow.....Sergei Yuran and Vasili Kulkov both were sought after by top PL clubs and had played in the CL for Spartak Moscow.....both landed a 6 month deal at Millwall who then went on an unbelievable losing streak and got relegated. Kulkov I think passed away with cancer recently.

Millwall were top of the table after 24 games in 1995/96. On the 9th December they went to Sunderland to play game 25 and were stuffed 6-0 after which they plummeted down the table, collecting just 18 points from the remaining 22 games. They eventually finished in 22nd place on 52 points (so another tight close season like this table wise) going down on goal difference from Portsmouth (-20 v -8).

The Russians didn’t work out, Kulkov played just 6 games on loan from Spartak Moscow “never really looking the part” according to some supporters and Yuran scored just once in 13 after joining permanently in January and left in the summer for Fortuna Düsseldorf.

The big thing that did Millwall was probably Mick McCarthy leaving to manage Eire. The playoff at Anfield that saw Charlton resign/retire was mid-December 1995.

Anyway, for us, now, it really is about grinding out wins. We could surprise on the upside, we've already tolerated one rather drastic slump (after norwich, we played 9 games for 10 points, over approximately a month ), I'm not sure the table nor the squad could easily tolerate another.

Millwall’s slide was already in full effect when Jimmy Nichol replaced Mick McCarthy after the latter’s resignation in Feb 96.