We’re at the crossroads stage of the season with the games leading up to Christmas likely to determine whether we will be in a relegation struggle or not.

Parallels can be drawn with last season when we fell away mid season and never recovered until Roy returned.
Its worth noting that the players featuring now are more or less the same under Vieira other than minus Zaha/Guiata and plus Lerma.

Vieira lost his nerve and we were not even having efforts on target, let alone scoring goals.
In contrast , Roy is an experienced manager with confidence in his methods and I don’t expect him to panic.

However, it will be interesting to observe in the next tranche of games which Roy we see - the negative Roy at the end of his last tenure or the positive one who took the handbrake off when he returned last season.

Ultimately the only important statistic will be the collection of points and in this I don’t envy him as I can’t see where our goals will come from.
Play ultra defensively and you can still be undone with an 86th minute winner.
Play a bit more on the front foot and if you concede early , then the heads drop.
On the other hand draws here and there are not enough and you accrue points more quickly with wins.
We could do with some luck and for Eze’s injury to be minor.
If the poor results continue our confidence will continue to erode as we observed last season.

Funny how so many people are getting misty eyed about missing Zaha when there were plenty on here also that wanted him gone !

If you agree that we had three ' game changers ' last season in him, Eze and Olise, this season we have been largely reduced to just one. So the opportunity for Hodgson to play more front footed football is limited.

I think he has little option but to play pragmatically at the moment if we are again just reduced to one. Hopefully Eze's injury isn't too bad.

Old, Ungifted and White

Don't give Dougie ideas for the January window

Living down here does have some advantages. At least you can see them cry.

My prediction, which isn't worth much, is:

This will be a tough run and we'll slip down the table albeit probably not relegation zone.

After January, the league will start to take a bit more shape, we'll pick up slightly and be somewhere around 15th, still full of anxiety but dropping somewhat out of any relegation 'chat'.

Closer to summer, the bottom three will be near nailed on with perhaps a couple other contenders, and we'll be slightly above whatever that looks like.

Once we're statistically safe, we might nab a couple more wins and finish 12-14th.

So I'm expecting more of the same really. There's always a chance we may do far better but also far worse. January might see a panic buy, loan or two but not much unless we sell somebody, early enough, for 'big' money.

Beyond that, we all know what we'd like to see and not see, but 'f' knows!

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

A 'snap' from me, I'm expecting/predicting something like this.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

I don’t see what the panic from some is all about. They should know how we roll by now, bad spell, good spell, bad spell, good spell. We have a good little run and everyone’s talking about Europe. We have a bad run and suddenly Parish has no ambition and we’re heading for the trap door. We could well beat the spammers and Bournemouth and suddenly everyone’s in love with their club and Roys the messiah again.