Only The Three Bottom Teams Have Lost More Games Than NUFC

Getting the win on Saturday against Brighton brought an all round sigh of relief, especially to Eddie Howe and us fans. But let's not avoid the facts.

With three games to go before the end of the season we have already lost 16 games - and only the teams currently occupying the relegation spots have lost more than NUFC.

The same weakness as last season

Regular blog readers - and certainly my big mate The Mighty Wyn - may/will recall that at the end of last season my opinion after we lost 12 games was that it was highly unlikely we could lose that many again and qualify for the CL.

Despite CL qualification and a cup win, we lost nearly 1 in 3 games in the PL.

20 wins was excellent, but our draws were a meagre 6 with only one team, Spurs, recording less. Champions Liverpool recorded 9 draws and Arsenal - who matched our win total of 20 - had 14 draws and just 4 defeats.

My opinion was that to qualify for the CL this season - and even better to beat our 5th place finish - Eddie had to turn more defeats into draws.

Why did we have so few draws - and why has the same happened again this season with just 6 recorded so far?

My view remains unchanged from the end of last season...

Eddie's tactics, for whatever reason, don't produce draws especially away from home where a point is always a good point.

Compare our 16 defeats and 6 draws this season with these teams;

Bournemouth: 7 defeats and 16 draws

Brentford: 12 defeats and 9 draws

Brighton: 11 defeats and 11 draws

Chelsea: 9 defeats and 12 draws

Fulham: 6 defeats and 16 draws (wow!)

Everton: 8 defeats and 13 draws

Sunderland: 11 defeats and 12 draws

We have now lost 28 matches in our last 73 games - that's just shy of two defeats every five games.

Conclusion: we have become too easy to beat.

What is the answer?

I'm not going to try and analyse it in detail. (BPH may be better suited to that).

I'm going to make the answer simple.

Change the tactics especially away from home - change the attitude when leading with 10 minutes or less to play - have a good hard look at how players perform when we go behind - and another hard look at in game management and subs far earlier in matches.

Had I been in CEO Yasir's shoes at the Matfen Hall meeting this draw to loss ratio is one of the main questions I would've asked Eddie to explain, why he thinks it has persisted for the last two seasons, and what he intends to do to correct it for next season.

IMO our poor summer window is no excuse for 16 defeats this season.

And nor is a congested fixture list.

Only the three teams in a relegation position with more defeats is totally unacceptable for the squad Eddie has at his disposal.

He has the credit in the bank to be given the chance to put it right for the start of next season - but he has a helluva lot to think about, analyse, and plan to get it right.

IMO he cannot afford a bad start to next season.

If we are outside of the top eight after ten games PIF have a big decision to make.

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