The Big If They Do That & We Do This Blog

With just five games to go & the Easter weekend almost over, I would suggest It's time to take a look at who is in the mix at the bottom of the table & take a look at what we can hope/expect to see.

Lets start with the bottom two Doncaster & Portsmouth. They are both already relegated in all but name, sorry but they are. Job done, lets move on.

If we take a quick look at the three teams directly above Forest we have Millwall, Barnsley & Peterborough. The latter two are probably already safe being 7 & 8 points clear of relegation respectively & with Bristol City & Coventry playing each other on Monday it would take automatic promotion form for the losing side in that fixture to overtake them. Millwall aren't quite so certain of safety yet but being 5 points clear at the moment they probably only need one more win to be assured of safety. They should pick that up with three of their remaining 5 games being away at Portsmouth, Ipswich, & Coventry.

So, one final relegation place left realistically & 3 teams fighting to avoid it.

Lets start with the team with most to do.

Coventry currently on 39 pts

Remaining fixtures: Bristol city (A), Birmingham (A), Millwall (H), Doncaster (H) & Southampton (A)

There are obviously two very tough fixtures in there & you would expect a return of zero points from the Brum & Southampton away games. A 4 - 6 point haul from the two home fixtures seems more than plausible as their home form isn't actually too bad (it's their single away win that has seen them down at the bottom). I'll leave the Bristol City game for the next set of fixtures we'll look at.



Bristol City currently on 40pts

Remaining fixtures: Coventry (H), Birmingham (A), West Ham (H), Barnsley (H) & Burnley (A).

Again there are two very tough games in there having to face Birmingham and West Ham & you would say a return of zero points from those is the only sensible prediction while similarly to Coventry there are also two fixtures that could quite plausibly see a return of between 4 and 6 points as I see the home tie v Barnsley as perfectly winnable & the final day fixture away at Burnley would depend very much on whether the Burnley heads are on the pitch or the beech, I suspect the latter.

So that leaves the Bristol City v Coventry City fixture. Having seen both teams at the City Ground recently, I would have to say that despite Forest losing to the Robins & beating the Sky Blues, that Cov were the better side, Bristol City were truly woeful, possibly the worst team I've seen this season. When All said & done, when you look at the recent form, home advantage & team confidence though, I can only come up with a home win. This would give Bristol City 9 points & Coventry 6 by the end of the season.

From there, the maths are simple. Forest are 4 points clear of Coventry at the moment, the teams below picking up 9 (Bristol) & 6 (Coventry) points would leave Forest needing just 3 points for safety.


Nottingham Forest currently on 43 pts

Remaining Fixtures: Peterborough (A), Blackpool (H), Reading (A), Hull (A) & Portsmouth (H)

Again, there are two very tough fixtures in there & you would expect given the form guide & relative positions of the teams, the Blackpool & Reading games look like defeats. Peterborough looks winnable but a draw more likely & so the away fixture at Hull probably offers our best chance of three points ahead of a final day show down with Pompey. Hull have lost all of the last 5 games including defeats to Coventry, Millwall & Portsmouth. It seems the Tigers have given up on their season well in advance of everyone else.

That would have give us the points we need to secure safety by my predictions ahead of our 46th league game at home to Portsmouth. I sincerely hope we have secured safety by then because this game worries me immensely. They will be relegated by then & they could be in the position of knowing had it not been for the 10 point deduction they would have been safe & like the wounded beast that knows it's time has come I expect them to take one final nasty bite. If they 'could' send us down with a win, I expect them to give just a little more to the cause & try to take us down with them.

My final league table for the bottom 5

20: Bristol City 49
21: Forest 47
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22: Coventry City 45
23: Portsmouth 41
24: Doncaster 36


Far closer than we'd all like, but I think we'll survive by a single point

We Wont Get A Better Chance Than This

As we head into Easter schedule of games, we face a double header against two other bottom half teams, one of which hasn't won at the City Ground in a league game in my life time & an away fixture against a team that has only ever beaten us once, although that was this season.

Bristol City Preview 

The opening Easter fixture sees us take on Bristol City at home, not only a team that hasn't beaten us in any league fixture since 1974 & has failed to take 3 points at the City Ground since 1955 but is also the team we beat 3 - 2 in April 2009 with THAT Dexter Blackstock winner which gave us all hope to staying up that season. The only Bristol City success against us in my lifetime came in the dark days of League one with a penalty shoot out win in the Johnston's Paint Pot, but as it was a draw after 90 minutes & I've deleted that competition from my memory I've decided not to include it (Yes I can!)
 
City haven't won away from home this year, including an FA Cup defeat to league 2 Crawley. They have only scored 1 goal away from home this year & picked up just 2 points on the road in 2012. Forest haven't won back to back games often this season (just twice) & we won't get a better chance than this to do it again.

In 65 league games between the two teams, Forest have a astounding record of 28 wins & 24 draws with Bristol recording just 13 victories. Forest have also outscored Bristol comfortably by 102 goals to 68.
 


 

Peterborough United Preview

  

We follow up that game with an away fixture at Peterborough, a place we haven't played at very often, but also one we have fond memories of & have won each league visit.
 
This one is a very different prospect though, where Bristol are struggling for goals, it's the one thing you're guaranteed at The Posh, they don't draw many at home (won 10 & lost 8) and Peterborough games this season have seen 124 goals in total. Add to that they haven't been involved in a goalless draw all season (how about that for the kiss of death) & you have a great chance of taking points, especially when you consider IF Forest take the points from Bristol City the Posh could well be safe.
 
This is only the 5th league meeting between the two with Forest winning 4 & Peterborough taking the odd win, Forest have also scored eight of the 12 goals this fixture has produced
 

The Future

What we're faced with here, is the potential for the Easter period to leave us all with a very loud, pronounced & sincere sigh of relief. We could, by 16:50 on Monday afternoon be waving goodbye to the season from hell, when anything that could go wrong did, we could exit this season no worse off as a football club.
 
Should we pull it off & should the take over rumours be true, we could be beckoning forward the 2012/13 season with a new found optimism.