Fixture Pile Up

[Wheeler Dealer]

The Chelsea team always looks the same to me and they seem to play 3 times a week so its do-able!

But they manage to win, which is the big difference

 

[Bobbins]

Dreading the Chelsea game, think we'll be lucky to get a couple of points from the Everton/Chelsea/Swansea set. Actually I'd be happy with that.

Love the Christmas period of games. Love it when there's football on all the time. My favourite is week night football, makes it feel like a Saturday afternoon on a Wednesday (midweek MotD, love it!), with the added drama of football under floodlights and in freezing/wet/snowy weather.

Great time of year if you love football in general, and we've not got much of an expectation for Spurs so the pressure's off a bit as far as the fans are concerned.

 

[Real_madyidd]

We should send the youth out against Chelsea and save the first team for these games.

I would love everyone to do that. Have Chelsea win the league in the most hollow manner of all time. Perfect for them.

 

[Mullers]

No concerns.
It's make or break time for everyone.
Those who can't handle it, ship them out in January.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

@talkshowhost86
FA rules state you have to field your strongest possible team.
Sad but true.

 

[Mr Pink]

Love this period to.

I think we might just turn a corner soon as well. Everton will be tough but it looks like they're fielding a strong side tomorrow tonight, and i think that will work in our favour.

Hopefully we'll edge what will be a tight game on Sunday. We're getting well beat at Chelsea though.

Swansea away will be tough to but we've always done pretty well against them. They play nice pretty stuff and we always fair better when teams arn;t trying to rough us up. That's an exciting looking game that could go either way.

No doubt we need to start winning games we should definitely be winning. Palace and Burnley needs to bring in 6 points, and I think we'll beat Leicester away.

Think we could do well over the festive period if we can get our act together,

 

[ERO]

@talkshowhost86
FA rules state you have to field your strongest possible team.
Sad but true.

In respect to playing the youths, that is quite correct. However, you're allowed to play any from your 25-man squad, and you can play quite a few u-21 players as well like we frequently do with Bentaleb, Davies, Dier and Kane.

 

[parklane1]

The Chelsea team always looks the same to me and they seem to play 3 times a week so its do-able!

Agree, far to much is made of how many games in so many days.

 

[whitelanefever]

On current form, the toughest games will be Palace and Burnley at home.

We should send the youth out against Chelsea and save the first team for these games.

Great Idea.. Nothing like a 10-0 thrashing on your first team debut to give them a confidence boost, here's your reward for all that hard work you have put in.. you get to be lambs to the slaughter... that sounds fair

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

Not many of these fixtures are on sky.
We must be really bad. We were on almost every week last season.

 

[Spursidol]

I have just seen the fixture list for next one month and it doesn't look good.

Thanks to Europa league & League cup, starting with Partisan Belgrade, we will be playing 8 games in 24 days. After 20th Dec, we have 6 day break & then have the Christmas-New year pile up.

Few concerns :

I) Going by latest ITK, we fielded 2 academy players in bench against Hull, because Poch had a trust issue with few players. If that's true, bench strength is going to be a big concern, especially given, we don't even know our best XI

II) Poch does not have prior experience (being in Europe) in dealing with such fixture pile up, nor does his coaching staffs

III) There are no easy games -
a) Newcastle cup game will be looked upon as revenge game by most, given the way we lost.
b) Back to back Everton home, Chelsea away and Swansea away - as tough as it can be;
c) Besiktas away - decides group topper

One thing going for us though, is our improving injury situation. There are no real long term injuries. Walker & Nabil are back in first team training - that should really help out the squad.

This next one month is uncharted territories for Poch as a manager and would tell us a lot about Poch long term. This one month could make or break the season.

Fingers crossed. COYS

Fixture list for next 24 days :

View attachment 16457

Good news though is that Poch has been playing more or less twice a week since the start of the season with EL and Capital One Cup matches midweek, and seems to have got the hang of playing largely 2 different teams to spread the load on the players.

If he's now getting confident enough to put a couple of the kids on the bench for the easier games, then that can stretch the squad even further - with half a dozen kids who could play a part we could be up to 30 players in the squad to choose from.

 

[fatpiranha]

It's actually not bad. Beat bottom of the pile Partizan tomorrow and we can send the tea lady and her mates to Turkey for all the difference it will make.

Also Sky have done us a favour shifting both our post Europa games to 4pm because we're crap at early kick-offs.

All our games are in London apart from the Swansea trip and for the Carling cup we face Newcastle between a trip to Swansea and a home game to Burnley. The Barcodes have to go to the Emirates and then face a derby against Sunderland which they dare not lose.

We really have no reason to complain. This is one of the kindest schedules we could have hoped for at this time of the year.

 

[Sevens]

Fully fit (i.e. not carrying a niggly injury) Professional footballers can play two games a week no problem without requiring a rest. At the business end of the season it's usually mental fatigue and pressure that gets to players. Not physical problems. I don't see a problem here this early in the season.

 

[Main Man]

I don't understand all the doom and gloom.

Probably only Chelsea and Man City have greater depth in their squad than we do?

We are certainly better prepared for this period than the majority of the teams we are coming up against!