its a funny old game

[tosh]

a month ago liverpool were in meltdown and folk were saying 6th place was best you had to look forward to.

Fast forward a month and third looks a strong possibility .

Torres out and your season was looking finished ---yet you have managed to pull it round and gone on a good run .

This truly is a topsy turvy season

[Negative]

The stock market behaves the same way.

[Nerik]

Let's wait another month and see what we're up to.

[kopdude]

Exactly

[Timothy]

Sorry Tosh, but your getting way ahead of yourself.

We have been winning, which is the main thing, but most of our performances have still been sloppy and below average for a side with the quality we have. Wait for after City and Arsenal, then think about it. Until then, we are still fighting for 4th spot against a Ctiy side with 2 games in hand and a Villa side with a game in hand.

[shass]

clean sheets have been key.
mad greek has helped.
but yeah, performances have been gritty, far from sparkling!
need torres back for that.

[fatbat1]

i think the performances have been improving over the last month, i agree not amazingly but there def a belief returning.  Arsenal might be a step to far for us at the minute, but i think we should be able to beat citeh

[Hyypia Legend]

Rafa has gone back to what he knows and made us more solid and less open. To me it's as simple as that.

[Nerik]

I think the players have a part in it too. When we were doing badly many were underperforming. We are now getting more solid performances from people like Carra, Kuyt and Masch which makes a hell of a difference.

[Alonso_went_away]

Like HL has already stated Rafa has gone back to keeping it tight at the back. I think we need to look after the two games against Arsenal and Man City to see where we are heading. In all fairness I expect us to get nothing so it'll be a bonus for any points in my eyes. Big game for us is the Villa vs Man Utd game. As much as I hate Man Utd winning i'd rather us finish 4th and Utd win the league then us finish 5th and Chelsea will the league

[B1]

next 2 games will really tell the tale where we are at as a club. things def looking up though. only 2 p[oints behind ars if we beat them at emerates.. fingers crossed. if we can get 3 or 4 points for these 2 i will be happy...

[shass]

i hope villa win alonso.
i cant see them beating us city and spurs to 4th.
its between us and city me thinks.

[Robser]

City have a shit manager IMO. If they are to challenge, it be solely down to the fact they ahve good players, sometimes a leaderless ship can run ok, other times no matter how good the players, it cannot and I have the feeling they will drop more points than us against the lesser teams.

[brendan_lfc]

Well to be honest the over the next 5 weeks will definitely show who is going to be serious contenders to the top four:

Liverpool - Arsenal (A), Man City (A), Blackburn (H), Wigan (A), Porstmouth (H) and Man United (A)

Arsenal - Liverpool (H), Sunderland (H), Stoke (A), Burnely (H), Hull (A) and West Ham (H)

Man City - Stoke (A), Liverpool (H), Chelsea (A), Tottenham (H), Sunderland (A) and Fulham (A)

Tottenham - Wolves (A), Wigan (A), Everton (H), Man City (A), Blackburn (H) and Stoke (A)

Aston Villa - Man United (H), Burnley (H), Sunderland (H), Stoke (A), Wigan (A), Wolves (H) and Chelsea (A)

The games in bold are the difficult games IMO. I think Stoke (A) deserves to be in bold as it has proven to be a very difficult fixture for most teams. Man City have a very difficult run and I think that their true colours will show and I believe that they will only attain around 7-9 points out of those fixtures. I believe spurs have the easiest run out of all the teams and I really dont see villa as a threat to be honest. I think at the moment the serious contenders for fourth are liverpool and tottenham. After tonight Arsenal have gone through their tough run and I really think that it will be difficult to get their 3rd position but you never know! Tonight means anything can happen.

[Robser]

I dont see Spurs as a big threat, I really dont. I see City as the main one and then Villa.

However its all about momentum, if we lose to arsenal and City win at Stoke, then we go to city behind them and they have a game in hand so if they were to beat us, it'd be hard for us to gain ground on them from there. OK Blackburn and Pompy should yield 6 points for us but we could easily lose to WIgan. In the meantime I expect they'd be looking at 6 points also from home game with Spurs and away to Sunderland.

The way I see that list up there working is something like this:

Liverpool:

Arsenal - 1 point
City - 1 points
Blackburn 3 pts
Wigan 1 point
Pompy 3 pts
Man U 0 PTS
TOTAL 9 Points

Arsenal:
LFC - 1 point
Sunderland - 3 pts
Stoke - 1
Burnley - 3
Hull - 3
West ham - 3
TOTAL - 14

City:

Stoke - 0
Pool - 1
Chelsea - 0
Spurs - 3
Sunderland - 1
Fulham - 1
TOTAL - 6

Spurs:
Wolves - 3
Wigan - 3
Everton - 3
City - 0
Blackburn - 3
Stoke - 0
TOTAL - 12

Villa:

Man U - 1
Burnley - 3
Sunderland - 3
Stoke - 1
Wigan - 3
Wolves - 3
Chelsea - 0
TOTAL 14


So from that it looks spurs and villa but i dont think Spurs have it in them, this will run to the end of the season i think. after this bout of games we will be looking at the next 6 for each team and wondering, i think there be twists and turns but I think it'll be us city and villa at the end.