This gives us plenty of time to sit around bored and mull over what is going to happen for the rest of the season. And there's no doubt the dreaded "R" word is being mentioned with more and more frequency; after all, it's only our second season in the Premiership and no-one ever said it would be easy. A lot of attention is being put onto our next three fixtures - Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle. A difficult looking three games at any point in the season, let alone for a team off the back of one win in eight. And the fact that the first two are away.
Now whilst no-one is really expecting us to get anything from these games (although Velimir's tactics did seem to work well away at St James' and Anfield), the main concern is the teams around us. If they start to put a couple of wins together we find ourselves knee deep in the brown stuff and in desperate need of some points. Personally I'm not too concerned - although it's tricky at the moment, we've got some easier games in April and hopefully can get the couple of wins we need to trickle over the line. We won't stay up by being especially good, but we'll stay up because the teams below us poor this season. And that suits me just fine.
Another factor to take into consideration is that it's not just us who have some difficult games coming up. At the bottom of this page is the fixture list up until the beginning of April for all the teams below us (aren't I good to you). Everyone plays Manchester United or Arsenal, whilst three of those in the mixer also play Chelsea. Out of all the teams in the list, only ourselves and Fulham come head to head - the fixture list has thrown up a succession of those towards the bottom end playing those towards the top. Out of all those involved, the people you have to feel most sorry for are Blackburn - not only do they have an unlikeable pillock as a manager as well as Paul Dickov and Robbie Savage in their squad, but look at those fixtures! Everton, Arsenal and Manchester United!
Obviously it can't be a case of us plodding along thinking "Oh, we'll be alright because everyone below us has got a difficult game this week" - after all, who'd have thought we'd beat United twice and draw with Arsenal last season, such is the unpredictable nature of the Premier League - but it's ever-so-slightly reassuring to know we're not the only ones staring at a difficult set of games.
The point I'm trying to make is that it's not all bad. I admit it may well get worse before it gets better for us. There will be weekends where teams below us will do well and we'll all be starting to panic. Then there will be other weekends, much like this one, where absolutely nothing happens and I end up spilling out a load of garbage about why we won't go down.
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Fixtures until April:
Home games are denoted in bold
West Brom aren't included because they're crap
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