Playoffs, your thoughts

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

It's the greatest feeling to be automatically promoted and sitting totally relaxed in a bar in a beach resort watching other clubs agony and ecstasy in the play-offs. And if we can't have that, then the next best feeling has to be through to 'the richest game in football' as they like to label the Championship Play-Off Final nowadays. Tony Bloom deserves that. As does everybody else associated with the club. We've come a long long way together...

 

[Ernest]

Look how Boro CRUMBLED under PRESSURE last season, they won't want that again and it will HAUNT them

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

The best way will be to beat Derby at the AMEX to ensure being 4 points clear of 3rd place.

What a Saturday (Friday/Sunday) that would be

 

[Dolph Ins]

Its all self, self, self with you then. You should have gone in 1983 or 1991. it got to be top 2. Be bold and take the bull by the horns and it could really happen. Have faith.

I know I am selfish but then again I am worth it. I was there in 91 but that was old Wembley and a while ago. Oh yes and the wrong result!

 

[Javeaseagull]

Nothing logical about it at all but I have a funny feeling that we are going to be the last team Bobby Zamora takes up via the play-offs. Probably be his last game of football and cement his legend with us. Hasn't he already got West Ham and QPR promoted via the play-offs? It's fate I tells ya!

 

[perseus]

Every games is like a Play-off Final* from now on. Over two legs it is not a lottery, but the Final mighty be skewed with the rub of the green, giving away a silly penalty, a ball bouncing off the keeper etc.

*Leeds might be the easy game before the storm, but remember Orient in 97 who brought their own script.

Big Seven home games starting Monday.

 

[GT49er]

You can go by whatever newfandled math-bleeding-matics you like, but we're not out of relegation trouble until this threads says so FACT:-

http://www.northstandchat.com/showt...ams-That-Can-t-Catch-Us-We-Can-t-Catch-Thread

Granted there was discussion a short while ago about the mathematical possibility of us being relegated, which demonstrated that with fourteen games to go a bizarre series of results could see us relegated - even though it was less likely than a successful Taliban moon-landing, or ISIS converting to Judaism. But that was two rounds of matches ago - and it was pretty tight back then - and I'm not sure that twelve rounds of matches with freak results will be enough for this to happen, even mathematically. Beat Leeds tomorrow and I'll be certain!

 

[Mackenzie]

Character, personality, leadership and a bit of luck...what you need to get through playoffs. I believe our squad has most of these traits.

 

[origigull]

I know I am selfish but then again I am worth it. I was there in 91 but that was old Wembley and a while ago. Oh yes and the wrong result!

If we failed to go up automatically (big if) it would be nice if the football gods guaranteed 100% promotion through play-offs. Going to Wembley with a written guarantee in your pocket, what a day! I would rather get automatic though.

 

[GoldWithFalmer]

Nothing logical about it at all but I have a funny feeling that we are going to be the last team Bobby Zamora takes up via the play-offs. Probably be his last game of football and cement his legend with us. Hasn't he already got West Ham and QPR promoted via the play-offs? It's fate I tells ya!

give me that hand of yours.....oh you can't,i have already snapped it off.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Que sera sera - what ever will be, will be.

I hate the playoffs even when we win them (2004)

I just love the fact that's nearly March and we're still in with a chance.

 

[nwgull]

We've got ourselves into a position where we've got 2 bites of the cherry: Get something in the region of 2 points a game, and we'll probably finish top 2. Arse up the next 13 games and we'll probably still finish top 6 - I predict we need another 12 points - and have a shot in the lottery of the play-offs.

The whole recent history of our failure in the play-offs is irrelevant. I think that, injuries notwithstanding, the only player out of the current first choice 11 that had any involvement in 2013 and 2014's efforts is Dale Stephens. Oh yeah, minor detail I know, but the current squad is better as well.

edit: Stephens was injured in 2014, so make that no one involved in either play-off debacle.

 

[dingodan]

Brown pants time

This for me.

 

[Peter Grummit]

The best way will be to beat Derby at the AMEX to ensure being 4 points clear of 3rd place.

What a Saturday (Friday/Sunday) that would be

Would love it if we went to 'Boro with both teams needing a point for automatic promotion. Karma for 78, and what a weekend we would have on Teeside. #ParmoBroonAleTastic

PG

 

[el punal]

We have pretty much no chance in the playoffs.

3 playoff failures, and 1 very lucky success.

We don't have it in our DNA I'm afraid.

Top 2, or Championship again next season.

Pish! Pash! 1991 - got to the play-off final. 2004 - won the damn thing. 2013 - we were favourites until the Gusgate episode against the unmentionables. 2014 - Leo (92 minutes), we should never have made the play-offs as all our rivals decided that they weren't interested. Alas, poor Reading! Anyway didn't Cardiff have 5 goes at the play-offs before getting to the Prem.?

Having said that I am with you, I would prefer automatic promotion. If not this year, then next.

 

[Westdene Wonder]

We have pretty much no chance in the playoffs.

3 playoff failures, and 1 very lucky success.

We don't have it in our DNA I'm afraid.

Top 2, or Championship again next season.

Championship will suit me,as good as Bournemouth were last season they have struggled in the Premiership,Bolton are in a terribile financial situation since being relegated and take note of the attendances at other clubs following a quick visit to our top league,Cardiff are an example

 

[matbha]

The best way will be to beat Derby at the AMEX to ensure being 4 points clear of 3rd place.

What a Saturday (Friday/Sunday) that would be

Last game at boro could be fun !!

 

[Machiavelli]

So assuming we don't make the top two but do enough to be in the playoffs, how would you feel about it?

Having had two terrible experiences in the playoffs recently I can't help feeling that we'd feck it up again.

Pre season we would have jumped at the playoffs at the end of the season but having led the league for so long and seeing the quality of the teams around us, 3 of whom would also be in the playoffs, I will not be looking at it as another great adventure.

Autos is definitely the way to go but we must be outsiders now?

Anyway a long winded way of asking, will you be really excited if we make the playoffs or would you be more worried than you were the last two times we got there? I know I expected to go on and win under Gus, I was nowhere near as confident under Oscar, I was just grateful to have got there, especially with the game at Forest. Now I am just looking at the teams around us and wondering if we can beat two of them over three games...

I guess I should just be delighted to make the playoffs, if we do

It would be worse to not even make the playoffs though.

Given your ups-and-downs, I'm not surprised that the play-offs don't appeal to you. But, it seems the most likely outcome for us. There may even be a top four forming, but I think we'll struggle to break in to the top two. If we finish third or fourth, then we have the bonus of the second leg at home. The semi-final stage is less of a lottery than the final itself, and a home tie second in my view improves your chances of making it to the final. The final would be a cracking day out, and who knows what might happen. We've a top, top squad, although at present our forwards are weaker than those in the top three. Wilson might come good, by which I mean right up there with the standard of Gray, Hernandez and Rhodes. Hemed and Baldock are both underrated, and then we have the option of Bobby's biggest ever day.
Imagine we're playing Derby in the final, it goes to extra-time, and Bobby is on the pitch. What would Keogh be thinking?

 

[darkwolf666]

We have pretty much no chance in the playoffs.

3 playoff failures, and 1 very lucky success.

We don't have it in our DNA I'm afraid.

Top 2, or Championship again next season.

Complete and utter defeatist bollox!

Obviously Derby/Sheffield/Burnley/Hull/Middlesboro DNA is different.

 

[Icy Gull]

Given your ups-and-downs, I'm not surprised that the play-offs don't appeal to you.?

You are so wrong! I have relished every other time that we have made the playoffs but the crushing defeats in the last two ( and they were crushing!) have left a mark for the next one

We were EVERYBODYS nailed on favourites the year we lost to Palace. I don't buy the "we are better placed" this time argument. We do not have the strength of the other contenders, sure we can beat them very occasionally and draw with them in one off games but we seem to struggle to beat the teams at the top when it really matters, even this season. We have beaten Hull, that's it isn't it?

I admire your optimism though.