Our season so far...

Every year a team that the pundits insist is 'too good to go down' ends up scrapping for its life in a relegation dogfight. This year it could be us. Is this an overly-pessimistic view? Am I blowing a few poor results out of proportion? No, I don't think so. Let's examine the facts. We have emerged victorious from just ONE league match this season - Bolton at home in August. Only Spurs, the aforementioned Bolton and Derby have won as few as us and two of those have recently sacked their managers.

What has either saved us from sinking to rock bottom - or has prevented us from climbing up the table, depending on how you choose to view it - is the fact that we have drawn more games than any other team in the division. Six, including last weekend. As we all know, draws are very rarely the result of an equal game so what can we deduce from looking back at the matches that have ended on level terms?

Well, by my reckoning we threw away the chance of winning on three occasions - against Sunderland, Manchester City and Wigan - which cost us six points. However, we scraped draws against Spurs and Derby thus getting two points we didn't deserve. The sixth match, which was the 0-0 against Chelsea, was a pretty fair result. That still means we should now be sitting with four extra points...and had we got them then we'd now be sitting pretty in 12th spot and just two points off the top 10. Not bad eh? If that was the case I'd probably be sitting here discussing the prospects of us bagging a European slot.

So why have we been dropping these points? Is it bad fortune? Poor defending? Off-target shooting? Woeful decisions by the referee/linesmen?

Well, it's fair to say that Lady Luck has something of a tempestuous relationship with our Lawrie. While she obviously softened during the Liverpool match at the end of last season, in recent weeks she has turned her back on him completely. And judging by what happened in the dying minutes of Saturday's match at the Stadium of Light, she is still sitting there in a huff. Diop's perfectly good goal being disallowed at Reading last season and the linesman insisting David Healy's shot hadn't crossed the line against Boro (when TV replays clearly showed it was in by about a mile) are two prime examples of the luck not having gone our way...but then we ought to consider Smertin's strike (which is now being classed as an own goal) that gave us the points against Bolton.

So what's the conclusion? It's a well worn fooballing cliche but luck/poor decisions do tend to even themselves out over the course of a season. In my opinion, therefore, the reasons we have been dropping points with almost manic enthusiasm are twofold: an inability to kill off a game and defensive mistakes. Does this sound familiar? Yep, that's exactly what was going wrong for us last term and it eventually cost Coleman his job. The only difference being that, in comparison, we actually enjoyed a far better start to the 2006/07 season. So far this year we have played 11 matches and chalked up nine points (one win, four defeats and six draws). At the same point last season we already had 16 points on the board after four wins, four draws and three defeats.

Yes, I know it takes time to bed a new team down but we can't keep reaching for that excuse because the season is almost three months old. Depressingly, we have also played ALL the teams below us in the table which means, in effect, that our toughest games are to come.