longsiders1882

Yep they were big and physical - bit well drilled, executed their game plan well, deserved their point. We’ve got Sunderland away Saturday, they looked decent against you so a point away would be a good result - but we kind of need the three to stay in touch.

Well we are as poor tonight as we were good on Saturday. Fair play to Birmingham who adopted the high press and we couldn’t cope with it.

A couple of weeks ago I thought Norwich and Sheff Utd looked set. Not sure what went wrong with Norwich but Sheff Utd maybe lack quality in depth and a couple of injuries has set them back. Luton do seem fairly consistent and are back in the mix. You guys can win games, it's only a small step to winning 2 in three rather than 1 win one loss. We draw to many, or at least have so far. Many teams are setting up with 5 at the back or 2 banks of 4 and sitting in, limit our chances, looking to hit us on the break/counter. And it has worked. We have struggled to really open those teams up whilst keeping the back door shut, hence all the 1-1's and late equalisers. For the record I still suspect Watford will come good and still fear the top 2 will be from Sheff Utd, Norwich, Watford. I feel we should be able to make top 6. A caveat to all this is the World Cup break - lord knows who will be winners and losers from that though both you and us should benefit I feel - and we do have decent squad depth with some key signings still to come back and the option to add in January.

100%. Be a bit painful obviously. As it goes I would love the three promoted teams to be us, you and PNE; proper old Lancashire clubs and founder members of the League - but obviously us as champions 😂

Never mind Norwich - your run has taken you top of the league, you are the team to catch now.

😂😂😂

Or a frustrating draw 🤷‍♂️

I found pessimism is the only defence in football because it really is the hope that kills you - but fair point, we could smash our way through the next 7 league games. As much as I'd love to let myself believe that I know we have really tough games coming. WBA went to toe to toe and really deserved to beat us, easily the better team on the night, so I take nothing for granted.

8 Games between now and then (including cup game) - including against you, Sheff Utd , Reading and Norwich, so that is 4 of the other 5 who make up the current top 6. A good chance come the break we are out of the top 6 and in desperate need of the time off to regroup.

Ahh but you will notice he said "so far". He's still expecting a collapse and a relegation.

But we never expected to be run away leaders - most fans I know are more than a touch surprised we are top 6 at this point. As for Twine - hopefully we see him post World Cup as well as Churlinov and Westwood. Probably need to add a striker in January if we can unless this lad we’ve got on loan from Brentford gets fit and can step up.

Just a rumour, Kompany has said very little on the nature of Twines ‘injury’ - it’s all seemed cloak and dagger so rumours inevitably get started.

Are you kidding? Most of us are amazed at how quickly the squad have gelled and the style of play has been changed - definitely didn’t expect to be all conquering. In fact I expected Watford and Norwich to be the teams that might do that - and still think come April they might do with the squads they have kept together from last season. Baring a cameo against Huddersfield he hasn’t played. He’s either injured (possibly a tear on top of a tear) or he’s homesick, or both, depending on which rumours you listen to. With luck post the World Cup we might see him and some of our other injured players back in the squad.

It’s a fair point - I mean we have scored the most goals, conceded second lowest total, haven’t lost in 11, only team in the league still unbeaten at home and have the highest average possession figures - but other than that we haven’t looked good 😬 As it goes I think it’s way to early to talk about top 2 for anyone, Watford in 10th are nearer the top than the bottom 3. I feel more confident about top 6 now than I did in August but even that isn’t assured at this point in a season. The World Cup break is going to be crucial, stay in touch until then and it’s all to play for.

Last 2 games we’d been bang average to be fair, we’ve still got work to do to achieve the required consistency. As for games in hand - points on the board are what really matter. Your W L W L streak would only take a tweak to become Wins and Draws and suddenly your are top 3. Fair enough but they came on the back of 4 wins. I was nervous about this one but they weren’t all that. Maybe we just caught them on a bad day.

This will sound arrogant and I don’t mean it to but frankly we made them look ordinary. They hardly threatened and I didn’t see anything in him that made me think I wish we’d signed him - especially it for the kind of few they wanted. But it’s one game, and one off day doesn’t make a player poor. He looks powerful enough though.

Lol - we’ve sold 70 million in talent and lost and additional 10 out of contract. We spent less than 21 on replacements - 36 million went on loan repayment. True enough. We played well today and made Swansea look very ordinary. But it’s one game, there are plenty more to come. Main job is to stay in touch until the World Cup and then hope to push on after it.

Better to be insulted than non entities I guess. I heard JCC was just annoyed because he couldn’t pull on a night out in Burnley

To be fair I'm not up to date with the West Brom set up these days - historically always thought they were solid and well run. The Cooper thing seemed bizarre, one minute there is talk they are about to bin him then "boom" new contract. I think of all the clubs Leicester are the one Dyche would want most of all.

I think you are right about Leicester - though, like Nick Pope before him, once they leave us and go to a "big" club it's like they are a recently discovered treasure so maybe they would rethink. He would actually be ideal as they don't want to spend as well.

Always felt like those two would be a match made in heaven.

Just for interest, this website predicts games and final league positions. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/championship/ Now you might be tempted to argue I like this only because it is predicting a decent season for us but it changes each week and you can see the predictions they made throughout the season. Each match also has a percent prediction per match outcome. It's just a bit of fun to watch and compare the predictions to the actual result - for example it was way off on the Norwich and Stoke games this last weekend.

Personally think £20 is plenty was/is a great initiative and should be made mandatory in the top 2 divisions (I’m conscious the further you look down the pyramid the more teams rely on gate receipts etc) As for numbers of tickets. The allocation isn’t personal, just the way it is with the stand now. Couple of years out of the PL and season ticket sales will seriously drop off and then maybe the whole stand will again be offered up. Will be interesting to see what we get offered.

We have offered a reciprocal £25 ticket price. Be interesting to see if you guys takes us up on it.

Yeah but our fuktard element will be free to roam the streets - and tickets or not I guess some of yours can travel over for a ‘bit of a ruck’