bluebruce

I was only treating it like you were someone attempting to make a coherent argument, which I assume most of us do when we post.

What does what Ipswich want have to do with it? I'm talking about the fairest outcome, not what either side wants. Ipswich aren't morally entitled to some reversal of their failures simply because bad weather interrupted the match. How do you arrange it? The same way you arrange 90 minutes, except it's easier as they'll be back on the coach quicker. It's a complete non-point. They'd say they were being punished, well they aren't in any meaningful way, certainly far less than we would be if a full replay happened. Your last remarks here completely undermines your previous points about what Ipswich want. I'm certain they'd rather have a crack at getting a point back than be guaranteed nothing. If that's not the case they should just give up on their season right now.

Agreed, but it probably remains so that if a game is 3-0 with 2 minutes of injury time left to play they can just call it. I suspect they'll only use it when it's beyond obvious what the outcome will be. The partial replay I doubt they'll ever use so it may as well go.

The fairest middle ground has already been repeatedly suggested. Finish the match.

Although funny enough, the only precedent in English football I could find of doing anything other than a replay (if promotion or relegation was still on the cards) was from non-league. The professional leagues always seem to go for the replay. You were totally right in your other post where you said the rules don't suggest you have to do a replay at all. In fact I'd argue they imply (tacitly) that after 75 mins you should either call the match as is, or play the remaining minutes at a later date. But despite that, precedent has shown the EFL always order a full replay so it would be a massive shock if they did anything else. Might even open a legal can of worms over previous judgements from other clubs.

And yet that's the craziest one I've seen.

Problem is you couldn't expect as high as portion of Ipswich fans to travel relative to the usual following, as Rovers fans, for 15 minutes of football. Free ticket or not. I think you'd have to make it behind closed doors (something else Ipswich couldn't complain about, if anything that gives them an edge vs the real game) and perhaps stream it for free somewhere (not sure if the rights allow for that, but just let Sky show it if they want).

In fact the ref could have opened himself up to other legalities (or perhaps the league would have been deemed responsible) if a player had suffered a career ending injury because their leg got caught in the ground at the wrong moment.

Not more of an advantage than being 1 nil up against 10 men though. But yes, it would probably be better for them than if the rain had relented enough to get the game finished on the day. They'd also get time to plan exactly how to deal with having 10 men against us. But again, it isn't happening any more than Venkys giving us a 50 million quid warchest in January.

It's a statement of fact concerning precedent, fairly recent ones at that. Nothing is sufficiently different about this case. There is no reason they will overturn precedent for us. I'd be happy to wager significant money on it. If anything we usually get fucked over by the authorities, we're not a West Ham who can get decisions like that in our favour. It's not a fact that it will happen, but it's as near as dammit. What I'm telling you is you're wasting your time checking for updates, it's as near to a foregone conclusion as you're likely to see. You might as well be checking whether Trump will say something moronic this week.

I can't imagine the bureaucrats were in work over the weekend. It will only have appeared in their emails today, then they'll set a day and time to discuss it etc etc. Could hear about it any time between tomorrow and a fortnight knowing how things get dragged out.

Given that in professional English football as far as anyone can seem to find, at least in recent years, the precedent has been to always replay it unless there is nothing at stake, even in games more foregone than ours, you will be very very safe in assuming we are going to have to replay the whole match.

Indeed. And replaying the whole thing doesn't replicate any of the conditions. The same players can't be guaranteed for that either. The logic is incredibly weak.

The 'you can't guarantee the same players could walk out on the replay' argument...firstly I don't really care if some changes are made. Perhaps with remaining subs or whatever if there were any, if not then meh. But moreover, there really should be a long term protocol for this. Whether they wait up to 3 hours for conditions to improve, or reconvene the next day to see if the pitch is playable. There is no perfect solution, but the least perfect of all solutions is to replay the entire fucking thing.

Literally said in my first post about it that AI can be incorrect.

I asked the AI (Copilot) a few more questions and established that apparently, no game in any professional football league anywhere in the world has ever resumed a game from the score and minute it was abandoned, as far as the AI can find. Some amateur levels have experimented with it (seems mad that semi-pro and amateur levels can be more sensible about this shit IMO) and American Football and Basketball have been known to 'pause and resume due to weather or technical issues', not sure if that's the same thing or not. But I can say with about 99.99% certainty, this match is getting replayed in full starting at 0-0 and with 11 men v 11.

With a bit more probing, I managed to find 2 games where a team was allowed to keep a victory, but both were non-league. One of them the winners had a 3 goal lead and it was the 85th minute, the other one was only a 2-1, but it was the 88th minute.

Well lads, I think we can give up on the prospect of getting to finish this game, or being awarded the points. I asked AI to give me some precedents from the last 10 years, and I'd say we've no fucking chance. Apologies if these have been mentioned already (or if any are wrong due to AI innacuracy): 1. Blackpool vs Huddersfield Town (May 2015) Abandonment Time: 48th minute Reason: Fan protest—Blackpool supporters invaded the pitch. Score at Abandonment: 0–0 Decision: The Football League declared the match a 0–0 draw, as it had no bearing on promotion or relegation. 2. Charlton Athletic vs Doncaster Rovers (April 2023) Abandonment Time: 85th minute Reason: Medical emergency in the crowd. Score at Abandonment: 1–1 Decision: The match was replayed in full, despite being nearly complete. The EFL cited fairness and competition integrity. 3. Leyton Orient vs Hartlepool United (March 2021) Abandonment Time: 87th minute Reason: Floodlight failure. Score at Abandonment: 2–0 to Leyton Orient Decision: The match was replayed in full, even though Orient were winning and the game was nearly over. 4. Coventry City vs Rotherham United (February 2017) Abandonment Time: 85th minute Reason: Waterlogged pitch. Score at Abandonment: 1–0 to Coventry Decision: The match was replayed in full, despite the late stage and clear lead. So one game where the result stood, but only because it would definitely have zero impact on relegation or promotion. The other three all replayed in full, including a ridiculous situation where the game was abandoned in the 87th minute with Orient 2 nil up! That one seems to solidify we have no chance (with the slight caveat that the game was abandoned due to floodlight failure which, unless there was a blackout, would probably have distinctly been Orient's fault...but equally the EFL could ask us to prove we've done everything we can to improve our systems to prevent this flooding). The 4th game there is the most similar to ours, except that Rotherham didn't have 10 men, but Coventry were 5 minutes closer to victory. We're screwed. The second game was a playoff match btw, and with the score being level seems fair enough to me it was replayed. For what it's worth, Coventry and Leyton Orient both won their replays 5-0. So they actually ended up with more dominant wins. Knowing our luck, and with Ipswich being preseason favourites to win the league, I doubt it will go that way for us. And it's still another game we shouldn't have to play with our thin squad.

I very nearly said something similar in my post but decided against it. I do rate Leonard a little higher though, mostly because he would actually work and didn't act like he didn't want it. Vale was frequently lazy in a Rovers shirt.

That's Leonard who went Peterborough, that'll be why you thought that.

Cheers, I'd only seen things saying they could replay it or let it stand, none saying we could potentially just do the right thing and finish the match. When do the authorities do the right thing though.

And utterly ignores that we already played 80 minutes of the game and almost had it in the bag with a man and a goal advantage. As I say, finishing the game is the fairest option. The least fair is to punish the team who had worked hard to be in the lead and reward the team who had very likely fucked the game up, and to replay 90 minutes for the sake of 10.

For me, if I take Blackburn Rovers out of the equation and look at it like this... Which is fairer? Telling a team who were 1 nil up against 10 men with 10 minutes plus injury time remaining that they have to do the whole thing again against 11 men and starting at 0-0? Or telling a team who were 1 nil down with 10 men and 10 minutes plus injury time left that they have to accept the defeat they were thoroughly on course for? To me it's very obvious that the second one is vastly fairer. The actual fair outcome would be to have a behind closed doors game to finish the 10 minutes plus injury time with 11 vs 10. Ludicrously, that doesn't seem to be permitted in the rules. And with the way our luck goes I'm sure we will instead be punished by the far less fair outcome of replaying the whole thing.

Crushing blow that.

The u21s exist to create players for the first team, not to be a source of entertainment or win leagues. It makes sense that the u21s would be required to use the same system preferred by the first team manager. That is their best chance of being ready if called upon.