Sly

4 out of our next 5 matches are going to be tough.

Week Leicester Southampton Leeds Ipswich 34 Leeds Millwall Leicester Birmingham 35 QPR Birmingham Huddlesfield Plymouth 36 Sunderland Preston Stoke Bristol 37 Hull Sunderland Sheffield Wed Cardiff 38 Southampton Leicester Millwall Sheffield Wed 39 Bristol Middlesborough Watford Blackburn 40 Norwich Ipswich Hull Southampton 41 Birmingham Blackburn Coventry Norwich 42 Millwall Coventry Sunderland Watford 43 Plymouth Watford Blackburn Middlesborough 44 West Brom Cardiff Middlesborough Coventry 45 Preston Stoke QPR Hull 46 Blackburn Leeds Southampton Huddlesfield

13 games is a long time in football.

So the UEFA finance report had us paying out €215 in 21/22. That would have make is have 16th highest wage bill in Europe in 22/23 …… Context!

I’m sensi-ing that you’re not happy about it.

Evolution. Once it developed to the point it sped business up and people were able to link together quickly, it was always going to change the world. In the common era peer to peer communication has improved to much in the past 150 years, we’ve gone from Telegraphs in the 1840s, Telephone in 1876, WWW in 1994. As the WWW evolved itself, that allowed instant messaging, blogging, video conferencing etc Short of holographic type meetings generated in Star Wars, or teleportation, I think we’ve most likely reach the pinnacle of peer to peer communication now.

I’m assuming they discontinued a load. This year was the first time I didn’t receive a Lynx Africa shower gel / deodorant set in about the past 20 years at Christmas. I’m assuming this is due to the demise of Wilkinsons.

Although it’s not being framed that way. I’m Guessing it’s due to it being a recovery, rather than a massing persons case.

Terrible. So many questions though. Who lets a 2 year old close to open water.

I never buzz and I’ve got plates.

Yes, I’d picked up on Norwich / Ipswich. I hadn’t given much thought to Leeds games really. I still think most clubs see us, Leeds and Southampton as massive games, so naturally raise a few levels.

Realistically, we were always hard pushed adding quality to the squad we have. We can add bodies, however it would just be pointless. This topic is a reaction to yesterday. All will be forgotten if we don’t lose to Leeds on Friday.

Just thinking about it, maybe we have a longer term plan ….. WARNING - FOIL TIN HAT WEARING CONSPIRACY The interesting thing is, any club can be expelled from the Premier League. Each club has an equal share, so if 3/4 of them go for it, a club can be ousted. I don’t think they can just be relegated / kick out based on the defined rules alone. This was always the issue with the Super League. They only need 5 teams to vote against them, from the 20 share holding clubs If Manchester City still continue to drag their feet, would it do them a favour if it’s settled this summer? If Everton and Forest are relegated, they are no longer share holders, they can’t vote against them. It makes sense if the points deductions stick to both Forest and Everton, to settle this once registration has been sorted for next season. Would any of the other promoted clubs look to expel Manchester City? Do we see a situation where Manchester City trade players for votes? We maybe get Doyle and McCater, Southampton get Harwood-Belis etc on the cheap. We then vote for them not be excluded? Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal might, who’s the other two clubs voting against them? Newcastle, Spurs, Chelsea etc wouldn’t want to set a precedent, so I doubt they’d vote for them going. In turn, we are able to fill out a few squad places, easing the burden on next seasons recruitment. To tie this back into January, maybe this has been provisionally agreed and with those signings, then Fatawu etc, it was decided that we just didn’t need anyone in January, as they wouldn’t feature next season. Any player signed would be carrying financial fair play weight, that becomes more of a long term burden if we plan on bringing in extra quality next season. ** END OF OVER THE TOP, RIDICULOUS CONSPIRACY POST.

We then went behind ….

Yes, he might be back for the Birmingham game. We could be seeing his final games for us though.

Chelsea recalling Casadei just looks like a complete waste of time for him. Cup tied - so he’s missed those games. He’s played 5 minutes against Liverpool and 8 minutes against Manchester City. I can only think they were not happy with what they were seeing here, so decided to drag him back.

Most teams in this division would love a Yunus, Choudhury, Praet and McAteer. You could argue that Cover, Alves and Braybrook would already be playing at lower Championship clubs. Reality is, if we can’t improve on quality, what’s the point in bringing in players for the sake of it.

Depends how you want to cut this, If you look at the games the top 4 have lost. Leicester - Middlesbrough x 2, Hull, Coventry and Leeds. Southampton - Sunderland, Ipswich, Leicester, Bristol City and Middlesbrough Leeds - Southampton, Stoke, Sunderland, Preston and WBA Ipswich - Leeds x 2, WBA and Preston. Sunderland, Hull, Coventry, West Brom and Middlesbrough are all capable of beating any of the top four teams on any given day. They’ve still got to play a combination of all of us, so we’ll see more upsets in the journey back to the Premier League yet.

I wasn’t aware of the Morgan piece and he’d been sacked by Sheffield United. Surely it was our own lack of professionalism and approach to the women’s game that potentially allowed him to be with us so long, if this was his character?

Daka has at least played that position before; supplying Haaland when they were both at Salzburg.

We’ve been behind in 8 games, which for context is the lowest in the league. Won 3, lost 5. Game 1 - Coventry - Won Game 5 - Hull - Lost Game 12 - Swansea - Won Game 15 - Leeds - Lost Game 16 - Middlesbrough - Lost Game 21 - Millwall - Won Game 27 - Coventry - Lost Game 33 - Middlesbrough - Lost

The extra £1m for Coady? Does anyone know if that was linked to “X” amount of appearances? Surely he won’t be here next season. At this moment in time, I’d still consider Vestergaard, Vardy, Ndidi and I could see why they’d consider Praet. Yunus I’m on the fence with. Fatawu and Doyle pre injury were a must. We can’t be trusted to do a major rebuild, so if we need to bring in 8+ players, it would be a crazy summer. For Iheanacho and Albrighton, I can’t see them playing for us in any scenario past the end of this season.

The massive elephant in the room, is would you give him a new contract?

I think he reserves his energy more now. He doesn’t press so aggressively like he once did. However, like you say, he’s still a nightmare for defenders in those situations like yesterday.

OHL are in real danger, they’re only out of the bottom 4 on goal difference. GP W D L GF GA GD Pts 1 Royale Union SG 25 18 5 2 54 27 27 59 2 Anderlecht 25 14 9 2 48 27 21 51 3 Club Brugge 25 12 8 5 53 23 30 44 4 Antwerp 26 12 8 6 48 24 24 44 5 KRC Genk 26 10 10 6 48 27 21 40 6 Cercle Brugge 25 12 3 10 35 30 5 39 7 Gent 25 10 9 6 41 31 10 39 8 KV Mechelen 26 10 6 10 30 30 0 36 9 Sint-Truiden 25 8 10 7 31 37 -6 34 10 Westerlo 26 7 8 11 40 48 -8 29 11 Standard Liege 26 6 10 10 24 36 -12 28 12 OH Leuven 26 6 7 13 31 41 -10 25 13 Charleroi 26 6 7 13 25 42 -17 25 14 RWDM 26 5 7 14 28 56 -28 22 15 Eupen 25 6 3 16 23 49 -26 21 16 Kortrijk 25 4 6 15 17 48 -31 18