Jobyfox

We’re not

Yes Ipswich are gradually moving from mild amusement to maximum irritation

Because it’s literally a complete guess and nobody can really know

The truth is neither of us know. We’re looking into a crystal ball. The statement “17 points is insurmountable” however is clearly wrong. It’s factually and mathematically incorrect. All we can do, at this stage, is preface comments like that with “in my opinion” or “on the balance of probabilities” or “it’s unlikely that”.

So if Harry Winks did his ACL on Friday and KDH suffered a long term injury the week after it’s not possible that someone could close a 17 point gap over 31 games. When we’ve built up a 17 point gap in less than half those number of games. Ok

Then talk about the Leeds game. Each to his own. I'm just expressing my personal preference

Monumental drop in form? It’s unlikely, but not inconceivable, that Leeds could have our form and we theres over the next 14 games. If that happened we’d be on exactly the same points with 18 matches still to play. A bigger drop in form might be as a result of significant injuries, which is exactly what’s happened over the last 3 seasons.

I think people forget these details. The last two or three seasons we’ve had a glut of significant injuries. We can only hope that our most important players avoid long term absences this season, but it’s been a while since we’ve achieved that. These absences could easily affect form and the gap, at the moment, is just a great insurance policy. That’s also because there are 46 games in the Championship. That’s 32 games left to go.

Despite the fact that I’m posting I actually hate threads like this. 1. We haven’t got promoted yet and whilst many think we will do - injuries and/or loss of form could still make us vulnerable. Threads like this just seem unnecessarily presumptuous 2. We don’t know what squad we’ll have after the next two transfer windows and everything could look different. We could either be really ambitious or really passive in the transfer market 3. We don’t know which teams will be relegated from the Premier League 4. We don’t know which teams will be promoted 5. We don’t know what the teams in the Premier League will do in the next two transfer windows 6. We don’t know how the other promoted teams will strengthen in the next two transfer windows What we need could look completely different in six or twelve months time. No doubt we will have plans and targets, but I bet they’re built with so many contingencies at this stage. Can’t we just concentrate on getting promoted first without this constant speculation about unknowns?

Bristol City were my second team Now they can burn in the furnace of hell!! 🔥 🔥

⚽️ ⚽️. ♦️ ⚽️

I’ll be interested to see the @StriderHiryu tactical analysis for this one. Enzo made a tactical tweak for the Sunderland game to deal with Clarke. With their wingers seemingly being quite strong will we see another slight change in how our full backs line up?

I agree with that. Fortunately I think our defence and midfield is the best in the league

The pressure is all on them to win. If we win then we’re a long way in the distance. As they currently occupy 3rd place a draw would actually be a pretty good result for us. It would be one more game gone with them no closer.

If Southampton win then we’d only be 15 points clear of third … … but I know what you mean

Clearly your cultural influences are different from mine

I think this needs explaining…

Our season won't be defined by how we perform in a handful of head to head games against our closest rivals. It will be defined by how much we can relentlessly churn out good results over 46 games. If we're consistent enough those formerly mentioned games will prove irrelevant. 3 points please ... and move on to the next game.

It’s really not. The best academies are generally attached to Premier League clubs and we run the risk of losing our prospects to these clubs just as we do our first team players as a result of relegation. If they’re good enough then they’ll find a way through. Effective use of the loan market would enable exactly the same thing. Barnes, Chilwell, Choudhury and KDH all prospered after Championship loans. Dropping down divisions will ensure that these players have a quicker route into the first team, but this is born out of necessity and the poorer standard of the teams around us. It’s not a sustainable model if we want the club to prosper

Yes … but now I’m intrigued

I’m sorry, but I’ve been a Leicester fan for 37 years. My mind is contemplating how many ways we could contrive to lose this

In that situation isn’t trying to recruit a striker (using the money we get from Daka), with the risk that they might not be good enough, still better than keeping a player we know isn’t good enough? The reality is that we’ll need to recruit a striker or two next season anyway as Vardy isn’t going to last forever

Spot on! It’s a squad game and we won the Premier League after letting Kramaric go and went on to finish 5th in the Premier League twice and won the FA Cup. We can’t hoard players in the hope that at some point they might be dusted down and proved useful. Sometimes it’s just wrong time and wrong place. That might be the case for Patson Daka. If he goes it will be with no regrets and that’s what will happen pending a remarkable turnaround in performance (ala Vestergaard) from here

There is a difference between Soumare and other midfielders we’ve had in recent years. Players like Mendy, Ndidi and even KDH have limitations, but you can see what they’re good at and what they’re not so good at. I was always totally confused with Soumare. Wasn’t strong enough in the tackle to sit in front of the back four. Doesn’t pass the ball particularly well. Not creative enough to play as an attacking midfielder. The closest definition to what he should be is box to box. He very rarely carried the ball reasonably well, but most of the time just lost it or took a poor decision. His positioning was also atrocious and he got caught out of position far too often. I just don’t know what he brings and bemused at what others might have seen in him. My only reason for keeping him is the Vestergaard redemption curve, under Meresca, has made me question everything and assume that anything is possible. If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t even give a second thought to moving him on.

I haven’t seen many people writing them off to be fair. The difference between them and Leeds is the latter would be expected to challenge whereas Ipswich are defying expectations. Sustaining their form for 12 games is clearly more than a blip. They must be a good side, but whether they can continue for 46 games is the question. My guess, at this point, would be play-offs for the Tractor Boys. But I’d reserve the right to change that opinion after the next 10 games. As I said - they’ve clearly got something