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Or do what we did and do both. Try to comply, get relegated, fail PSR and get a future point deduction.

Well, this is cheery... Both Leeds and Ipswich on excellent runs of form. Both very very unlikely to continue in exactly the same vein right the way through to the end of the season. We've hit our worst run at a bad time but it's not unsalvageable, not even close to being over as much as many on here seem to think. International break is perfectly timed for us in getting back key injured players, resting the team and resetting for the final gruelling push. There are plenty of twists, turns and dropped points to come yet for all the promotion hopefuls. Just try and enjoy the fact we are at the top and in a strong position. A much stronger position than many of us thought we would be at the start of the season!

Think the team for this game will be a fine balance between full strength and rotation. No reason we can't put out a strong team with 12 days until Bristol City away but definitely with one eye on the fact some players will likely be involved in international games over the break (Ndidi, Iheanacho, Vestergaard, Faes, Souttar etc...) Stolarczyk (Pep style I can't see Maresca changing his cup keeper) Justin Vestergaard Coady Doyle Choudhury Winks KDH Albrighton Daka Mavididi The ones I'm unsure of are Winks, Daka and Mavididi. Could be replaced with Yunus (not like for like!), Cannon and Marcal too... Either way I doubt we will see Hermansen, Ndidi and Faes start.

Absolutely this. Fed up of the "look at Man City, why is everyone else getting charges finalised when they have 115 outstanding" etc.... Incredibly complex case vs. the cut and dry simple "overspend" charges. You can't wait for that to finish before sorting everything else it would be ridiculous. The rules themselves are being shown to be highly anti-competitive and restrictive more so towards the small to medium clubs who have ambitions or do well for a short period of time and then suffer a season of failure (like us).

Apparently Hall may not end up playing the required amount to enforce the purchase. Agree though that Gallagher will be one of the main candidates for sale. Similarly Broja.

Yep this is the main problem. The players we want to go are most likely to shift for less than the amortised value, or at the very most maybe break even relative to this. Yes this would shift wages and help longer term but also doesn't fill the short term void we need to fill if we are going to fall foul of the rules. As others have said, if promoted we will be able to source bigger and better sponsorship deals and other forms of income but the impact of this pre-June 24 will be pretty minor. So the only route to fix it is academy player sales - KDH, Iversen, Thomas, Choudhury as you said. Either way, I doubt we will see any signings pre the end of the financial year for us. Everyone knows the urgency for us to sell so no doubt KDH will go for less than we could sell him for if we weren't hamstrung by PSR time limits. Even then we are talking about 23/24 here. We could well start the 24/25 Premier League season on minus points based off the period ending 22/23 and then find ourselves with another points deduction in the second half of the season (I'm unsure if the EFL can deduct points up to the PL like the PL can supposedly get the EFL to deduct from us in the Championship if they really wanted and had the time). All in all, the next year is going to be one hell of a battle. Even more so if we don't get promoted!

Brighton and others probably been in his ear since the window closed. May not be the reason but could explain his drop-off to some extent. Though I'm not sure I subscribe to the view that he would be downing tools if he's going.

As others have said. He is going to be the first to go as all his sale goes to profit, whereas we are likely to make a loss on any others we sell...

It would certainly be interesting to see how it all panned out. Of course they would probably want to have their cake and eat it with some sort of competing at domestic level too. That said, the new Champions league format is so atrocious that the super league idea seems more likely than ever. Maybe they’re doing it on purpose so it can be uefa and not a separate group of clubs that can create a super league.

Completely agree. Everything appears to be reaching a ceiling. It will either lead to a complete reset of the game or the inevitable Super League and its riches with a second tier domestic system. It's a direct result of any improved TV deal in the last 10-15 years being swallowed up by increased demands for wages from players and their representatives, as well as bigger transfer fees and the like.

I think you overestimate how much players care who they get promoted with or how. The PL is the be all and end all for players really. They'd much rather get promoted and have a points deduction, or get promoted and sold, than not get promoted at all. Will have to agree to disagree on this one.

And if that's the case, they need to play well to get good moves? Not sure I get your logic at all...

It seems we are likely to be deducted points, whichever league we are in. Really this shouldn't impact negatively on the pitch. If anything, it could create the siege mentality in the club and within the fanbase that is sorely needed to get across the line this season.

The ref last night contributed to a thoroughly dreadful match. The fact that he was the worst part of it goes to show just how bad he was… Although he did well not to fall for the amateur dramatics at the end. Full on arch of the back reverse Fosbury flop! The contact wouldn’t have been enough to knock a house of cards down. For a team that’s at the top we don’t half get some rotten decisions though…

I do think the OP has a bit of a point, given that getting promoted would have a far bigger impact in securing our longer term future than winning the FA Cup would. However, they're not mutually exclusive and, despite how unlikely an FA Cup win is this season, given the timing of the next round and the two week gap after I can see us playing a much stronger team than we did against Bournemouth. I think the game we are likely to see most changes from the "usual" team is Sunderland (A) but the squad players should have enough to win there. We have 3 league games before the next round. If there is the chance for us to be overtaken in the league on that weekend then it won't be because of any FA Cup distraction, just our own inability to put away games (granted, we've been good at this throughout most of the season).

Jannik Nestagaard. That is all.

As shite as we were, we still could / should have scored 4 or 5 (Vestergaard x2, Daka, Vardy). Created the chances to win. Results like that will happen. Friday a bit more nervy now but not too much more!

This one sticks out in my memory... Remember the loud "WHO?!" from our fans when he was subbed on!

This whole debate about "entertaining" football is an interesting one... Whilst I am firmly in the camp of winning football being a key component of entertainment (let's be honest losing week after week, even if in a blaze of goalfests, is no fun for anyone), I can understand to some extent those who place a much higher value on the style of football being "exciting". However, I'm personally not quite sure what isn't brilliant and exciting about what Enzo and the team are doing at this time. I think a root cause is probably still apathy at being relegated and playing at the level we are but what we are doing is not normal. Just because we seem to be doing it in such an easy way doesn't mean that this would have happened with other styles and other managers - there are numerous examples of where it can all go drastically wrong. What are the detractors looking for? It's clearly not winning matches as on that we are well clear of the rest and still on course for a league record. If it's scoring goals, we are also clear on that front... 59 scored at just over 2 goals a game and scoring 3 or more goals in 10 out of 29 matches. If it's having exciting players who can come up with moments of skill and brilliance we have plenty of those too - Mavididi and Fatawu are as exciting and explosive as it gets at this level with the ball at their feet. Ricardo is a class above. KDH is piling in with goals and assists, we are scoring all sorts of goals, Winks can take the ball in midfield at speed and shrug off pressing opposition to find a man. And despite what people say there are plenty of times where we play diagonals, longer forward balls, break the lines with quick passing play, score fantastic counter attacking goals. Some of the goals we have scored as a team have been of the highest quality. It is and can be explosive, it's just not like that all the time (which is an unrealistic expectation in any case). Even taking last night's example we weren't wedded to short, "boring", slow football. We created a number of chances from more direct passages of play. However, these direct openings are usually as a consequence of the build up play before or the time in the game we have spent dragging the opposition out of position. In fact, the example of Ipswich where we let in a late goal - we lost control of the second half because we played more aimless balls forwards. We didn't trust ourselves to beat the press in that second half and play the way we were supposed to. Throughout this season we have dictated the tempo. We slow it down to suit us and speed it up when we have an opening to exploit. Granted, we don't get it right all the time and passes go astray, balls are mis-controlled and wrong decisions are made. But we are in the bloody Championship and still in the early part of the transformation of how this team plays, it's going to happen. There is still so much more to learn for the players in this system as well. The aim of the style isn't just to pass it backwards, it's a means to an end. The problem we have is at times the quality or confidence of the players to execute and make the best / right decision isn't there. Again, that's understandable with the team we have, the level at which we are playing our football and the time Enzo has had to really transform how we play. I also believe that some of the sloppiness on show at times is a direct result of how easily it seems we have got to the position we are in. It would be hard as a player not to let the complacency sneak in, even if subconsciously. And let's be honest if we didn't concede from set pieces or gift a goal to the opposition once or twice then we wouldn't concede any goals! Yes, we can't afford to perform in the same way if / when we get promoted to the PL but at the same time that is a completely different scenario and pointless even thinking about now. The whole situation will have a very different look to it. We will (hopefully) have brought in more PL quality players who can execute the system at a higher level and the whole team will have had more time playing this way as well. This is an exciting, developing team with some skilled and exciting individuals who can only be added to once we hopefully get promoted. We are smashing teams up, grinding out wins when we need to like Champions and coming up with some fantastic individual and team goals. What's not to like? The negativity towards this season really does baffle me on the whole...