Finnegan

?? They've conceded more than 2 in a game only a small handful of times all season. Before the, admittedly horrendous, Fulham result they'd conceded a run of 1, 1, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 0 this calendar year in the league. They've conceded, give or take a goal, pretty much the same number of goals as every team from 7th to 14th in the league.

What a ****ing surprise. And there's no shame in the result, De Rossi has absolutely revigorated Roma over the course of the last few months, they've got much better players than Brighton, a probably more expensively assembled squad and it was at an Olimpico that's been absolutely rocking recently. They're flying. De Rossi graduated amongst the top of his class in what is basically Italy's school for managers, where he was partly tutored by De Zerbi who De Rossi (along with practically every other reputable manager) regards as a genius.

If I had to guess I assume an editor somewhere thought they had to make it a bit more obvious by having the first syllable be Car because people are largely thick. But it doesn't really matter does it. We all get the joke.

That headline is ****ing brilliant

And unbelievably thick af. I've said before, a lot of these fascist willy pullers aren't as daft as they make themselves look, they just know how to work their base. But her and Boebert are, like their glorious leader, proper thick.

MTG is so horrific she actually makes you feel proud and patriotic to have Nadine Dorries.

I mean, how many teams in this league have a better selection than Ricardo Pereira, James Justin, Viktor Kristiansen (who would be at the club if we had any interest in conventional full backs) and Luke Thomas? Going in to this season, we were probably strongest at full back than anywhere else except maybe up front.

Narh man I do it really easily.

Yep, like @Nod.E I didn't quite twig your point in the first instance so fair enough. I dont disagree. I've said a whole bunch of times on a bunch of different subjects, I do completely resent the money in football these days. But I'm also fairly pragmatic and realistic. That just is the situation, it's not changing any time soon. We struggle enough to unite to fix our society and our problems regards the basic cost of living, we've got no hope fixing football.

Yeah that's been my view the whole time tbh. Makes me cringe there's even people who have claimed they enjoyed our cup win more than our league win and I just think wtf is wrong with people frankly.

I'm definitely a bit biased. I've just never really been that impressed by cup competitions full stop. Watching Greece shit house their way to the Euros broke something in me as a kid I think. I know there's people who have the opposite reaction, glad to see a scruffy underdog over come the odds etc. But I just think cup successes come down to luck a lot of the time and in modern football often end up promoting the extremely negative. I mean even our cup win, the final we just parked the bus for an entire match and scored one long shot. I'm just a lot less impressed by that then success over a complete league season.

This is just dumb though isn't it. When the question was Champions League qualification or the FA Cup then this was a valid position to take and fair enough. But right now we're teetering on the edge. We could be the next Derby, Sunderland, Coventry or worse - dare you even look as low as Oldham? Do you want to have to **** off to Boston or Burton or something to watch our home games because they're the closest teams that'll let us use their stadium when we can't afford our own? This is like saying it's a sad reflection of modern life that I'm letting my bank balance stop me from lying on a beach in the Pacific right now drinking tropical rocket fuel out of a coconut. People don't us to be promoted so that we can have a lovely big bank balance so that we can be massive. They want us to get promoted because we've got a shit load of debt and need the revenue and they quite like having a football club in the city to support.

This ffs.

I genuinely don't believe any of you who say the FA Cup. Especially given you've already seen us win it now. Not a single one of you would take the actual consequences of us not getting promoted and you're full of shit (or really naive) if you're still claiming otherwise. We'll be financially ****ed if we don't get back up ASAP. Quite frankly, to throw another consideration in to the mix, avoiding the sheer embarrassment we would feel at having been 12 points clear, setting records, on course for record points totals, then still missing and to ****ing Leeds? That's worth several trophies. We'd never hear the end of it.

A Trump win would be pretty terrible for everyone in Europe and NATO. The man has Putin's hand so far up his arse it's not particularly subtle.

I assume you don't read much actual news. Trump is almost certainly suffering quite significantly progressing dementia that's becoming increasingly less subtle. The main reason Haley is staying in the Republican race for as long as possible is she's hedging her bets. Not that Trump will be prosecuted of anything but that the media scrutiny of the acrual election campaign once it starts properly will reveal that he isn't competent to actually run anymore. At which point she'll be the only real candidate. He and the Republicans are in serious danger. Is Biden the quickest of cats these days? No. But the GOP are the masters of projection, almost every accusation they throw around is a thinly veiled admission. Trump's current polling shouldn't be ignored, Biden isn't doing brilliantly and there is a considerable risk Trump could come back, nobody should be complacent about that. But it's also polling being done before election season really begins. I'd hang fire a fair few months before making any kind of prediction other than this being quite possibly the weirdest presidential election of most of our lives.

How many games have Ipswich won in the last minute or injury time this year!?

How is a genuine shoulder to shoulder a foul

How the **** are we not winning this match If we could shoot as well as like, ****ing Plymouth, we'd have won the last 3 games.

wtf was that

Home win it is then. LLLL

& @ceebeefox & @moore_94 I'm being facetious of course but this is why we have "mezzalas" playing on their dominant footed side. It's not the wingers that are the most important crossers of the ball in our system. Their job is firstly to maintain width and to be able to beat a man one on one. This creates space inside for our most important crossers of the ball - our centre mids - to underlap, get to the byline and to put in crosses. Something we've done to score quite a few times this season. It's a big part of why I grumble every time we swap KDH and Praet to be on their weaker foot sides as if to cut in and why KDH is significantly less effective on the right side of the pitch. Unless Sunderland are going to step forward on the front foot, play a high line and leave space in behind for whipped, low crosses from wide in to the path of Vardy or Daka then it's pointless having "conventional" wingers out there putting in balls. Honestly, tactically, there's not a lot wrong with what we've been doing so far. We created a lot of good goalscoring opportunities against Middlesbrough and Leeds and should have been two or three goals ahead of both of them before either got on the score sheet. QPR was a genuinely hideous day at the office but the other two attacking performances on our losing run were actually good, finishing aside. What we need is to focus up at the back, stop giving away cheap, Rodgersesque goals and to take our chances. As for Mavididi, yes he's been less productive recently but I'd be inclined to go back and look at his last few appearances. How often recently has he been getting doubled up on because the league now recognises his threat? If that's happening, there's space elsewhere - which is why we haven't struggled to create chances recently despite him seeming to go off the boil. The same is true of Fatawu, at the start of the season they both had acres and acres of space to work in. Now they're both getting doubled up on because teams have learned. Ain't nobody doubling up on Marc Albrighton.

That's a great idea mate, they can whip in some fantastic crosses to our big, dominant, target man striker.

He'll be the most dynamic guy in the medical room.

Yeah I don't doubt but those players are pointless if they don't fit the roles that Maresca wants to play, particularly given that he's proven to be quite a tactically rigid manager so far. Iheanacho is a good example. He walks in to any starting lineup in this league but he doesn't really seem to fit what Enzo wants. Coady is another. We paid a solid chunk for him probably assuming he'd start but, whilst he isn't terrible with his feet, he's nowhere near Vestergaard and that's a big problem.