Finnegan

For what it's worth I agree. In a perfect world, the lads at the back of the middle of the Kop, UFS and L1 would all unite in to oj solid singing section. It would obviously improve their sound. I mean that's basically our away end isn't it. I'm just being pedantic mate really at your use of "biggest issue."

Good job Davies scores that because it was an excellent move but neither Cannon, KDH or Macca were attacking the cross which is disappointing.

It's not the biggest issue my friend. The biggest issue is that most of our season ticket holders are middle class families and middle aged people that don't really want to spend the game singing and chanting. A simple but uncomfortable truth we don't want to admit.

Holy shit can you imagine if Hamza put one top bins from there.

It's not the "biggest" issue but it doesn't help splitting up what singing sections we do have. In fairness to UFS though, it wouldn't exactly be easy for them to move all of their seats in to one of the most popular blocks in the ground. I also think they'd struggle to get the support from the club and police who probably want them as far away from the away fans as possible.

Sweepstake time. How many terrible passes total will KDH blame on team mates before the end of the game

If we swap KDH and Ricky we'll win this by more than one.

I'm usually one of the first to say this but this year I think it has been largely garbage at home. Actually noticeably bad. Last time we were top of this league it was much better.

If KDH wants to lay that off to Cannon he could have taken a touch tbh. Seem to get caught in two minds.

I have to be honest, give we're winning the league after a few years of turgid shit, I am a bit surprised by just HOW bad it's been this year.

Hmm. Is KDH doing a Pontus on their cdm?

This ref doesn't want to let anything go.

Given midfielders getting to the byline and clipping over crosses on their strong foot to the back post is such a strong part of our game, I can't see the logic in having KDH and Ricky swap tbh.

Excellent acceleration there Cannon. Macca has to hit that first time.

It makes it even better if he breaks loads of individual scoring records as well and they don't win it

If there ever was a bubble it's gone already. Everyone wants to leave already. Insane.

But you know full well this is absurdly overly simplistic. He wasn't a key part of the Championship winning team let alone the Premier League winning one. This is exactly my point.

Look the title winning team were absolute heroes and they'll be remembered for ever, it was definitely a legendary achievement. But Ngolo Kante, a club legend that fvcked off after one year? Danny Simpson a club legend who had one decent season? Just think if you abuse and over use the term it cheapens just how immense guys like Kasper and Vards were for us. People want to over-sentimentalise everything, its ok to say someone was great for us and a bit of a cult hero or part of a team that did something phenomenal without designating them a club legend. Which leads me on nicely to... Andy King is a great human being, by all accounts, a model pro and a graduate of our academy which is nice. But come on, he spent a large amount of his time here warming the bench and sticking around largely because we compensated him well to do so because we have owners (and a fan base) that value loyalty and commitment very highly. For a majority of his time at the club he wasn't good enough to even play for the first team. At his peak he was a fairly average, lower-mid-table Championship midfielder that could only pass sideways, ran like he was wearing concrete boots but did have a pretty good finish on him. He was an important part of our journey "back" but so were Steve Howard, Matty Fryatt, Matt Oakley, Matty James, Chris Wood, Lloyd Dyer, David Nugent et all and despite all of those probably being better footballers than Andy King (Fryatt questionable) I don't think anyone would call them "legends." King & Albrighton are much the same IMO. People want them to be club legends because they're very popular cult heroes at the club but neither have had a massive impact as actual players beyond one stand out season, despite both being here testimonial lengths of time.

Is he definitely fit?

This is personally what I would play, yeah. Think it's probably the best use of the tools at our disposal. Wouldn't be surprised if it's Albrighton at RW, Akgun at CM and Ricardo in his usual position though.

We're seven points clear at the top of the table, ten if we win tonight, having smashed more or less every record going in this tier in an unprecedented start. A large part of that is down to some excellent recruitment with Mavididi, Winks, Fatawu, Hermansen and now Cannon in particular all looking like exceptional deals - not to mention a fantastic bit of recruitment in Maresca. And you're still unsatisfied? Because, why exactly? We should have under-spent and risked falling behind at the start of the season just in case there was someone we fancied signing in the notoriously difficult January window? Fantastic strategy, man. Can see why you're a successful, professional director of football at a major multi-million pound football club.

We probably weren't paying a significant amount of money for Casadei. I'm not sure what his wage is at Chelsea but if it's silly season we almost certainly weren't paying 100% of it and I doubt there was much of a fee. At the end of the day, we were doing them a favour in giving him game time and development. And Iversen's only gone on loan and probably again not for a lot. I doubt we pay him a massive amount and Stoke probably aren't paying a very big fee.

Behave. There's a whole ocean between being average and being a club legend. Iheanacho has become a bit of a cult hero and has scored some really important goals but come on man. I don't even like people making out Kingy or Albrighton are "club legends" to be honest and they've got much, much bigger claims. Vards, Kasper and Wes from the last decade absolutely. Anyone else? Eh.

Exactly. I don't really understand what's bleak at all, that seems like crazy doom mongering. Even last year I don't think we were dangerously cash poor, we were just sticking to the rules and couldn't spend because of FFP. With the contracts we have expiring at the end of the season and the cash injection we'll have for going back up, I think we'll be in an OK position to be honest financially for next season. We don't NEED Sensi now, he'd just help, and several moderately reliable Italian journalists are acting like it's a done deal. Fab gets a lot of stick but it's rare he's this insistent something is happening if it isn't. I'd imagine we're confident we'll be able to scrape together the monies needed to bring in a £2m player. And if not? How many points are we realistically going to lose because we play Praet or Yunus in midfield for a couple of months until Wilf is back?

Sure but its just gotten significantly more ridiculous relative to the wage of the average person and especially so when we're in a major cost of living crisis and the average person in the street feels poorer than they have in a generation or two. In 2002, the Premier League transfer record was ~30m, the total spend in the 2002/2003 Premier League season was approx 335m. Minimum wage was £4.20 and the average salary was 20k. As of 2023, the Premier League transfer record is 107m, the total spend in the Premier League last year exceeded 3 billion with Chelsea alone spending almost twice the 2002/3 total, a newly promoted club spent 195m and the lowest spenders in the league spent over 45. Minimum wage was £9.50 and the average income was ~£33k. Football's money being alien and out of touch with the average person isn't new just as millionaires having unimaginably more money than you or I isn't new. But what is more significant than ever before is the gap. The money the wealthiest have has gotten so absurdly, dangerously out of control and football is a really significant reflection of that at a time when people are really feeling the strain. The Boomers didn't give a shit when the wealthiest 1% started pulling away and getting drastically richer and richer and richer because at least they were taken care of. They could afford homes, educations, families, cars, holidays whilst doing "average" jobs and could take their disposable income largely for granted. That's not really the case for people these days. Its no wonder you hear more complaints about it now, regarding football or otherwise.