Number 6

To be fair the standard might be poor, but a lot of Prem games have become dour chess matches on grass. Both leagues struggling to be a fun watch for different reasons but the play off aspect does mean there's generally more to play for late on in the Champ season.

I wasn't able to go but managed to get it on the phone to watch, admittedly while downing a few pints. Thought we looked much improved to be honest, even on some of our earlier wins this season we've looked a poor side but from what I saw we looked much more controlled, and this was against a side who I think will definitely be top 6. There's still a way to go for us to improve I think but some green shoots are emerging, and we haven't fallen behind anyone considered a favourite at the start of the season.

I quoted Burnley but literally only one team scored above 70 goals last season. It's also looking like a very open season this season. I'd hope our attacking output improves over the season, but I won't grumble if we're picking up results. We're still working with a very small sample on determining what our attacking output is likely to live.

There's no single way to go up. You can be a free scoring team or a right defensive one. You've just got to get the results.

Burnley scored 69 goals last season.

There's a bit of fragility to this Chelsea side

It's not just that they're losing games. They're getting absolute tonkings this season. 3-0 to Sunderland, 5-1 against Chelsea, 3-0 again today.

Was poor today. Kicking was terrible and could have done much better with the save that lead to the first. This was always going to happen with a younger keeper though and we do now have genuine competition. No questions of changing the keeper yet for me though.

I think the better players are starting to emerge now. I'd hope over time we can move towards a team that sees Ricardo, Winks, James starting and shining. I remain unconvinced by Okoli too. I like his attitude but can't help but think Faes would be a significant upgrade and we know he works well alongside Vesty.

He should have built this bridge at the start of the season with Ruud having departed. It is clear he's out best midfielder though and we look severely lacking without him, so hopefully he knuckles down and continues in this vein now and we can part ways next summer on reasonably good terms.

The same Coventry who also drew away at Oxford 2-2 last week?

The likes of Coventry, Boro, West Brom, Norwich must be eyeing up this season as a great opportunity. Think it could be a fun league for the neutrals this year with no runaway leader.

He's been very good at changing games, much less good at setting us up well from the start.

Some of the subs were made with defensive shape in mind I think. The likes of Ayew and BDCR don't end the game on the pitch if it's 11 v 11.

This season is going to be much more of a scrap than our last Championship season. On a day we didn't play well, had a red card, and scored an OG, we managed to take a point home.

Brilliant goal

Player reaction got that red imo. Bad tackle but not a red.

Juventus 3rd kit

Amusing in hindsight that our first game of the season turned out to be 18th vs 17th. Felt like a decent point at the time but we didn't realise it was a 6-pointer!

Edit: covered in ex player chat

They have looked poor. I think some of the odds forget that last time around Ipswich were maybe a little fortunate to get second (based on xG, late goals, etc), no longer have a wave of positive momentum, and have lost their best players. The odds probably are a backing of the manager more than anything else at this point. Still got 42 games to go though and I think the only conclusion to draw on the league at this point is that it's wide open.

I was very sceptical of Ipswich's favourites tag, but to be fair they've played Birmingham and Southampton as two of their fixtures so far - two teams fancied to be in the promotion race. Wouldn't completely write them off yet by any stretch.

Yeh I think this is an issue with the three year structure - you actually want to smooth out annual performance so that you don't have feast and famine years. It was our big issue with the two years of massive losses. In theory you want to roughly hit the loss limit every year. It will be interesting for Brighton soon on this regard because they had a year with like £120m profit. They can't go have a year of £150m losses next though because there is a 3 year block in the future which includes the big loss, but not the big profit.

Wondered why this thread has jumped to the top of the page...was not disappointed.

What does the 12 points have to do with the Fernandes fee?