Pub breath

A defender blocks a shot. Neither the shooter nor the defender has any control over where that ball heads. Agreed? Fictitious scenario: Two teams, 10 blocked shots each. Team 1 = 6 spin wide, 2 fly over the top and the last 2 plop perfectly into the keeper's hands Team 2 = 2 spin wide, 8 spin into various parts of the net out of the keeper's reach The rules of chance dictate that this is exactly what will happen over a large enough sample size. It could happen in a sample size of 1. Two teams who have "created their own luck" in equal measure, yet team 1 has had none and team 2, all of it. A team that has no shots will indeed be less lucky than a team who has 10. To assume that shooting more and the amount of fortune you receive are directly correlated, is a logical fallacy. Chance does not work that way. So whether or not you wish to accept it, it is entirely possible that Ipswich have had a larger than you'd expect amount of fortune this season.

Oh behave yourself lad!!

Well it would if you fail to also factor in all the "what if" moments for the other clubs. Another referee would have sent 2 or 3 Huddersfield players off on Saturday and Leeds would have won that game. 2 more points on our total and i've only gone back one game

I'm not a Leicester fan. I'm a Leeds fan. I'm obviously watching a great deal of you, Leicester and Southampton this season. I haven't levied this accusation at either of the other teams. I'm just afraid to say that the games i've seen with Ipswich have usually involved a consistently large amount of good fortune. In the same way as Leeds were fortunate to beat Leicester (one of the very few times I can say that has been the case) due to two deflected efforts, Ipswich winning games in similar circumstances definitely have owed as much to fortune as they have your good play. I realise why that would sit uncomfortably with you but bear in mind I wasn't being provocative. I wasn't even aware there was a resident Ipswich fan on here. You did kind of miss my point about "making your own luck". I acknowledged that you have to make the right efforts to enjoy the right fortune. In the lottery example, you have to buy a ticket to win. It's just that there are some people who have multiple jackpot wins under their belts and others, none. They both positioned themselves equally but luck was not evenly distributed. It never is, chance simply doesn't work like that. Do you not accept the possibility (if not the truth), that fortune could have favoured Ipswich disproportionately so far this season?

The idea that "you make your own luck" has always bugged me somewhat. It seems to suggest that if you do everything right and to a good standard, you will be the recipient of exactly the same proportion of luck as someone else repeating similar actions. That actually contradicts the entire essence of luck. There are people who have won the lottery multiples of times. There are people who have played more tickets than them, who have never won once. That disproportionality of fortune pervades every possible aspect of life. Ergo, there are football teams who have had luck on their side during a season and teams who luck seems to have largely deserted. Ipswich seem to have had the former, based on everything I've seen of their performances. They've had an amazing season and played way above a level anyone expected but definitely have the Gods of great fortune to thank for a not insignificant proportion of their points haul.

Appreciate that you wouldn't want to watch that game back but if you did, you'd see a visible drop off of your press from about 15 minutes before the goal. The first goal was a great example (with not a lot of luck about it, Vestergaard didn't deal with a fizzed ball in and then a good strike went in), Ampadu was able to freely stride out of defence into midfield to start the attack and then we had a fair few unpressured passes before Rutter ran at you. Watch any phase from the first half and we never had that time. That 15 minute spell before the goal was played mostly in your half as we dominated the ball. We got lucky on the last two goals but they don't happen in isolation. We worked the ball to Gray to shoot and he wasn't being tightly pressed. Rutter danced through a few players before being hacked down for the third and may well have scored if he wasn't. The pressure mounted in that last 25 minutes which is why we scored a few, despite the good fortune. There's no dispute that it was a fortunate win for Leeds but there was a clear momentum shift that swung that game.

I've discussed our matches pretty much every time we've played. Someone told me I'd been here 17 years the other day. I think you're the only person to ever seen genuinely pissed off by my presence. You're rather sensitive to say the least.

Whatever I say, you're going to find issue with. It was a perfectly reasonable observation that has nothing to do with whether we were fortunate to win or not.

I don't know whether your game against Leeds was typical because I didn't previously have you down as a big pressing team but what worked for 75 minutes, was a fierce press that did a superb job of disrupting our passing game. You especially targeted our most dangerous players - Gnonto, Summerville and Rutter and they were all ineffective compared to normal. Problem with that often is, tiredness. It's hard to race around for 95/100 minutes sticking to your man like glue. I felt like you press started to drop at the same time we brought our subs on and that was killer. Rutter took control of the game when he suddenly didn't have a man on his back and the whole momentum shifted. As I say, that may well not be typical but that was certainly what happened Friday.

Mate, genuinely not bothered either. I made a point that I didn't think was too out there and then had a zillion responses to reply to, so ends up looking like I care a lot more than I actually do. Don't see anything other than a relegation battle for us both if/when we go up. One of the things I said to another poster on here a few weeks ago was that I'm not even sure I want PL football. That hasn't changed. This season has been absolutely bloody brilliant. Loved it.

To move this on.....thank God I reckon that's fair and possibly even demonstrated on Friday. Your first 11 ran the game for long periods, our better depth changed it when we brought 3 quality subs on. Balanced out, we're very closely matched. What would really mess with our heads is if we both end up finishing behind Ipswich

Jon, I have no idea how to explain this for a third time, that makes any more sense than before. August-Because we are comparing teams and our team was not in place until it was out September- For rhe end of the bad run because that carried on one more game when the squad was in place. I never moved any goalposts. We had a discussion about one thing and then a different thing. You conflated the two and then made that my responsibility. If that doesn't make sense then best we leave it mate.

I'm not here for any reason. I usually have perfectly normal and reasonable exchanges with your more balanced posters. I enjoy the exchanges. The problem with discussions like this is that the original point being made gets missed and people read posts and start making their own version of what point is being made up. I certainly didn't expect such a strong defence of the poster I responded to originally but that's what happened. I expected most on this forum would see him as the man making unfathomable assertions, not me. I read the room wrong, it would seem but I don't think I've said anything unreasonable or out of order, have I? So happy to turn it around. All I said was that Leicester don't have a case to say that they are head and shoulders better than Leeds. To me, that can only mean Leeds now. Not Leeds when half the players who were playing for us, aren't even at the club. As it was me who was pilloried and not that poster, I'd be interested in some reasonings why he's right as obviously most posters agree. Even if we discount August and who has played easier teams, 6 points (a two game swing) can't surely be "head and shoilders". Can it? Over to you then.

Jon. There are two points in time. The point in time that our squad was completed. A point in time when our worst run of the season ended. Those two points in time are different. Because, you know, they are different things. Those two points in time have different discussion points. It's not complicated. I'm off for a run

I never once mentioned runs of games. You did so I then corrected you. You can't confuse two things and then spit your dummy out when corrected. OK. You can but you probably shouldn't.

Oh gosh Jon. The reverse. I've always included rhe Wednesdsy result in that even though we were clearly a newly cobbled together team and still gelling. If you took that game out, we have even more points since than Leicester amassed. Bur it's always been in there because in fairness, that team was together by then. So yes, we have gained more points with the Wednesday game in still. Sorry mate. It's you who has had a mare there and got it all skewed.

Eh? So a draw and dropped points at home to relegation fodder that was came after 4 games in August, doesn't count because it wasn't in the same month? You're confusing two things. I mentioned August because thos team were not all acquired until September. You mentioned runs, not me. Our bad run did not end until we played Millwall. Don't purposefully conflate stuff because you got something wrong bud.

We didn't have our strongest 11 out in either game but that's fine. I agree and that's literally all I've said. You aren't head and shoulders better. Not that we are superior. If the season has taught us anything, it's that we're very closely matched. Disagree about the victim thing. Really not the slant at all. Just mitigating circumstances that have been well reported on.

Well Jon, you can discount the match where we drew against Wednesday at home in September if you like but it was definitely dropped points and definitely part of a run at the start of the season. So...Still nope.

I mean, to be fair, that's not even what was being discussed. What was being discussed originally is you being head and shoulder better than us. I made the point that we had a very different team in August and that if you compare the present team and their results to you, we've gained more. Not that we would have definitely gained more in August. That can never be proven. That really isn't an outlandish suggestion in any way whatsoever but is naturally not one that you want to accept.

Well nope and nope really. The worst run we have had was the first 5 games and any other bad runs were this present team. The bad run at the start of the season had fewer than half the present team in at at times.

OK. If you lost 6 players to Afcon and we smashed you 7 nil, would you just accept we were miles better than you, despite clearly being hamstrung? You don't need to answer.

Yeah....We'd have loved to have done the same. Only you didn't have an owner who completely ****ed up the sale of the club that meant we couldn't recruit a manager or sort out the transfers until 3 weeks from the start of the season, did you? Apples and apples etc. I'll leave it at that because I agree with the other poster that I'm ending up repeating the same shtick with every reply I get. As I said above. The people I've seen not accept the impact of that situation are the fans of the clubs around us in the table. Everyone else can see it clearly. You have to ask why that could be.

Fine. As long as you believe that if Leeds had brought in Farke at the same time as you brought in Meresca and the ownership change hadn't resulted in our business being a car crash and at the end rather than the start of the window, the table would still look the same as it does now....then fine. You're right, in your own mind. I don't believe that and nor do many other people in football. The affect it had has been spoken about by every pundit and columnist that covers the league They all agree that it screwed our start up. As would you without your blue tinted glasses The one thing I can guarantee is, if the situation was reversed, you'd be making the EXACT same argument. As long as you believe mate, nobody can take your truth away from you. Just make sure you keep the specs on at all times