Lillehamring

i've no idea what that means.

Most be because of the blinkers you're wearing. Four games ago it looked like we were going to win it. there's 20% of the season left!

Or fortune and misfortune. We haven't played bad, or been outplayed in any of the last five games. so, whilst it does all come down to points, it's a meaningless statistic to gauge the team on as far as how they are playing.

Well, there are plenty on here who certainly give that impression.

Actually 6. We've taken 1.6 ppg in 2024, if we match that over the last 9 games, that's 97 points. No one deserves to criticise a team that amasses 97 points.

You have to remember that before the 3 game losing streak, we had a record of P16 W12 D3 L1 - and the one loss was coventry - we're more than capable of beating any team, we aren't suddenly a bad team, we just had a few games that didn't go our way. Also, in that stretch we dropped just 2 points at home, in the ipswich game.

For all those people saying we've bottled it or we're rubbish because we had a 17 point lead over leeds, it's worth noting that that 17 point gap appeared after GW26 LCFC W21 D2 L3 P65 ppg 2.5 LUFC W14 D6 L6 P48 ppg 1.8 since then LCFC W5 D2 L4 P17 ppg 1.5 LUFC W11 D1 L0 P34 ppg 2.8 So, yes our form has dipped (but still to a standard that was good enough for 6th place last year), but leeds' form has been off the scale, out-performing what we had achieved up to that point where we had the 17 point lead. We have to keep perspective that this isn't about us bottling it, this is about leeds playing better than anyone has ever played at this level.

Oddly, after 80% of the 15/16 season we were on 63, spurs were on 58 and arsenal were on 55. So, it was never even a two horse race, certainly not at this stage.

I love (hate?) how so many people on here can predict the future! It wasn't so long ago that this place was full of people predicting we'd be relegated this season. If we don't go up, there's no reason why we can't go up next year - it will certainly not be as strong a league as this season, and even if we have to sell our best players, we genuinely have a good crop of academy players to rebuild around.

Nah, this is the just a single problem - so 98 to go.... Where do we start!

problem i have is that the contact was fractional and didn't seem enough to bring a player down - which, i admit, doesn't make any difference these days: any contact seems to equate to a foul - but my problem is that chelsea must have made a dozen or more challenges that were worse than the red card where the ref didn't even give us a free kick, including several when we had just won possession and were countering. So, by the ref's own general standard of 'what is a foul?', the red card should not have been given as a foul.

Really pleased with a lot of what we saw today - a lot of guts, a lot of effort and some nice football. First goals were sloppy defensively, but the sort of goals that will happen playing a high press against a superior team. Needless to say, the ref turned the game with the red card on a foul that was softer than ten or fifteen challenges on our players that weren't given. But that performance should give them a real boost - great for mavididi. Thought KDH and Winks were back to their best and never gave up; good show from Fatawu but his final ball was gash. I thought Doyle was really good going forward and defensively, can't understand how justin is keeping him out of the team, his error and inability to recover leading to the final goal. Stolly was terrific as well.

Not only that but that was a must win game for chelsea, a loss would have been the end of their season.

justice

have to put that down to hamza not focussing on his job....

What was his injury record like in the academy?

It is my opinion, but it's far from an isolated one. When the presenters are discussing it on TV, you know there is an issue. Even Humphries has been questioned in interview over the criticism towards him. Does he speak well? I find him to be a bit dismissive and to be carrying a bit of a chip on his shoulder. If he was a popular player we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Well that is because we had a pretty much nailed on first XI - the players we were buying at that time we're bought to increase our squad depth and/or to form part of the flow of players when members of that first XI were sold and/or retired. None of those first three were intended to go into the first team; but we needed better back ups for the positions they played. It was a good squad building philosophy, but you can't always guarantee the players you buy will be a success.

Maybe we can argue that 3) we intend to sue everton and that should cover any shortfall!

I don't think the mistake was spending the money - the mistake was not spending it well. Coupled with the waves of injuries that effectively had us playing with a reserves side for a season or two.

But all of this is really just guess work - we know vaguely the transfer figures, but we have little to no accurate info on all the other income and expenditure. You're 'reputable outfits' may well have guessed right, but if it comes down to a million here or there, then we'll just have to wait and see as those sort of figures are hard to predict without knowing the entire accounts. As for january, it seems apparent that we could buy if we sold, and conceivably that we could afford the sensei deal if it had been how we wanted it, even without selling - - to me this suggests that we're right up to the limit. The idea that the club is ignorant of it's financial position seems implausible - there's too much riding on it, and the organisation has too many people involved to get into a situation where the accountants and CFO are ALL like It's not unbelievable to think that they know exactly what the situation is and they're disregarding it (which would be a real worry), but the idea of some great wave of corporate economic ignorance just doesn't seem possible.

Vicious circle though - if you want european football you need players with european experience, you want players with european experience you pay higher salaries. If we hadn't strengthened our depth fans would have been whining about not investing in the squad. The club had to make the choice. There's a fine line between recklessness and necessity.

Not quite what i said, but i'm glad you're (trying to) memorising my input - whoever you are.... Notwithstanding - can you honestly deny that relegation has allowed us to take massive steps towards a rebuild that would have been prohibitively expensive in the PL. If you think we're føkked financially now, imagine the implications of having to make as many squad/personnel changes as we had to do to PL standards.

The behaviour of the club financially since summer 2022 is that of an organisation that understands it is on the borderline (as most clubs probably are these days) and that took a drastic step (zero spending pre-fofana) to ensure that the situation wasn't, at the very least worsened; we have seen them spend last summer but then effectively freeze spending in january. These are the patterns of an organization that knows when it can and cannot spend, that hasn't just carried on spending like forest and everton did. Only the club know what our financial position truly is. If we have gone over the limit by spending in 2023, why did we freeze spending in 22 when the temptation and reward for doing so was much greater - if they were so dismissive of the impact of going over why didn't they just keep on spending? So, yes, i believe they know what they are doing.

what you say is true and there's no denying he's talented - but I stand by what i say - it seems to be the consensus that he's just not very likeable, there's a reason why all the fuss has been about littler and not humphries. So, for the sport to have such an unpopular player as it's 'star' is not great for the sport - had littler beat him in the world final it would have been a huge boost for the sport.