Nod.E

To be fair to Hamza, that'll happen when you've had 17 pints.

It's a difficult one with Kingy. He was with us for years, scoring goals for fun and got promoted through the leagues. On paper, undoubtedly a club legend. I think where the waters are muddied is that as a character, he comes across as one of life's Gareth Southgates. Nothing wrong with that, but he's a very unremarkable personality. Should that matter? Probably not. I feel if he had the personality of Vardy this wouldn't even be a debate.

We're absolutely fine. If we start mucking up against poor opposition I'll start to get worried. Our conceding of late goals is a real issue, but it's only really been punished by good sides. It's more a worry for next season in my opinion. Coventry away is probably the hardest fixture there is at the moment, and we went down to 10 men there and had a shot at 3 points. We should've beaten 2nd in the league but for a poor end to the game / not taking chances. We're still far too good for the majority of teams we'll play. To be honest I think the squad knows this and against the better teams, that little drop off due to complacency can be all the difference.

Was more referencing tweets such as not feeling sorry for suicidal people. The guy clearly has no thought for other people, which aligns quite nicely with knowingly driving over the limit. If you want to toe the 'innocent until proven guilty' line, that's fine, but it looks really quite unlikely.

I just don't think you're going to get more information, and it isn't a leap to expect the worst.

I think @MPH is attempting to excuse him on the assumption that it's possible Hamza may have unknowingly teetered over the edge. Unknowingly is the key word. Most sensible people know to just not entertain the idea of any drink driving, or perhaps cap it a pint. Others believe (incorrectly), that they can remain below the limit at levels that are actually above the limit. Perhaps this is after 3 drinks, or 2 quick drinks. It'll vary. If this were the case, Hamza would be stupid. Stupid, but perhaps not deserving of widespread disdain and condemning. Killing somebody by catching somebody while waving a knife about is a little different from full on going for someone. Both are ridiculous, but the judgement and punishment would vary and it comes down to intent / awareness. However, given his rap sheet, and given the charge of dangerous driving, I think it's safe to assume that the above set of circumstances do not apply. And even if they did, I'd have less sympathy for a footballer who should know better. Not because we hold them to higher standards, but because he has the luxury of very easily paying for alternative transport. You'd just get a taxi, wouldn't you? Irrelevant though. We literally know he was driving badly. And you wouldn't refuse to co-operate (at least when back at the station), unless you were fairly certain that you were over the limit. I don't know why anyone would defend him.

Don't believe everything you read. Too much noise and confidence from top sources for this to not go through in my book.

Ah yeah, you're right. Still, Ricardo could have played his role and we could have played Akgun or Praet as the 8.

Mind boggling that this doesn't result in being dropped. Doyle could have easily stepped in, if nothing else to set a precedent. And that's just speaking with my football head on. At a human level it's just scumbag behavior.

I'm confident we will. I think people are worried most about this rearing its head next season more than anything else. Yes we'll have different players, but we'll have the same manager and that's the route of it all. Add to that the idea that there will be more tight games in the Prem, it's cause for concern. Would be nice to see us work on it and become more comfortable with a slender lead this season. I understand teams will attack when they're in the game, but there are moves we can take to; a) disrupt their flow b) maintain a threat c) panic less d) keep playing for longer I don't think the people that talk about an inevitable fight back expect all out attack from around the 65th/70th minute, but that's what we invite at the moment. We play half the second half like it's the final 10 minutes, so it's no surprise we're being beaten down eventually.

Agree. People have said we still had chances, but they came out of nothing. They weren't a product of the football we were playing. They came from the ball breaking to us and a bit of individual quality. The body language and tempo of play as we approached minute 70 told me everything I needed to know last night. Most annoyed because I saw it coming and even thought to chuck money on Ipswich to score next, but for some unknown reason I didn't do it.

Big difference between first quarter of season and second quarter though, I bet.

You can add WBA. We rescued it with a late goal of our own, but it's another example of failing to hold on when that was the objective.

I'll contradict myself here as I've said it's an ideological issue. BUT, you make a good point here and Justin was probably the most guilty party. He's terrified of losing the ball or being at fault. I'd rather have Doyle back there if we're not relying on Justin's recovery runs. At least he might be able to pick a pass in the space left in behind the chasing team. But I come back to it. Shit house it if you have to! Just break the game up by making subs every couple of minutes. So frustrating.

Yeah I don't think it was necessarily a case of dropping deep, although we've been guilty of that in the past. It's just the absolute abandonment of any coherent pattern of play, daft shit and a dash of blind panic for good measure. There's no plan to see out a game because we think our ability will see us through. It's arrogance. Yet in a contradictory sense it's that lack of plan that seems to wind our players into blind panic. It's as though the players have been told to just tone down the playing out from the back when we've got our backs against the wall, which makes some sense, but there's no alternative way of playing that takes its place. Chaos fills the void.

Usually the first to take this line of thinking myself, but the inability to close out a game is not only incredibly frustrating, but unless we sort it, it will become a genuine achilles heel. It's put a real downer on things for me. I don't think it's a player staff problem, it's an ideology. You can see how the players just stop playing football at 70 minutes if we're defending a tight lead. People will say don't think about the EPL, but it's difficult to imagine this problem not rearing it's head next season. It speaks to that soft underbelly that relegated us last season. Why can't we do the dark arts like pretty much every other team does? One sub on 88 minutes, another on 90, that kind of thing. Take the sting out of the game. Given we will need to win games by a goal if we're to get by next season, that's going to be one hell of a problem. Not many games next season we'll be 2 or 3 up with 20 to play. The last 5 times we've had a 1 goal lead with 20 to go, we've let it slip. It's a pattern. We're too good for the vast majority of teams in this league and we have a big gap, so I have no worries about this season. Isn't it funny though that whenever a half decent team applies pressure, we crumble? Doesn't bode well.

In our last 5 games that we've held a 1 goal lead at 70 minutes, we've let the lead slip. Against WBA by some miracle we went and got the winner, but make no mistake, this is a real problem. We're not going to be 2 or 3 up against many teams next season, assuming we don't bottle this. Absolutely can not just stop playing football and wishing games away. Football matches do not win themselves.

We seem to just stop playing our game if we're winning by a goal with 20 minutes left. The passing from the back, stops. The pressing, stops. We just hit and hope in blind panic and hope for the best. What the hell is that all about?!

Saw that coming from around minute 65. To make matters worse it crossed my mind to lump money on Ipswich next goal, but didn't bother. Something will need to change next season because we seem absolutely incapable of defending a 1 goal lead. Which is odd considering how confident we seem to be as a team to stop playing and wait for the game to end. Mentally weak.

Older, yes. Middle class? Not so sure

Any chance of KDH stopping blaming his team mates for his heavy passes? Or even better, just get one right?

How many of their starters are out? Anyone decent?

Thanks for the info! I think you're right with your point of not overdoing it. I've just had to walk across town for dinner and my knee was killing me I'll leave it a week or two and see if I can shave some time off. Annoyingly where I live it's difficult to find a route without doing some decent elevation. Definitely underestimated the uphill portion of my run!

I think I may have been overstating it to say some breeds were bred specifically with indoor living in mind, but there are certainly breeds that are more suited to indoor living and perfectly happy with such a life. Ragdolls, ragamuffins etc. etc.

Don't really run. Didn't do a single one in 2023. Got back into it a bit this month with a couple of jogs and a 5k to blow the cobwebs off, and today set myself the goal of just completing 10k without stopping, which I've never tried to do before. Ended up doing it in 1 hour 5 minutes. As a 32 year old non runner I have no idea if this is any good. It probably isn't great, but just pleased with myself that I got out and did it. Would be good to just get a gauge of how respectable the time is anyway, even though speed wasn't really the point of doing it. Don't hold back! What would be a 'respectable' time for me to aim for, for my age? Or am I already at a semi respectable level?