Les-TA-Jon

Sorry I meant - they play tonight (6th,) Saturday (9th) and then have 20 days off and don't play again until the 29th!? Ipswich and Leeds have fixtures on the 16th and 17th (and us in the Cup 17th)

Is it really correct that Southampton only play tonight and then again on the 29th? Surely that's not right?

And Ipswich went 1 win in 9 a few months back and yet only 3 points behind us!

Student of which game? Tiddlywinks?

We've only had Four 1-0s all season. The first 3 were in the opening 13 games.

Let's worry about the PL when we get there. And yeah it probably is a confidence issue? This team is a mix of older pros, players who got disastrously relegated or are young and never played at this level. 3 losses on the bounce and seeing the gap tighten is bound to affect them. You can't just 'be' more confident. It comes from regaining form and results. Last night's the first step in that.

I’m not sure what the confusion is. I think it’s all been cleared up? initially I was surprised to see Vestergaard suspended but able to play in the cup, because I remembered earlier in the season one game of Fatawu’s 3 match ban being used up by a cup game. the answer is that Red card bans apply to all competitions and yellow card bans only apply to the competition in which they were accrued

For all the plaudits…Points gained after 75min mark: Ipswich 15 Southampton 14 Leicester 11 Leeds 9

For Yellows. Not for Reds.

I don’t think we took our foot off the gas. We just, as is becoming usual, missed chances. Either the final ball was wrong, the chance missed or the move stopped by the ref.

People need to stop using Ipswich as a stick to beat us with. Tonight was about getting win, no matter what. We did that. We dug in and didn’t concede a late goal. It was good to win ugly a bit, something we’ve struggled with. its about navigating this wobble without the wheels coming off. Tonight’s the first step

Not sure we’ve done that. Had other opportunities stopped by some misplaced final balls or the ref stopping attacks with questionable fouls. Sunderland also dropped off their press after our goal? So there’s less space for us

You been hacked mate?

I suppose it's how you define irrelevant.... If you think they only stats that should ever be looked at, analysed or used in a way that might be useful are goals scored and the final score, then I'm afraid you'd be quite out of step with what modern football is. It's more competitive and of a higher standard than it's ever been, and a big part of that is the data and analysis that is available - of both the games and players. Why would you want to have less information for understanding football?

Having more information/stats for X, Y and Z doesn't get rid of, take away or replace the score or the result though does it...? What point?

Agree. But 8 wins out of 11 feels a tough ask when accounting for our recent form, injuries and it feels like teams have figured us out a bit.

Surely that's never a pen for Hearts

I agree. The worry is that we're having our bad run at the (almost) worst possible moment. Which gives the other teams hope. Also it increasingly looks like Ipswich, Leeds and Southampton are better at getting results when not at their best/finding late winners/equalisers. We've gotten worse in the final 15 mins. Then you add the injuries which make our midfield options pretty threadbare and it's not looking great. But you're right, the wheels haven't fallen completely off yet.

Not the simplest bits of fact checking by the BBC we had 4 losing streaks all worse under Rodgers, last season

It's all really in the balance. We've had opportunities to pull away and haven't. But that aside it's largely been a 4 horse race for the top 2. If we'd spent all season oscillating between 1-3 spots but were in our current position, psychologically it'd feel different, but the current outcome is the same. We need to not have the wheels completely fall off between now and the March international break. And we'll need to do as well as if not slightly better than some of the others in the final 8 games or so. It's possible that we can struggle between now and then and still get the points we need in the final stretch, but that would obviously be the hardest/highest pressure way of doing so and I'm not sure we've got the stomach for it.

I thought you did when effectively said 'doesn't matter we would have won anyway' but whatever.

Sure, but you're also claiming going 2-0 down at a crucial moment in the 2nd half makes zero difference. Which is a bold claim is all. Either way whatever will be will be.

Equally impossible to claim that just because you did score 3 on the day that you were always going to regardless of how the game played out. With the same logic, we could have only won had we scored 4, which is clearly nonsense.

We can only get the record if we only drop 4 points across 11 remaining games. Close Thread

I was talking about a points swing and now you're talking about a goals swing...?