Eric The Red

To be more precise it was a few days after the LC semi final 2nd leg at Liverpool and was at the end of a sequence of 2 games a week, including the infamously tedious FA Cup 3rd round replay at home to Norwich. Basically ot was a game too far for our squad.

I agree. All the teams left in the Champions League will want a Saturday slot leaving West Ham Leeds on the Sunday. My guess is we'll be lunchtime or teatime.

I'll go for a draw so it's easier for us to overtake both of them, lol

Looks like the first goes through a defender's (Jack?) legs and is deflected. So probably not as bad as it looks on first sight. Third is a tremendous strike that goes into the top corner. Want my goalie to save both but it could be that most would have let them in.

Definitely want Leeds to stay up, not because I have any particular likeness for them, but to give those of aspiring to get back to 'the promised land ' that survival is quite possible.

On that theme also noticeable that Edozie was the first there. Amazingly he seems to be be well integrated with the rest of the squad. Truly remarkable given the last 6 months, and 2 transfer windows when all we heard that he wanted away.

Another way of analysing that list is that the average over the last 6 years is 72. Still would mean 10 wins and 2 draws from 16 games. Highly unlikely given our performances over the season, but not impossible As Badger says, it's the hope that kills you

Standing and seated

Harsh on Ferdinand, thought he was the only one who looked like they knew what they were doing there

Well at least one of his two posts was dubious/misleading at least. The claim we enquired about JWP could never have been about a transfer last January. Not saying there wasn't a chat about JWP and his future in January and not saying O'Neil's agent hasn't contacted the club and said 'Gary is willing to step in' but I would be amazed, and disappointed if it went much further than that.

I'm afraid you (and a few others on here) are wrong . We have the 3rd highest xG in the league . Our problem is our actual goals are nearly 0.4 goals a game below what we should have scored compounded by us conceding 0.2 goals a game more than we should. So not attacking enough isn't our problem. Not converting chances and not defending well enough is our problem

We also have well over 10 aways but failed to act quickly enough today to get tickets. My own fault for leaving it until this afternoon. Pretty obvious though with such a relatively small allocation that they should have started at 12 or 14, possibly dropping the figure after lunch (as they planned to do on following days).

The bookies must have taken a fe big bets on Ipswich for them to be favourites from what we've seen on the pitch. I would certainly make Coventry favourite based on performances to date. I think it's still too early to be confident of what teams will be promoted but I gather we are about 3-1 to get promoted which seems pretty good odds.

VA leading 2-0after 36 minutes

Well it happened to me. I think it was a WHU away game where we bought 3 tickets but 2 of us couldn't go through illness but only the 1person whose ticket was used(happened to be me) had the game credited to their 'aways'. Perhaps I was just unlucky, or it was a co-incidence but has anyone got an example of where they didn't attend and still got the game credited?

In my experience buying a ticket isn't good enough. The ticket needs to be used on the day to count in your 'aways'. Anybody buying and not going will find themselves very disappointed

What he said was Fellows was at their training ground. obviously just collecting his stuff and saying goodbyes after being at Staplewood yesterday. Mason would/should have known it was all going through so he was being as they say 'economical with the truth' . I would definitely be more than a tad cheesed off with Mason if I was a WBA fan hoping they could still cling on to one of their better players when it was all sorted.

Whelk, I fully appreciate that the EFL needed to do something because of UEFA's decisions but there are other options which would at least enable the chance for 2 CL or 2 EL teams to play each other. It's the way that they guarantee the 'top 8' are kept apart that sticks in the throat.

Correct, transfer window closes 7pm on Monday 1st September

EFL seem to have screwed over it's Southern teams here. Only 22 teams in the South compared to 24 in the North and we have 6 established PL teams whilst the North has 5 including all the newly promoted ones. So definitely more scope for a winnable fixture for an EFL team if you're in the Northern pot

I think there's less sold than you might think. When I looked earlier at least 2 large blocks weren't on sale

Yes any loan fee is straight income but we do have to charge a quarter of the fee we paid Arsenal to the accounts this year so the loan fee needs to be at least that for us to break even for this season.

Finding myself agreeing with Turkish on this. Game was pretty good although the extra time really tailed off in terms of quality and energy. The penalty shootout was (mostly) embarrassing though. Several of the England attempts were too predictable and frankly not good enough. Some of the Swedish penalties were top class . But at least two of them, including the goalie jus lost their cool.

I enjoyed the game, France were deserved winners but i thought England stuck to the task and got some reward/encouragement at the end. I also watched a fair amount of the Wales Netherlands game and I think the Dutch would need to play significantly better to beat an England team even playing at tonight's level. As for the Welsh I'm sure they'll be up for giving their big(head) neighbours a game but I think they're main challenge will be to avoid conceding double figures in their next match.

Think La Liga 2 is on average worse than Championship but still a good move as he needs to play more regularly than he's likely to staying at Saints.