S-Clarke

In a way the prolonged break we have had aided us in this sense. I'm intrigued to see how we are tomorrow, we often come off of long breaks very, very sluggish and slow. We can't afford that or it's curtains before the run in has even started.

It's been a bit of a disaster for him. He got an injury in pre-season, got fit and started a game in December - like you say, lasted 32 mins in that game before picking up a new injury. I reckon he'll end up on loan at a slower paced league next season. I think we lucked out on his transfer in terms of the fee, he's always been a bit fragile physically tbh. Loved him as a player though, has so much potential. (or had, depends if he can recover)

I would say the bare minimum requirement for this season is promotion, simple as that really. We've not added PL wages in THB/Downes/Fraser/Brooks to just 'finish top half'. We're doing ok though - we're well in it, the requirement hasn't been met yet but we are on course to meet it. At the end of the day 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc - doesn't matter, if it equals promotion then we've done our job. The 3 relegated teams this year have set a very high bar, to Ipswich's credit they've stuck around it. No one else can get near us points wise though.

Never really got the hype around Dan James, seems to be a lot of pace but very little technical refinement to his game. A poor mans Shane Long you could say. A very sad indictment of Man Utd's transfer policy of the last 10 years! The fact he cost Leeds £35m makes me cringe.

Exactly that, more so Chelsea - look at the spend they've had, they're not even in Europe nor will they be this year. How can they cover their losses? You'd think there will be a mega deduction coming their way, but you know there won't be. It's this sort of shit which kind of makes me want a breakaway league - let those fuckers piss off and play with their fat cheque books, let the proper clubs go about it like we always used to.

They'll start the season on minus points, nothing to see here really. All of this points deduction shit is getting on my tits though when you have the likes of Man City under investigation for over 100 more breaches, yet they're still swimming their way to another treble. FA/EPL need to grow a pair of bollocks quickly, putting 'smaller' clubs to the sword is such a pathetic way of proving FFP or whatever they call it. I look forward to Chelsea's million point deduction next year.

Going back as far as match day 30, Reading were 6th, 10 points off the top - WHU were four points clear at the top at that stage WHU were always up there, if anything it was them who collapsed to let Reading in.

Just as well that Selles and Jones were able to get so much more out of the team he kept mid-table.

Wish him all the best, glad to see him back in football. I think we drained the fuck out of him in the Gao years, he got us somewhat stable in the PL. Typically once we had some money to spend under him, we got it all wrong. I still think we'd have made much more of a fight if we'd kept him though, we totally wasted that world cup period and the January transfer window. That's what killed our season.

Such a ''quickly looked at the table without context'' view on things. We're not miles behind, don't make that up. We have two games in hand, 6 points to play for. That will place us on 79 points, which would mean we're exactly 3 points behind Leeds - not miles behind. I know games in hand are games in hand, not points on the board etc etc, but the reality is that it's somewhat kind of still in our hands. We've got the games against the teams we're chasing, such a big opportunity to not only gain points for ourselves but put a massive dent into them as well. I see the fact we have all 3 to play as a massive positive rather than a 'bad run in'. I'm not paying much attention to the points gap as of now as it's not a true reflection of how the situation stands, if it was equal games and we were this far behind then fair-do's - but it's not, we have games in hand and we have to play all 3 above us. Puts our destiny somewhat in our hands in my opinion. Yes, we'll likely need to win most of our remaining games - but who is to say we won't? Who predicted we'd not lose for 26 games after we'd been done by Middlesborough? Not many I'd have thought. Have faith in the team, they've done a lot of good things this year and we have some real quality. I think it's totally unfair to say we are miles behind and it's 'not good enough' - say that at the end of the season if that's the case, but not now.

Why are you always so down on your own club? I don't get it. If this doesn't bring you any enjoyment whatsoever then just find something else to do.

What an effort - they just never stopped going! I thought Wolves had done it, but they were a mess at the end of that game. Amazing.

2-2 now, fair play to them - they won't lay down! They should be way out of sight though.

Was pretty much inventible once Cov missed their chances, that there is the difference between a PL side and a lower league side.

Not sure what else we need to know. The last update was that he's out for the season, so there's nothing more to really update on tbh.

Pretty pessimistic view. But even if we are in this league next season, we wont be in it with Leeds and Leicester. We'd welcome the absolute fodder of Sheffield United, Luton and Burnley - so almost immediately the standard of the league will be much lower. We'd obviously replace who we loose, we'll still have a decent $$$ behind us in comparison with other sides - no reason why we cannot remain seriously competitive in my eyes.

The 3 promoted sides this year are just too weak, I reckon we'd have stayed up if they were in the league last year. Leeds and Leicester too. Burnley have had the interesting approach of doing just what we did - buying a load of highly rated young players from Europe, notably spending £15m on a young keeper from Man City - and they're having the same problems as we did, lack of experience and too soon for some of the young players they bought. Sheffield United went about it all wrong - they sold their best players to start with, and it was curtains at that point. They wouldn't even be in the promotion picture in the Championship with the squad they have this year. Terrible management. Luton haven't really evolved, still playing the plucky card with the same limited players who got them through the leagues. Quality wise they are no where near, but it's their spirit and togetherness which has made them somewhat more competitive than the others. They'll ultimately still go down though. So..if we do fail to go up, Burnley are the only side I think could get their shit together and have a decent year next season. The other two will just be also-rans at best, there won't be 2 or 3 runaways next season.

Yep - this is exactly it. I understand fans saying let's stay here, as it's a fun season, but it won't always be fun if we get stuck down here. We had to endure that miserable season under Wotte/Port. Much better to be at the top table taking in the cash than it is to be lingering around in the lower leagues, without the cash.

Apart from Brooks, Edozie, Fraser, Armstrong?

Imagine if we hadn't had a relegation clause in his deal, he'd have been on around 85-90k in the Champ acting as a training cone for the other 2 GK's.

My feeling from the summer is that there was a selling value for all our players, no one was off limits. KWP, Bednarek, Armstrongs, Adams, Tella, Sulemana etc - as long as a team matched our valuation of them. They matched the valuation for Tella and that was that. I suspect if a club offered us what we wanted for the other guys they'd have gone as well. (Think we were after £40m for KWP). I still believe Tella would have got his head down and done well for us if we didn't get the fee we wanted, but we did and the rest is history.

gaslighting? I don't see where I've done anything like that. There are things to debate and question, and I have done just that - but what I'm taking issue with are the people who are extreme in their views, as soon as we concede a goal, or go behind ''MARTIN OUT'' - it's insufferable. That's not just on here, but even in the stands the amount of people who are throwing abuse at him whenever something goes wrong. I just don't understand it. It's like they're waiting for it to go wrong so they can jump up and down in a rage. Of course we could be doing better, we could be sat on 108 points after winning 36 from 36 - but that's never a realistic thing. Win our game in hand and we are on 76 points. 3 points behind Leeds (still to play), 2 points behind Ipswich (still to play). That's not doing badly in my eyes, I think we're having a cracking season and I'm really enjoying it. I just don't like the entitledness of some fans and how they believe we should be 'walking the league', I'm not sure why those expectations ever existed given the competitiveness this year. It's not just us, Leicester fans wanted their manager out after they lost to Millwall. The black and white facts are that we are on 2pts per game, currently sit on 73 points after 36 games which is top 2 in pretty much every season since time began at this stage. We are ahead of points and GD from our last promotion from this league, so I think we're doing fine and I don't understand the fury that comes from people whenever something goes a little wrong. There was never a situation where we were going to walk the league, but let's not forget we did go 26 without losing and that's a pretty unbelievable effort.

It feels as if there is a collection of supporters (not just on here), who tied their extreme opinion to the mast back in September and even though the run since September has proven them totally and incredibly wrong, they are still desperately trying to play the 'I told you so card' - hence why our little wobble in Feb has brought some mentalists back out. Some people seem to really struggle adapting opinions, and are too quick to judge on either extreme. Season wise we are doing exactly what we should be doing. There was always a possibility that we could bomb, such as the likes of Stoke and Norwich did when they came down (with very good players too) - but we didn't, we've maintained a pretty stable 2pts per game average and in every season since time began that's auto promotion. We have a better points tally at this stage than we did when we got promoted under Adkins. The run in September is being brought up because that's the only real bad spell these supports can zoom in on to justify their rubbish, most of what happened during September is now absolutely irrelevant and things have evolved since then - so it really shouldn't keep being referenced as this isn't the same team.

I can't quite get over how bad those two are this year, they've not even competed or attempted to stay up. The most pathetic relegations ever. Not sure how either will fair next year in the Championship either, cannot see them being as dominant as Leeds and Leicester this year for a start. I'd expect anyone going up this year to give it much more of a shot. Luton are putting them to shame really, they'll most likely get relegated too - but they're giving it a go and are actually trying to compete.

Oh i'm not ITK on it or anything, I just feel he's waiting to up sticks and go. Count me surprised if he's still here in September.