Lighthouse

Hypothetically, if this game had gone straight to pens, I'd say it would be 55:45 in Uniteds favour. If it'd gone to a replay, I'd say 90:10. Apparently the 'magic of the cup' these days is TV cash generated from a replay.

After a mid-innings colapse of 45-5 we evenually set a total 90 behind them. They'll probably go out all guns blazing and try to get a lead over 200 by lunch tomorrow, then declare, but barring anything astonishing we're heading for another draw.

More out of AA and Armstrong? That’s as good as they are, why can nobody accept this? You can’t ‘coach them to their strengths’, that’s just how good they are and have been under Ralph, Jones, Selles and now Martin. Dyche has done it before, as have Curbishley, Redknapp, Burley and Hughes. That doesn’t mean they would automatically do a job here, for us, today. Dyche has won one game (1-0 at home to Burnley) since December 16th.

The most beatable team is the one we’re most likely to beat, not the one we have beaten in the past. For 65 minutes at Portman Road we were more than capable of comfortably beating Ipswich. On another day we win that by two or three goals.

Dyche! Do me a favour, sure we’d probably concede a few less but he wouldn’t be able to do anything about the worst goalkeeper ever in football, who might as well not even have arms. His teams would also create far fewer chances, which our forwards need about five of just to trouble the keeper once. With Dyche here we’d just be seeing a lot more 0-0, 1-1 and 1-0 either way games.

Unless our keepers have been defending a goal the size of a railway locomotive in the car park, I can’t imagine that’s where our strikers are getting it from. The reality is even more simplistic; we’ve acquired a set of strikers with substandard finishing ability

Right, so the plan is we lose this one (and Leeds) thus ensuring the maximum possible chance of Ipswich dropping into the playoffs. Ipswich then lose to Norwich in the semi final, meanwhile we beat an out of sorts West Brom, kill Phil (sorry Phil), win the final, then go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over.

Remember when the republicans were the party of the flag waving, all American patriots? Seems like they're queueing up to nosh off Putin these days.

Two or three a game definitely has to be the target for any team serious about promotion. Scoring once means there's literally only one score you can win by, you're cutting it very fine and will come unstuck more often than not. Our defending does need to be better but you can't go missing all of those chances we did today. A sitter missed is as bad as a howler conceded.

To win today would have needed a clean sheet and more often than not that doesn’t happen. Few teams in any league have ever successfully 1-0’d their way to being champions, your defence has to be exceptional.

It’s not really clutching at straws, I’d say that’s by far the best scenario for us. An East Anglian derby with the winner to play us or WBA in the final.

Better still, their two biggest scores against Mumbai and RCB almost got chased down. I think RCB got 260+ and still lost, talk about batting on an absolute road.

He's not some military veteran, his service has been very handsomely paid for throughout his many years here. I hope we give him full use of our facilities and physios to help recover but to be paying him some sort of wage to not play for us, when we really need to cut back on the wage bill anyway, would be madness.

Absolute nonsense, you have no idea what team meetings are like. Adams isn't going to suddenly start thumping chances into the net because somebody screamed at him. He is just a very limited player, who has never in his career been capable of more than around 15 goals in the Championship, with a lot more missed chances in and around.

And yet only one of them has made the team of the season. KWP, THB and Downes are top quality. Bednarek, Stu and AA have been decent for the most part. Fraser, Aribo and Adams are good on their day but those days seem sporadic at best. The rest I can pretty much take or leave. So much of our supposed talent has contributed f**k all. Sully, Rothwell, Edozie, Alcaraz, Mara, I wouldn't care for one second if they all left tomorrow.

With strikers who can't hit a barn door and the three worst goalkeepers to ever play football? I think you need more realistic expectations. The playoffs were the minimum I expected this season and he's delivered that with room to spare. It's been a decent season, just not quite the one we were hoping for.

As opposed to what? Some mythical manager who can manage more than 85-90 points in a season, with the likes of Che and Brooks spanking it into the car park every weekend. A lot of these players are nowhere near as good as a lot of people (including themselves) think they are.

Not exactly a glittering start to Orr's Hants career so far. In other news, spare a thought for Delhi Capitals, who've just been whacked for 130 off 6 overs.

4 overthrows trying to run out Mousley when he was already comfortably back in his crease.

Better yet, bring back Angus Gunn, who has a better save percentage.

Wandered over to watch the morning session, wish I hadn't bothered really. Cold, windy, overcast and not a single wicket taken. Just looking at the other scores, Lancs are currently 71-6, having seen off our bowlers quite comfortably last week. I fear it's going to be a long season in the CC.

The CL used to be two group stages until some time around 2000-2002, they changed it to its current format because it was too many matches, so if anything it's gone the other way. The UL chnaged it's format to match this because it seems to be a popular standard for most knockout tournaments. Without the group you end up with half the teams knocked out after one round, like we were in 2003. As for pre-season games in Asia, nobody cares if anyone complains about that because it's a choice. Besides, they're exhibition matches with plenty of squad rotation, I can't recall any club every saying their players were exhausted from their own pre-season.

But you get an extra game if you win, plus the prize money of being in the next round. Then the team you get in the next round is more likely to be better and have a large stadium. In the vast majority of circumstances a team will be better off financially by winning the tie on penalties and going through to the next round. Everyone keeps imagining some League 2 side getting a draw at home to Man Utd and going back to OT for a big cash bonanza but how often does that actually happen? What if you’re the chairman of Leyton Orient; you draw 1-1 at home to QPR in round 3 and the winner goes to OT in round 4 - would you prefer a penalty shootout or a replay?

But it greatly increases the chance of those clubs actually winning the tie and then also getting the prize money and revenue from being in the next round. Let’s say Leyton Orient manage a 1-1 draw in the third round at OT. Are they more likely to win a penalty shoot out or a replay?

How many replays have there actually been in the last, let’s say 20 years, which could actually be classified as ‘smaller clubs cashing in’? Most of the fans of those teams listed DON’T want a replay for their own team though, that’s the thing. Who can honestly say they were happy to play Watford twice and were glad it didn’t just go straight to penalties the first time?