ScepticalStan

This'll be the new battleground between the "airy-fairy we-can-win-the-league brigade" and the "unambitious Dell-sized mentality mob" throughout the season to come. "lolololol wot so we don't need to sign GOOD players do we?! hur hur" versus "Well Leicester won the league innit - ya don't need no fifty millyun paahnd forinners" Regarding the discussion at hand - Pearson did a jolly good job at the tail end of that godawful 07/08 season and deserves credit for keeping us up. I wouldn't want him anywhere near our club now though. Doesn't represent the club well with the media, doesn't attract decent players and hasn't been successful in the Premier League unless you count managing to avoid relegation with a side that would go on to become Champions in the following season.

I'll leave that to your imagination given that the odds were rapidly scythed down from 200/1 to 25/1, as I correctly predicted they would be. Anyway, it isn't really about me, it just miffs me when people outright lie that they think something (that's obviously very likely) is a certainty. The fact that they don't effortlessly help themselves to what they claim to believe is free money is proof positive that they're lying. Funnily enough on a different forum I frequent two people unrelated to me have had the same argument regarding Donald Trump becoming President: one insisting that there's an absolute zero chance of it happening and the other pressing him on why he won't bet a penny against it happening. Anyway. Re. Leicester winning the league it'll almost certainly be a flash in the pan for the reasons discussed.

The irony. I'd give anything for someone on this site to offer the means to operate as an intermediary between us and guarantee the bet. (of course, I'd simply lay the bet at lower odds on Betfair and guarantee myself profit either way, but lets not make things too confusing). Anyway, I'll do you one better. If you go onto Bet365, you'll notice that Leicester are currently 1.04 to win the title, so for every £100 you put on, it'll return £104. Not the greatest of odds of course, but as you say, its a cast-iron certainty, so any profit they gift you is utterly free money. So why not put your net worth on it and help yourself to a free £40 for every £1k you have lying around? Then just pop a screenshot of the betting slip up and Bob's your uncle. It's completely free money and "only a fool" (to use your words) would think otherwise. 'Atta boy. Hop to it and show us all how its done.

I bet you £100 that Spurs will win the title at odds of 50/1. You win, you win my £100, I win, you pay £5000. Simple! (just grab a Wonga loan - you'll easily be able to pay it back with the £100 you're certain to win from me). Obviously only a fool thinks this isn't over so why don't you help yourself to some free money old boy?

Spurs' forum is a great laugh at the moment. As has been said though, this isn't necessarily over. Leicester lose at United and are held or lose by Everton and Spurs win their final three games. No-one can say that definitely won't happen, and if it does, Leicester will have to beat Chelsea away from home to seal it.

Its been an outstanding season with talent-wise, probably the weakest squad we've had in the past three years. A real testament to Koeman's abilities as a manager.

Doesn't really change anything any more than Spurs beating West Brom tomorrow will change anything. If Leicester are going to muck this up, it was always going to be in the final three matches. Having said that, if they were to have dropped points here then I couldn't for the life of me see them winning the league. I stand by what I said. It all comes down to Chelsea vs Spurs. Assuming Spurs win all their other fixtures (and even though we're one of them I think its a fair assumption), then they'll win the league as I think Leicester will drop 5 points from their final three fixtures. If, however, Spurs drop points, then Leicester only need 2 or 3 points. I think the gap between 2/3 points and 5 being necessary for Leicester to do it will decide it.

Not a penalty by any stretch.

Along with Clasie/Schneiderlin, Cedric/Clyne has been one of our few clear steps down in quality from our high-turnover transfer strategy. He's not terrible at all, just a bit 'meh' really. No massive weaknesses but no real strengths either. Can't think of anything that Clyne wasn't better at.

Lol its nothing to do with our 'style', we just have fairly poor forwards who miss chances (like Long) and fairly poor attacking midfielders who can't pick a simple through-pass (like Davis). There's no mystery to it. It's just a lack of quality going forward. Not that that'll stop us today against certainly the worst team we've faced in all four of our seasons in the Premiership since coming up.

Pathetic finishing from Long.

Yeah by all means! I don't disagree - I think he's a good, good player and hey - I don't even think we overpaid for him by all that much. Its just the ridiculousness of the extent to which our fans overrate him that frustrates me. He quite simply gets far more praise and far less criticism than his team-mates ever do when they do more-or-less the same thing. That's not to say he won't score a goal or two tomorrow and its not to say that I won't be pleased for him. I'll just find myself cringing at the inevitable adulation that'll bestowed upon him whilst when Pelle scored twice up at Stoke there were people on here LITERALLY saying that they were disappointed he scored because it would encourage Koeman to continue playing him.

Er...Long was playing in the Championship and you're comparing it to Vardy in the league above as if they're somehow equal? That's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. No other player (CERTAINLY not a (proper - i.e non-British isles) foreigner) would have people desperately clutching at straws or comparing him to one of the league's leading goalscorers. Shane Long has never in his career scored even half as many goals in a Premier League season as Vardy has in this one. That is a fact. Shane Long's goalscoring record in the Premier League is this: Reading: 06/07: 21 appearances 2 goals 07/08: 29 appearances 3 goals West Brom: 11/12: 32 appearances 8 goals 12/13: 34 appearances 8 goals West Brom & Hull: 13/14: 30 appearances 7 goals Southampton: 14/15: 32 appearances 5 goals 15/16: 23 appearances 8 goals Having said all of that, he's not a bad player. In fact, he's quite a useful player to have in the squad and indeed start the odd game where necessary. I'm pleased he's here and I wish him well. Its just a shame he's so ridiculously overrated that conversations about him invariably result in having to temper people's estimations of him.

Vardy has the highest number of goals and assists this season out of anyone. He's much, much more talented than our Paddy Long, who has literally never in his entire career scored even half as many goals in a season as Vardy has in this. Vardy is a class well above Long, and the fact you've compared the two illustrates my point perfectly.

Relatively useful pest up front who probably cost us maybe £3Mn-4Mn more than he should have, but that's 1) not his fault and 2) chump change in today's market. Its a shame he's so laughably overrated by the fans who love a talentless try-hard clogger but treat finesse, talent and skill with suspicion - which tends to align with a base chauvinism towards British/Irish players and a typical 'little Englander' football attitude which likes to scapegoat 'vem Carlos Kickaball forrinners' for anything and everything that goes wrong. You get the same thing with JWP - who many argue needs more time when he's made over 100 senior appearances - and Steven Davis - who can misplace pass after pass and offer nothing going forward, but won't get anywhere near 10% of the vitriol thrown Mane's way if he picks the ball up in his own half, beats three or four players and scuffs the entirely self-created chance just wide. But, of course, that isn't Shane's fault. He's a useful player and a very decent option who certainly won't let us down. The only thing I'd say is that phrases like 'good', 'honest', 'hard-working' and 'pest' are not associated with any strikers or attacking players for any teams that finish in the top six (just thinking about it - maaaaaybe at a stretch - Naismith back at Everton). But yeah - if we want to be who we want to be, then we're going to have to do better than jolly old Paddy Long up front.

All depends on what the new evidence is. A big piece of evidence is the fact that an independent hacker dug up deleted tweets from the alleged victim talking about 'when i win i win big' and how she'd 'buy her friend a pink mini' etc. etc. Strikes me as the sort of thing that may or may not be considered as firm evidence in court and so could well be the 'new evidence' that's been brought to the fore? (that's pure speculation on my part - I'm no expert on the case and haven't followed it particularly closely).

I think it all comes down to whether or not Spurs manage to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Leicester need 8 points minus whatever points Spurs drop - i.e. they'll need 5 or 6 points provided Spurs don't beat Chelsea -> i,e they'll need 2 or 3 points from United (a), Everton (h) and Chelsea (a) assuming they beat Swansea. I'm convinced that whether they need 2 or 3 points from those sets of fixtures or whether they end up needing 5 will be the decisive factor this season. The difference between having the flexibility to play to avoid defeat in all three fixtures, or go all-out on the basis that you'll get one win out of the three - versus the challenge of having to get 5 points - (which will almost certainly entail Leicester, with their counter-attacking style going into one or two of those matches knowing that they need to win), will be enormous and probably decisive. Of course - anything can happen. Maybe Leicester will properly **** themselves and lose to Swansea or perhaps Spurs will somehow be held by Pulis' West Brom team etc. - but barring some very unusual results I'd say that it basically comes down to whether Spurs win all their remaining fixtures. Put it this way; whatever happens, I'll be absolutely staggered if Spurs manage to win all their remaining fixtures but don't win the league. It'll be an interesting last 10 minutes at St. James' if the scores are level and a draw is no good to either side in their efforts to survive/win the title - because that scenario isn't *that* unlikely!

Sponsors could well have a part to play as well if it was Ronaldo. Like it or lump it, the vast majority of the rest of the world away from the enlightened west still see being gay as a massive no-no. Try marketing an openly gay footballer to the Muslim world or the 'properly' Christian countries in Africa and LatAm. Not totally sure about what gay rights are like in China and India but its doubtless going to be hostile with their emphasis on the importance of a family/son-and-heir type thing.

This. One of the most amusing things this season has been how the wonderfully oh-so-magnanimous fans of many a big-four/six club have morphed from politely applauding Leicester's spirit and success to utter ****-boiling rage at them having the temerity to not gracefully bow out of the top six around February. If the offer were available to me, I'd happily pay a low-ish three-figure sum of some sort for us to be the ones to knife Spurs' title push. Don't think for a second it'll happen though I'm afraid. We'll roll over and get beat about 2 or 3 nil.

I think the idea of Paddy Long being given POTS whilst scoring less than 10 goals is hilarious, but if we're taking things seriously we should go for VVD or Bertrand. I'd probably plump for Bertrand.

People are starting to cotton on to the fact that Wanyama is distinctly average. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lack of bids for him and if he did leave, I think he'd disappoint a lot of his potential suitors. At Arsenal for one he'd do nothing but slow them down going forward and he'd almost certainly be the subject of many an Arsenal Fan TV episode with the likes of Angry Claude calling for the re-inclusion of Coquelin (or something like that). Likewise with Mane, I've seen plenty of forums with opposing fans who don't want him. They see him as a bag of pace with no end product etc. Liverpool might be different given that he's scored 4 goals in 3 games against them (albeit only 3 in the other 30-something) (that's in all competitions of course). Tadic isn't good enough to play for anyone better than us and if he did leave I wouldn't give two hoots. Nor Pelle (although as our main target-man he'd need replacing). Bertrand and Forster I'd be disappointed to lose. Liverpool will almost certainly bid for the latter. VVD is a hell of a player and it'd be annoying to lose him. Hopefully his relatively poor performances for the Dutch NT provide a bit of a smokescreen. But hey, players can always be replaced. Look at Atletico Madrid. Torres > Forlan > Aguero > Falcao > Costa > Griezmann.

Nope. Not solid enough defensively in the tackle or shoulder-to-shoulder and nowhere near the flying full-back going forward that a lot of people hoped he'd be. I might be doing him a bit of a disservice there as he's not **** by any stretch, he's just very average and a clear step-down from Clyne. You have to do better than players of his level to make the top four.

Oh who cares? We sold the guy about two years ago for some very good money. He left to play for a massive club in Europe etc. His decision to make the step up has been vindicated, whilst we on the other hand were able to replace him completely successfully the following season. Move the **** on. Some of you really are like a bunch of bitter ex-boyfriends at times.

So has James Ward-Prowse, he has over 100 appearances now and people still call for him to be given 'time'.

Oh come on. You can't blame Ramirez for scoring in a loss against say...QPR because Yoshida ended up falling over and allowing them to score. And also LOL at you counting penalties and league cup goals in Tadic's tally. If things were reversed you'd have those fact up in big neon lights. And finally, do you not see the contradiction in blaming Ramirez for not scoring important goals before then pointing out that he was playing in a far worse team that quite simply, lost more matches than the one Tadic has been playing in? As I say, I'd have liked to see Ramirez get given a run of games but hey-ho. Pochettino and Koeman are the experts so I'm happy to defer to their opinion. Got nothing against Gaston though and wish him well.