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Players who try to create will give the ball away more than others. It is the risk of trying to make things happen. There were a few that were certainly avoidable in recent games but if we want him to play in a way where he will provide chances we also have to be prepared for him to lose the ball when doing so.

See what I mean - gardens have a user's manual! Just like tech!

What's the difference between making an incorrect early judgement (presumably based on ignorance), and "changing your mind depending on the evidence"? The latter phrase implies that there was no evidence Farke was a quality coach prior to the turnaround last season and he suddenly became a magician overnight, whereas in reality his skills and philosophies have been developed over decades of football experience. Winning the Championship in two seasons would be an achievement for any coach, but factor in the outrageous constraints he was working under in terms of finances and selling key players, and I would suggest that those who could see green shoots of recovery and were prepared to give Farke time are those that were making an evidence-based argument.

I wonder how much you think they knew when they elected Sadiq Khan?

I'm sure if you checked the stats most teams who had conceded 20 or more goals after 8 games would be relegated. You can't argue with the evidence so that's us and Watford done for then. With just one place to be decided. So here's where the strategy and fans who don't buy into it are going to continually clash. Because the strategy is to develop players like Aarons, Lewis, Godfrey and Zimmermann including learning on the job in the premier league. Under this regime I doubt we're ever going to destroy the model by spending on experienced premier league players in the hope they keep us up. What happened last time is still a recent memory and Webber has said he won't repeat it and wouldn't want anyone else to have to take over such a situation after he is gone. But we have hope. Having more players fit is one hope. And the other is that by sticking with the youngsters they learn on the job and become better players over the season. However, after every defeat more fans will cross the line and want what we don't have and are unlikely to get.

Equally, flip flopping based on the majority view, and disappearing out of site when events don’t back up your point of view, is cowardly. I’ll give people the benefit of one change of mind, but anyone who was anti-Farke, then pro and is now anti again doesn’t merit much respect IMHO.

It's almost as though the initials letters of the three words are describing someone.................

"Never has 3 words in a thread title felt so depressing" Surely "gujons replace scampi" must come pretty close? 🤔 Apples

A flawed referendum question which is why we are still here 3 years later. I'm not so much stating what I want to happen as opposed to what I think will actually happen (although admittedly they are the same thing.) That is that we are on the path to a second referendum where Remain absolutely will be an option.

This is my point. Only one of those options is a definitive option. You're once again stacking those who want a deal with those who would leave with no deal which as your own poll just stated is a lowly 20%. If there is a 2nd referendum it wouldn't make the mistake of the last one. It will be remain vs an actual leave proposition (if not 2)

Oh Hog, you are naughty... Haha I for one find it absolutely fascinating how some of the high and mighty posters seem to be rather fickle after all. Incredible how (and for whom) opinions change with circumstance. Doesn't stop them giving others grief for having different ones though, does it...? How about that.

I get what you're saying re Lakey's change of direction, but we're football fans and it is our right to be completely fickle! 😂😉

Some highlights here: https://hofoot.toclipit.com/player/html/x9cy4OzpKh?popup=yes&autoplay=1

Every team has players with pain killing injections or who are not fully fit - Godfrey himself admitted that most of them play with an injury most of the time. The back five weren't actually the main problem against Villa - it was the complete lack of protection which cost us, with no suitable defensive midfielders, no one picking up from the front (including Stiepermann, Pukki and Cantwell) and, to be honest, no strategy to even attempt to defend as a team; this was evidenced when Buendia lost the ball twice in exposed areas and no challenge resulted at all, but had been fairly obvious from about 5 minutes in when Cantwell stopped closing down their right back, and gave Lewis no cover for the rest of the game. Sutton's article is littered with stats and context - how can you say he offers "very, very little"? Unfortunately his article is bang on - we will probably go down unless we address the problem, which is all he is saying, based on all the evidence available. By the way I live near Watford - every single fan down here is blaming their predicament on Troy Deeney's injury absence and is convinced they won't go down. Injuries are just part of everyone's season - we've had all ours at once, but would we really have got anything at Burnley or Palace with a full strength team with the way we played? We were steamrollered by hard, athletic, organised premier league players. I'm fairly confident we will address it though - I don't expect us to play the same system against Bournemouth despite everyone saying we should stick to what we know. This is going to be a tough season because there are no weak teams this year like Huddersfield, Cardiff and Fulham.

Looking at the latest city utube on today’s training session, Todd Cantwell looks like Messi - hopefully he bottles some of it for Saturday!! Good to see Krul, Vrancic and Tettey all in full training. What with Pukki scoring two, I feel the wind changing !!!!

I think the optics tomorrow will be interesting. The EU sounds optimistic... but that's surely so that they can't be easilly blamed. The failure will as ever be the Tories and ERG not having a clue. Have to call a spade a spade.

Ian would make an excellent pundit......

Great post

I think you'd be an excellent pundit......but most will disagree......

Yes, I've been to the Vitality before and it's a very modern ground. I'm pretty sure there are no pillars in the away stand

I don't know if this is the endgame or another hiccup, but of all the surreal aspects of Brexit this is the most revealing. Whether Brexit will happen or not could well depend not on the fundamental issue that should be decisive - is leaving the EU a Good Idea or a Bad Idea - but on whether enough pork-barrel concessions and bribes can be thrown the way of 10 MPs from a dog-in-the-manger fringe party.

He says replying to someone who can't be bothered to write a full name. You can't be bothered to educate yourself on Brexit, so why should anyone be bothered to call you by your full name?

Did you just have an Ed Balls moment Swindo?

Bertie has another bright idea - ID cards for voting Hooray, I hear you all cry apart from one dissenting voice

I think there the restriction would be one of thoughts on the club rather than any sight of the pitch 😀

I know the punch line 😀

RTB - Apart from the obvious facts of our vetoes - and seats at the the table in the EU plus a leading role - it is clearly better the devil you know. As a small isolated country outside the EU we will simply be blown around by external events - we have no counter weight to the USA or China - even India who will simply view us as an also ran in trade wars. You see it already - want a trade deal with India - the want much freer work access or even near free movement (is that 1Bn people?). The USA wants to discuss cheap food imports and so on (and it appears already don't respect our traffic laws). Your analogy simply doesn't hold up.

No it doesn't. Remain is simply to stay in the EU. Anything that comes along will be dealt with at the time. Just more dishonest muddying of the waters.

I’m trying to understand what you mean by saying we should have upgraded in the summer. It’s a no to replacing Jamal or Max, which is good, we’re agreed there. Especially when we acquired Byram for £750K, which is almost criminally good value (admittedly with a risk attached with his injury record). So we should have bought someone to take the place of Hanley or Klose? Klose is an international who has PL experience and has no desire to leave. How much would we have to realistically spend to do this? I would argue too much for what would be a third choice player. Hanley then? Again, he has PL experience, and cost us £3 million (please correct me if this is wrong but it’s what I remember without checking) and we know he can do a good enough job to have started in the team and be captain at the beginning of last season. I simply can’t see how we could attract someone better who would be prepared to very possibly not play all season. At least not without buying the sort of journeyman that so many of us have been unhappy to have taking a slice of our wage pie in the past. The only other option I can see would be to buy someone better than Godfrey or Zimbo. If possible at all, it would have cost all of our transfer pot, and surely spending everything on one player - especially when we have four at least adequate players in that position already- would be foolish in the extreme. tl;dr - I don’t think your point stands up to scrutiny and is simply an overreaction to our hugely unlucky injury crisis.

Gross.

Absolutely right, I voted leave and my desire was for a soft Brexit, my view was retain the trading relationship but move away from the political integration, and "ever closer union"

Yes it a little messy but that's the fault of the original idiotic question. As Boris himself noted before the ref. it should of been a 2 stage process. As ever though the 'default' option has to be Remain or 'do nothing'. First - Any Question has to be on a deliverable outcome (no flying saucers, unicorns but a deal that can be delivered). That rules out some cake and eat it scenarios - and must solve the NI conundrum. Presently that would only leave Mays deal, no-deal (that breaks the GFA) and various softer forms known to be acceptable to the EU. Norway, EFTA, SM + CU etc. Parliament (our representatives not delegates) should decide (free vote) on which one it prefers. Place that before the people vs Remain. For what it's worth I would suggest prior to the 2016 vote most Leavers would of been more than happy with a softer Brexit and just after the vote most Remainers would of accepted that! Sadly the result was hijacked by clearly incompetent extremists.

Indeed. However, if we’d sacked him when these folk thought he might not be very good, they’d never have gotten the chance to change their minds.

In my opinion your analogy doesn't work because in that example you and anyone in that taxi with you will want to head to that same destination, you might disagree one which is the best route but overall you are all in agreement of where that taxi should take you. That can't be said of the 52%. According to the poll Swindon just posted only 20% want no deal? What % of those who want a deal and perhaps voted for Brexit believing they would get one would vote for No deal vs Remain? For me an analogy would be theres a group of 10 at a club who just took a simple binary vote on "Do we leave this club" 6 vote yes and the decision is made. Only then do we realise of those six, three wish to go to another club, 1 (woops) want to go home and the other 2 want to go for food. You're saying that for the original 4 who wished to stay it's tough luck, they were outvoted and now we follow the 3 to the other club. Doesn't work for me.

Man City have struggled defensively with only Laporte out. Shocker that a newly promoted team struggles with their RB, LB and 3 CB's all injured at various stages... Not to mention all your holding midfielders being injured alongside...

If this is their level of intelligence, I don't we have much to fear. ??? Especially from their grammar which is correct. Mind you, they probably checked it before they printed it.

Perversely I'd rather we concede from our attacking players giving the ball away rather than our defenders 😉

Often not on this forum. The whole 'oh you thought Farke might not be good when we finished 14th and couldn't score but now we're top of the league you love him so you're fickle!' argument gets made quite a bit. I think being willing to change your mind depending on the evidence is a good thing, quite a few on here seem to disagree...

There maybe other more comfortable descriptions than fickle to describe this but open-minded certainly isn't one of them.

Todd's ball retention stats are right up near the top, and his distance travelled is usually at the top. Admittedly, he gave the ball away twice in the first 15 mins at Palace, but hardly at all vs Villa. People see what they want to see but the challenge atm is to get the ball to Todd early and in the right positions. We frustratingly failed to do this at Burnley and Palace but hopefully this will improve at Bournemouth.

Steptoe and Harold

If the DUP scuppers a deal this will have implications for Johnson's election strategy. It will be harder for him to blame the EU when it will be so plainly those 10 MPs who were the problem. No doubt Johnson will still try the tactic, but it will lack the credibility it would otherwise have had.

"The man with ice in his veins...." 😀

Gardening always seems pretty complicated to me (I don't do it if possible) - I always get things wrong. How do you tell where to prune something or when is the right time to plant something (I know not midwinter). What plant goes in what soil - what soil I have for goodness sake? Which plants need plenty of water and which must be watered sparingly; which need sun or shade. Is this tree normal or sick - there are a million questions that I don't know the answer to - it all seems very technical to me. And that's before I even start to get to grips with the equipment that I have seen people use...

Good words from Best For Britain. "Although Brexiters know what they voted for, they are waiting to hear from Johnson to find out what they voted for."

After 5 hours they are still available !

"Hunter Biden was the son of the Vice President for 8 years—from '08-'16" Surely he's been his son all his life.

Great to read through, in particular: " It will test our players, it will test our staff, and it will test our supporters. It’s easy talking about culture, environment, having a great club to be at, we believe in the plan, let’s do it our way, it’s the Norwich way – that’s really easy when you’ve just won the league, really easy. Everyone believes it. It’s now, in these periods – and I think I said this at the end of last season – this will all be tested. It’s now going to be tested and we’ll find out more about people’s characters during this period. We’re lucky that we’ve got people here who will support our players through that because this is a growth period for young players." For me, some supporters wont pass the test. They never do when things get difficult. But this time I do believe the majority will.

Didn't you RWNJs do this last election? Invent some crimes, make up some chant and then vote for the most corrupted **** on the planet. And you're dumb enough to fall for it again.🤣