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All the talk about what we do after our inevitable promotion (ok, let's not get ahead of ourselves, but you can get some seriously good odds if you want to bet against it) has got me thinking. The togetherness of the current squad - the absolute trust and respect they have for each other - is the result of some incredibly skillful management. When did you last see two of our players having a disagreement on the pitch? When do you recall one of the players not working their hardest for the team? When did we last look less than the sum of our parts? I'm not party to the ins and outs of what went on between Farke and these players, but I can safely say that cutting them completely from the first team squad is absolutely part of the overall success this season. By creating a cohesive unit of players all on the same wavelength, who all know their precise role and exactly how it interacts with the rest of the team, Farke and his staff have pulled off a masterstroke. We can all fantasise about which players we'd like to sign or who we'd drop for who. But the job of building a team, getting them to gel and put in the workrate week after week is an incredible feat. At the start of the season I was struggling to imagine a midfield without Leitner being anywhere near as effective as our previous promotion campaign. I had no idea.

Thanks to everyone for the many options for a super set of six (actually two). Certainly need more luck. For the two sets Nutty I've gone with the following (and please allow some poetic licence for the first selection! ) Selection 1 Wolfsburg Olympiacos Slavia Prague Tranmere Exeter (thank you Purple - I had chosen yours until I've just seen the postponement) Rangers Second selection: Barnsley (very popular choice) Feyenoord Sunderland (very popular) Ajax Krylya Sovetov Sevilla I've looked at So difficult and I've agonised over Barcelona, Coleraine, Aberdeen, RB Leipzig, Sutton, Sheff U, Oxford ...even Lommels K which was such a left field choice. Apologies if I haven't chosen your selection but I had to go with position, likely motivations, form and goals scored/against etc. Nutty, my pick by default is Exeter now. I realise I'm too late for our game but someday soon we will score with all these great chances we are creating. So I would have gone with a bold over 4.5 goals. Thanks @KiwiScot for the very timely prompt on Elversberg (I was about to post). Good luck to all. Let's hope we can do this to honour Wooster.

You're welcome

It’s the inconsistency that annoys me and that turns the game into a farce. There now seems to be a ‘let’s let the referees use a bit of their own judgement’ element to the process, as seen last weekend. For anyone that thinks the law is simple and fine as it is then explain to me why Man Utd didn’t get a penalty vs Chelsea? Arm in an unnatural position, handles the ball taking it away from an attacker...pretty much the definition of the ‘current’ handball rule. But no, the referee decides to use his own judgement and not award a pen. Im not saying I disagree with his decision but how did come he to that conclusion when the law states he should’ve awarded a pen? That that can be overlooked but to meticulously follow the laws in other games to come to some farcical outcomes (Bednareks red, David Luiz red, Soucek red, DCL penalty) shows the real problem imo. To make it even more excruciating, all the time used on VAR decision making for 2 of the reds above, both were overturned on appeal. So VAR, applied for the correction of CLEAR AND OBVIOUS errors where a team of ‘qualified’ officials discuss the laws of the game and come to a ‘correct’ decision, still gets it wrong according to the powers that be. Again I think the eventual decision was correct but they applied some common sense which the officials seemed to think wasn’t necessary with the use of VAR, and which some referees are now starting to use again and some aren’t. VAR isn’t the issue, it’s the incompetency (Lee Mason, Simon Hooper) and inconsistency of those using it that is the problem.

I do remember the criticism Farke got for how he dealt with Emi and Todd at the time. The treatment of Leitner and Drmic and how Farke should be using them came up at the start of the season too. Not a massive shock hes been proven right on both...again.

And has her own thread named after her here ☺️

Never mind Sonyc, it’s a little sad that Brexit is still the focal point with this global tragedy! The reality is we should all celebrate the science from all over the world as well as at home in helping us get out of this! No point scoring and the reality this has shown us how small the world is and how connected we all are! We need to work together on a global scale, level playing field and together make the world a far better place.... I have no time for racism of any type or form, no love lost humanity, we need to show compassion to all and move forward together!

Well perhaps it was my fault. I wanted to post about the cost of Covid and borrowing and came across the story that it outshadowed every payment we had ever made to the EU since 1973. I felt it put things into perspective rather than trying to make it about Brexit and I did qualify my point. I wanted to link the cost with the budget and my annoyance that we seemed not to be trying to support the very institutions and key people who have been the backbone in keeping things going. Then the point was taken over and sent to Europe. So, apologies folks, esp to Ricardo, Van Wink and Indy. I'm happy to take responsibility. I hadn't meant to derail.

To be Brentford.

Oh for the good old days when handball was hand to ball and never ball to hand. Simples.

'Happy clappers' who are pissing the Chumps. Put me down as a happy clapper then.

I’d keep Argos in and swap Vrancic

Thanks for these Sonyc and for the extra. I'd love it if the Wo(o)ster bet came in. And the other set of course🙃 Don't they all look good! I think we are going to end the run of bad luck this weekend. I've placed the Wo(o)ster with Bet 365 where the potential return is a very exciting £155.80. Here are the details... Exeter 10/11 13:00 Sat Wolfsburg 11/8 14:30 Sat Tranmere 10/11 15:00 Sat Rangers 2/7 15:00 Sat Olympiakos 1/6 13:30 Sun Slavia Prague 1/5 17:30 Sun I've placed the other set also with Bet 365 and the potential return for these is £63.86. Here are those details... Krylia Sovetov 1/10 11:00 Sat Barnsley 4/5 15:00 Sat Sunderland 2/5 15:00 Sat Sevilla 3/5 15:15 Sat Feyenoord 1/5 15:30 Sat Ajax 1/5 11:15 Sun You've done Wooster proud Sonyc💛💚 Good luck Sonyc and all you PUPs🤞🍀💪

OK, so some quick back of an envelope calculations. Assuming 90 points is the benchmark for promotion. Norwich can do about a third worse than they are doing currently and still get to 90 points. Brentford and Watford need to do about 18% better than they are currently doing to get to 90 points. If they keep doing as well as their average they'll get to 85/86 points each. Swansea need to only make a small improvement in order to be on track for 90 points. If they maintain their average they'll get to 89 points. This all depends on how well they manage to deal with a more congested fixture list. If we maintain our average points per game we'll end with 98 or 99 points. Obviously nothing's certain, but the door is open and we'd have to trip up pretty badly not to walk through it.

First ambition get to the Premier league Second ambition stay there Can't think beyond that at the moment because those two things are hard enough to achieve

So, after the massive three points against Brentford, I'm certain that 88 points will be enough for promotion; both Watford and Brentford require 25 more points to reach 88 at over 2 points per game. That's just five more wins for us. And here we are lined up to play the teams in positions 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 and 23 (not quite in that order) as our next 7 games. Given our recent form, I just can't see us failing to pick up at least 12 points from these in the worst case with 15 being easily achievable. We could well have the pressure off before our final 5 tougher games.

It's really weird because I always want to win the FA Cup but when it comes round there always seems to be a lot of posters in favour of resting players...

We're never going to win the Premier League (or not without some serious financial investment), so I'm more than happy for us to bounce between the divisions because it is quite enjoyable. That being said, I'd like us to have a decent run in the PL during the 20s, 5 or 6 seasons in a row would be great, and enable us to have a serious go at winning a cup - at least a couple of finals. The year we really messed up recently was the season where Villa knocked us out in the Quarters of the League Cup, we'd have beaten Bradford in the Semis, and then faced Swansea in the final - a team we had a real hoodoo over at the time. So yes a decent run in the PL with some exciting cup runs, but I'm never expecting us to establish ourselves in the PL as others have said it's pretty much next to impossible and you'll always be in some sort of relegation battle even if you do survive for a few years.

I believe you need to earn to pay to HMG, my guess is PM gets his money for nothing and doesn’t want to share the UK handouts with those nasty foreigners! Anyhow why has the Covid thread been allowed to take the Brexit thread line, why don’t you brexiteers take this back to the Brexit thread! I’m more interested in Covid chat....

If he regains his form from two season ago no reason he should not be first team. We really have struggled with a proper number 10 for some time, he's the only one (when he's playing well) that can hold that role down.

To become a solid, well established midtable Prem club who go on fun cup runs from time to time. Not that exciting I know, but I see no reason that we can't aim for that to be our goal within the next five years/seasons

It's so predictable. Like with his mate Keith Scott the Brentford result appears to have caused this change of tack😉

Yes, how we complain about the low prices in Aldi! The truth is the EU started out as a protectionist organisation and has plans to become a protectionist federal state with those on the outside shut out. That means the situation we have today with poor countries around the world hampered by high tariffs if they try to sell their produce to the EU. What is really galling is to see the left-wing cheerleaders for the EU actually supporting this shutout of the poor. Worse, they then applaud when these poor people leave their countries behind and attempt to enter the EU, only to end up as unwanted refugees in a Molenbek ghetto with nothing but resentment for those they deem to have taken away their livelihoods. Fortunately, the good, sensible people of this country who voted for Brexit now offer a lifeline of hope to the poor. We are now in a position to dump high tariffs and welcome poor countries to invest in agriculture so that they can trade with us and achieve economic growth through partnership with the UK. Israel has achieved remarkable results in turning desert wildernesses into huge polytunnel capable of sustaining cash crops, and exporting this technology to North Africa has to potential to encourage economic renewal in some of the poorest parts of the world.

It isn't pedantry to understand what is the objective we are trying to achieve because the policies will differ depending on the objective. If you claim the objective is to prevent the virus from being passed from one person to another then that is a hugely different objective to preventing the hospital's from breaching capacity. For example, to prevent overcapacity we could increase capacity by building new facilities, which wouldn't be necessary if the objective is to prevent transmission in the first place. So it is pretty important to define the objective in the first place. Similarly, if the objective is to prevent breaching of capacity you could allow a greater degree of openness than if your policy objective is to prevent transmission from one person to another In any case, I would argue that preventing transmission of the virus is an impossible to achieve objective and one that we have not implemented for other viruses even though the flu virus kills thousands each year. There has to be an acceptable level of risk, even though it means there will be some deaths otherwise we will never return to anything like normality. As others have mentioned, we accept some risk when we build roads and allow cars to travel. Personally, I think preventing hospital overcapacity is a pretty good rule of thumb measure of risk as it is easy to measure, clear, reasonable, though there might need some tweaks to that.

I think I can sum this up in one word. The word is "integrity". Farke remains true to himself and his principles at all times.

The rules are crazy I saw a game were a guy ran into the box and his toupee fell off. He picked it up as a cross came over, the ball hit him on the hand and went in the goal but because he was holding his hair it was deemed a header and the goal stood

I suppose you can call it a kind of rigidity. I initially thought it was a kind of stubborn inflexibility, possibly ego driven. But I was very wrong. It's more an absolute clarity about what's required and a ruthlessness when the highest standards aren't met. It's not that players are always permanently excluded. Both Buendia and Cantwell were temporarily removed from the team but found their way back in. Both returned as better players with renewed focus and have been central to our success this season.

Another one did actually, again on Five Live phone-in today , stating that she gets an annual incremental performance payrise anyway and is doing pretty well on 37K a year, and earns more than her prison officer husband.

Right, I've thought about this and on the back of Mandie Moo's success last week, I'm going to steal her magic formula and do everyone's pick and send Nutty the balance. Here it is: Half time/full time Norwich/Norwich £1 Norwich to win 4-0 £1 Ben Gibson to score anytime £1 More than 2.5 goals £1 Hernandez to score any time £1 Max to score any time £1 BTTS yes £1 Emi/2-0 £1 More than 3.5 goals £1 Less than 2.5 goals £1 That's the tenner. Now I'll pay for these: BTTS no £1 3-1/Pukki £1 4-0/Hanley £1 Naismith to score anytime £1 (this is my pick. I can see someone called Naismith crashing the party..) No penalties in the game £1 2-1/ Pukki £1 Emi first goal £2 Pukki first goal £2 Another tenner winging its way. Fingers crossed 🤞🤞🤞 Just realised I missed Duncan's pick. Norwich (-1) £1 £11 on it's way.

I know Onel has had a long layoff but he’s also not shown with the minutes he’s been given that he can keep up with us at this level, let alone the level we need to step up to. With the injuries this year and last I’d be looking to give more time to the other options we have, and look for a buyer in the summer. Apologies to Argos fans.

Yeah beating Luton is the main focus at the moment, and we definitely owe them one.

Still waiting for the Government Computer to update. Apparantly a delay in submission of cases by PHE.

To win a major trophy. The FA Cup.

Could we? Yes. Will we ? Probably not.

or we could simply: LAW 5: THE REFEREE IFAB Laws of the Game 2020-21 The authority of the referee Each match is controlled by a referee who has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match. Decisions of the referee Decisions will be made to the best of the referee`s ability according to the Laws of the Game and the spirit of the game and will be based on the opinion of the referee who has the discretion to take appropriate action within the framework of the Laws of the Game. The decisions of the referee regarding facts connected with play, including whether or not a goal is scored and the result of the match, are final. The decisions of the referee, and all other match officials, must always be respected. And scrap VAR and do what we always did, namely, accept the referee's decision. Yes, some referees make mistakes, but players make even more. As long as they are honest it should not be a problem.

Yes. I am reading in the press, and on TV all the time that we have the best health care in the world. The BBC acts as the media department for the NHS. It is an inescapable fact that health care costs money and is very expensive to provide, however you provision it. You say that the US costs more but then you are commenting on the news that nurses are to get a miserly 1% increase. Do you not recognise there is a connection between raising salaries and rising costs? You also point to the inequality of provision in the US. But how about the inequality of provision between the US and the UK? Firstly, people travel from the UK to the US for treatment because there is no provision for some treatments in the UK. There is no flow of people from the US to the UK. Remember this next time you see a fund raising appeal to send a sick child to the US for life saving treatment. Secondly, the UK has far longer waiting lists for treatment than you will find in the US. Our health care is cheaper because it is rationed, and people die while they wait. This is the cost we pay for having cheaper health care than the US. In the US you can actually see a doctor if you need one. If I need a doctor I have to be on the phone at exactly 8am which puts me in a queue for 30 minutes in order to be put through to a secretary who will deem if I am worthy of a ten minute appointment. If not I have to seek medical help elsewhere. It's more expensive in the US but they get far better treatment in return. I understand that not everyone in the US can afford this level of service and there has to be some provision for those deserving cases. But equally our system of pulling everyone down to the lowest common denominator is not the way to do it either.

Exactly. To turn around the mindset etc from where we were at the end of last season has been exceptional and you only have to look at the amount of teams that come down and don't come straight back up to see just what an achievement that is

The response to this event has been phenomenal, lots of hard work & time has gone into organising this one, but we know what these mental health nights mean to people so we will keep working hard and repeating them regularly. So far just over 100 people have booked their free tickets and over 17 mental health groups have confirmed they will be attending. Proud , pleased and truly honoured at the support shown Thank you https://www.canaries.co.uk/News/2021/march/fans-social-club-to-hold-mental-health-awareness-evening/ Diane on behalf of ncfsc

That's the spirit!

I must say I've been suprised how quick some have been to criticise Onel after just 2 games back from a long injury lay off. At his best he showed he was capable of making a goal or an assist out of nothing (as 18/19 showed on numerous occasions). Always gives 100% and does a lot of defensive work that goes unrecognised.

Clearly Max, Skipp and Emi are our best players, past that there are around 10 or so that are good enough for the prem but need the right team around them to make that so. I reckon 4 quality signings would be enough to give us the extra quality, experience and composure to do a job at staying up, with the caveat that we need far better luck on the injury front than last time around. Gibson is a ready made premiership defender and a hell of a pick up from us. I'm actually shocked that no other prem side tried to buy him. Early signs show Giannoulis is a huge upgrade on Lewis and plenty of ITK industry people are stunned we've pulled that one off as he's regarded as potential top 6 standard on the scout lists. Early signs are very promising from him as well, has settled in terrifically. One more CM like Harrison Reed, a physically imposing option at number 9/wing like Toney or Moore from Cardiff, 1 more creative but physically strong number 10 (think RLC or Barkley) and another CB to challenge Hanley and Zimmermann and we're ready to go. Just the big headaches of potentially having to replace our 3 best players even if we are promoted...

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8798/ 😵 It isn't the National Health Service though is it -- It's the International Health Service. How many more billions do you think should be thrown at it? The NHS is failing despite those billions and it needs serious reform as it hasn't been fit for purpose for years -- The Covid pandemic has proven the former to be the case beyond question. Have you ever asked yourself why no other country has copied the NHS? It worked when the UK had a smaller population and more NI paying contributors -- The NHS is not sustainable - Not enough users putting into the pot.

To be fair, I put the big words in the title in the hope that it would scare off anyone who didn't understand them. There's plenty of other threads to get your fill of cliché and hyperbole.

Yep, the referees decision is correct so it isn't his fault but the law absolutely stinks. The guys hand is by his side FFS!

Some have been predicting a big walloping win for many matches. A stopped clock is right twice a day. Yes - I think it will be Luton on Saturday.

I agreed on almost all three points FF 😇😅

Congrats to the Champions Elect. Not taking anything away from yourselves, but the game could have been far more interesting had Canos not missed the sitter, but it is what it is. We offered very little in the second half, and our quality really plummeted at the same time Norwich kept us at arm's length with good organisation and shape. We're gutted, obviously, but losing to Norwich was no disgrace. As the real Thomas Frank said, Norwich is a team who could still beat us if Brentford were on their A game, and we didn't even produce our A game. As a side note, every Norwich fan I've ever encountered face to face have been superb company. Never forget Bees fans getting a round of applause whilst we chanted "Chase Out" back in the mid-90's at our FA Cup win at Carrow Road, and then chatting to Norwich fans about him on the train back. All good-spirited, intelligent chat between football fans. Best wishes and hope to see you in the Prem next season (although I suspect it'll be playoffs for us, and we all know what that means for us!)

Agreed, I thought he was fairly on the money too. Certainly by the standards of his usual posts on here.

He’s been absolutely phenomenal . I say phenomenal. What a football brain ! Plays with a maturity that massively belies his youth and lack of first team football before this season . I’m a HUGE fan .

Cannot wait for this, have been involved in the previous two of these and disappointing we wont be able to all meet and talk about this great cause but I for one will be on the zoom it will be another great event.