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Having watched Idah play for Ireland multiple times I would say that he's still raw, but he was excellent against the Portuguese . He had Ruben Dias marking him for most of the game and often had to feed off long balls but he played the target man role well. One of the issues he had before for Ireland was when he played the target man role he had a poor first touch but the ball stuck much better today. I think he's improved alot over the last few months. I think he's suited to the prem too because he's strong enough and confident enough to handle players like Dias who often physically bully weaker players. He could work well playing off someone with pace and energy like Sargent. If Pukki continues to start the two could be an option off the bench if Farke wants to change to a front two. Connolly would be a perfect fit in an Irish context if he didn't turn to jelly whenever he touches the ball. Also Omo looked good too. First cap but he was very composed.

How is your new chip shop business getting on Dylan? 🤣

Very exciting but its nowhere near the classes of 87-89 or 92-94. Still some way to go to reach those heights, however, what a club.... it keeps on giving. Looking forward to whats to come over the next few seasons.

I am not really into the worst excesses of club rivalries. I think there are things in life worth getting worked up about for good reason, without bringing sport into it. But I do think the criticism levelled at Ipswich CEO Mark Ashton from the fans of his previous employers, Bristol City, is extremely interesting. Ipswich may have a tiger by the tail, (or perhaps he has them by some other part of the anatomy). https://www.otib.co.uk/index.php?/topic/213244-the-office-uk-ipswich-town-edition/page/9/ This is quite aside from the hoary old question of what the Hell a pension fund is doing, investing money in a non-Premier League football club. There are so many things to be happy about with NCFC at the moment that I feel guilty distracting attention, but I really couldn't let the moment pass. It will all come out in the wash, of course.

If you want to see a game on Saturday, Mulbarton are playing Welwyn Garden City in the First Preliminary Round of the FA Cup. Should be a good match with a big crowd. Admittance is £6/£3/£1 There is a newly opened chip shop next to the ground which is highly recommended.

If the crowd are offended at a goalscorer taking his shirt off to reveal a message about a friend who died, and they're offended at his skin colour, then the problem is not remotely with the scorer. Right, here's hoping Saka, Bellingham, Sterling, Mings - all of them, just take their shirts off to **** the crowd even more. You'd think it would be even more evidence for FIFA to act on and maybe cause a couple of matches behind closed doors.

So you're telling me Ipswichs current model won't last and they are gonna end up in the national leauge and then wound up?

Just to add to this, the reason I started that thread remains- I (and I assume I'm not alone) like to view this forum on my breaks at work or on my phone on the train etc etc. It is extremely awkward if you open a thread to be greeted by a giant picture of someone in their swimsuit and someone happens to catch sight. Please stop it.

I mean hes already playing in Spurs first team which is some way ahead of your prediction of him not too long ago...

Particularly enjoyed this bit on 'Transfer Window Losers' TalkSPORT Mission accomplished, it should be said: the clip in question was tweeted just once by talkSPORT but has been viewed more than 400,000 times. Engagement is king and presenter Alex Crook was wearing the crown. His unimaginative takedown of Norwich was immediately and summarily dismantled by supporters but it should be pinned up in the corridors of Carrow Road for the remainder of the season. Those points made on August 22 in the aftermath of heavy defeats to Liverpool and Manchester City should fuel the Canaries to prove a point. “Are they a club who want to try and compete to stay in the Premier League?” Crook asked of a team “just sort of making up the numbers” who “come up and spend very little money”. “I think in some ways it goes against sporting integrity when they are in a league where they have no real intention of competing,” he continued. “It’s almost like they are signing players for the Championship next season.” Liverpool were once linked with Milot Rashica and Ozan Kabak fared well enough at Anfield for half a campaign. Josh Sargent and Christos Tzolis are relatively unknown quantities with the potential to excite. Billy Gilmour and Brandon Williams both arrive from the Premier League’s elite. Angus Gunn, Ben Gibson, Pierre Lees-Melou and Dimitrios Giannoulis plug gaps that needed addressing. Mathias Normann is a club-record signing in the making if his loan works. Jamie O’Hara has since deleted his tweet of support for his colleague, advocating for the authorities to ‘revoke there membership’ and replace Norwich with teams ‘who actually want to stay in the Premier League and spend money’, presumably behind some of Just Banter defence. Or maybe he checked the numbers and saw the Canaries had made five of the 11 most expensive signings in their history this summer. Imagine if they had any intention of competing…

Our Summer has certainly been a journey. In 3 months we've gone from this to

Good work from football365.com https://www.football365.com/news/opinion-transfer-window-losers-newcastle-bruce-kane-liverpool-arsenal-arteta https://www.football365.com/news/opinion-transfer-window-winners-levy-crystal-palace-man-utd-chelsea-aston-villa https://www.football365.com/news/opinion-brentford-norwich-watford-promoted-excellent-transfers-ajer-rose

Good victory but shame about the unwelcome and shameful behaviour....

'he was asking for it' Yes, mustn't upset the delicate racists, even though the shirt was a tribute message to his recently deceased friend.

Ah but who is watching you?🤔

'Anyone found booing the anthem will be banned' So Hungary are playing in an empty stadium in their next match then? And to think the papers call one or two England fans booing the knee a disgaree.. That's an entire stadium of 60,000 people booing

I'm off to the stadium. Enjoy!

So Ashton is a self loving self righteous wage stealing bellwhiff ? Love it. 😂

National 38,154 - 178 rate of decrease 1% Some areas up some down, overall still fairly static Local Norwich infection rate 283.4 down 16.1% on the week (24 patients in N&N down from 25 ( updated to 31st Aug)) Vax 1st Dose 44,088 88.6% done Norwich numbers 76.9% 2nd Dose 113,385 79.2% done 67% In Hospital 01-09-2021 7,596 31-08-2021 7,620 30-08-2021 7,285 29-08-2021 7,059 28-08-2021 6,932 27-08-2021 7,041 26-08-2021 6,996

It’s number of posts per page rather than length of post surely? Edit: there we go

A football club is being bank rolled by an American firefighter/police pension fund. Is this type of thing common? I feel I'm a risk taker but I dont think I'd want my retirement bank rolling a 3rd tier football club on another continent.

Nope. The Bond era. Win 5-3 one week, lose 5-2 the next.

In the words of 'Big Kev' (Australia's version of Barry Scott) - I'm excited. Bags of potential throughout the squad and plenty of opportunity to change things around to suit opponents rather than Plan A, and Plan A1 ( Plan A with 3 first team players injured and Tettey as a CB). We got relegated from a weak PL last time around. I think the PL is looking stronger this year with no obviously poor teams, this squad gives me a bit of hope that we can make a decent fist of things this time but the task is possibly more difficult.

Potential is the big word. Don't get me wrong I think we have had a fantastic window and if half the players signed live up to their potential we could have a good season. We are not signing £30 million players ready made for the premiership. I listened to a pod cast where Tzolis was a future balloon d'Or winner after 1 game up against a player who has spent the last 2 seasons on loan at Weymouth. We are in exciting times but please keep calm. Most of the players are in a new league and country and will take time.

I think we need to use Idah in certain games and that we need to think about how we change our style occasionally. We will not steam roller teams in this division and having a quick athletic, strong target man could really work if we want to counter attack and get teams turning. We have plenty of pace now. Pukki is a brilliant player but in some games coming on against tiring defences may work to our advantage. There is no way he can start every game with the required level of intensity.

I can't understand the negativity towards Idah, he always looked a fantastic prospect and recently has developed so well that he's able to keep more senior players out of the national side at the age of 20. We should all be very proud of him and not take any notice of what Ian Wright says. I would prefer him to Sargent in the striker position.

I’m relying on you Purple! You can do this!

That was a bolt out of the blue, relegation favourites I believe!

If you think Idah is going to go to a League One club it's right up there with your suggestion that Soto was the second best striker on our books. Batsh*t crazy.

Not this time..... We will tank them....

Again I am hanging my head in shame 😀.............

Ive thought Idah looks noticeably sharper and stronger during his appearances for us so far this season (mainly in pre season admittedly).

My problem is that the government never sticks to any cohesive strategy when the going gets tough. It follows the herd never leads it. Last Spring the various 'relaxation dates' where premised and widely espoused on the basis of a decreasing prevalence / hospitalization rates. If it is decreasing open up a little - check (5 weeks) later and if still under control OK to proceed to next step. Data/Science led. However when those go/nogo 'gates' couldn't be met the goal posts where simply moved, and moved again and again. The last funny idea to defend the indefensible was that we'll get Covid this summer now past and somehow that will stop an explosion this autumn from overwhelming the NHS. What I (and many many others) now suspect is that they've actually achieved is to well and truly seed Covid at high prevalence despite the outdoor summer with schools out to almost perfectly initiate and trigger a rapid rise in Covid this autumn with all inevitable NHS issues (and then panicked heavy restrictions) to follow. I note that this time last year hospitalizations where about 100/day as opposed to 1000/day today and we know what followed. I simply call out this government's Covid response as an inept shambles (the NHS has done fabulous job on Vaccines)

Absolutely, there has been lots of waffle about this from the Government but no action, a wasted opportunity.

Treated myself to a vinyl copy of that. He's a great musician and tries something different with each album. The Pink Floyd inspired Reflections (Mojave) is a peach.👍

Indonesia has now passed UK's Covid death total, the 7th nation to have higher deaths than UK. Asia has and is taking a battering from the Delta variant this last 2 or 3 months after mostly escaping the worst of the original and earlier variants for over a year...basically Covid...especially the Delta variant..is now a more pandeminc problem than ever, assaulting newer regions of the globe that previously got away more lightly. Africa still has been relatively only moderately affected in many nations but of course it feels inevitable that they to will suffer a worse fate in time than at present.

This is the whole album so if you normally listen to the Ramones, be warned.

Connolly's lack of quality was so poor it was difficult to watch.

I think we’ve seen what they’re aiming for on TV recently:

And nothing emphasized the overdue return of our SOVEREIGNITY like hosting your nuclear deterrent in another country ....

Not sure where those figures come from but from world data which is 100% accurate % of population, Germany and the U.K. are way behind some EU countries and others such as Iceland involved in the EU programme. Fully vaccinated as % of population Germany 60.7% U.K. 64.2% France 68.3% Spain 71.8% Belgium 71% Portugal 73.1% Denmark 72.5% Ireland 70.3% Malta 83.6% Iceland 73.9%. We are currently doing 160 - 180,000 doses a day, whereas France are going along at 4 - 500,000 doses a day. The main reason is everywhere else already vaccinates 12 - 18 and we can only begin to catch up once we follow suit. The reason the overall stats for eu are only 59.6 is most of the old communist countries are not really bothering. The EU will be producing 2 billion doses this year so will have no supply issues. This is mainly Pfizer which now seems the U.K. choice as we have purchased 93 million doses from Pfizer. This is not meant to say one is better than the other as some of Europe is better some worse than the U.K. I am just querying the figures quoted. Here however is a fact those that use vaccine passports, the likes of Ireland, France and Spain, have a much higher uptake of the vaccine. Those such as America where Republicans are told not to have a vaccine, have low uptakes as does Israel due to religious objections.

Power of the radio to send you crazy in the day.

I was there in a rammed Barclay with my mates John and Phil . We’d had a few pints ( Horse and Drey , Ber Street I think ) then got there really early to get a good spot behind the goal.Then of course we were absolutely bursting for a p*ss but didn’t dare leave that spot until half time whistle . It was fever pitch the whole game. so much so that I can’t actually remember much about the game apart from Steve Bruce scoring that glorious header in front of us. I can replay that in my head even now .Got a big photo from the EDP on my wall of him wheeling away after he’s scored with Donowa , Channon and Deehan. Crazy celebrations at the end. Then I think I was actually in a bit of a state of shock. We’d actually beaten Ipswich to get to Wembley …..we were better than them …….. it felt like a sea change in our clubs fortunes .💛💚 OTBC .

At this rate threads about me making threads will outnumber my threads..

You have to be consistent though - if this year's loans only count when we meet the obligation (which I agree with), surely the same must apply to Giannoulis and Gibson. The money was (largely - there would have been a loan fee ) spent this summer so must count.

The numbers for England are incredibly encouraging IMO, when you consider the expectation was we'd have around 3m active cases and actually it seems somewhere more like 1/4 of that. It's a bit ironic many were calling for a delay in restrictions being relaxed until early September i.e. when schools go back. Now it's been realised the timing on 19th July was well judged, and this was explicitly part of the thinking at that time. Yes I fully expect an increase in September when schools go back and summer is over. What's happened to Scotland since their schools returned may give us an idea of what to expect, if their numbers are currently at around the peak, that is also encouraging. Given what we now know about waning vaccine effectiveness (especially Pfizer) and the superior immunity from actually catching Covid itself, it seems the strategy of removing restrictions in summer and being guided by hospital admission levels (more than any other level) is spot on. The idea that the Govt had it's eye off the ball on Covid over the summer is frankly laughable.

Not sure I get your logic... looking up/stalking a players ex on social media, because she once dated a player of the club you support is less weird than looking up their current partner? How many ex's back do you have to go before it gets weird? I mean, I find it a bit weird to be looking up players wives, sharing them on a public message board for a very public game of Tinder and accompanying it with a chorus of "corrrrr blimey, PHWWWOOOAARR!". Each to their own I guess.

In the basis we seem to be able to carry over 10 defeats it's not odd at all 🙃

Yes, let's stop having faith in our top scorer.

Does he have his own fridge or has he borrowed it from someone?