Chip20

Klose's last-gasp goal for me. Absolute perfection! 👌

I am still genuinely trying to work out what this means.

We're in the playoffs!

Ha! Beat me to it. Young whippersnapper!

Anybody else, after reading the thread title, find themselves humming "Candle in the Wind"? No? Just me?

Aaaaaaw sheeeeet!

His fifth! That's a lot of metatarsals to break. And all in his left foot too. He must have delicate ones. 😉

Haven't we already tried buying x3 £10m players in vital areas and the evidence so far is that this doesn't help?

To be fair, some among us have been known to use the the same kind of expressions when we "should be beating the likes of Luton Town" or whatever and it hasn't panned out that way.

Are you sure you're sure?

I've never seen a 'Chip20' in any division or league. 😪 Doesn't mean there isn't one, though!!! 😀

Pedant alert, but why does Aarons warrant an apostophe but Williams, Tzolis and Giannoulis don't? 😉

Aye; playing ten men doesn't really make it any easier to score, it mainly makes it harder for the other team to. Packed defence, siege mentality, and we couldn't just pile more men forward with gay abandon because Newcastle still had dangerous pacey players on the break.

Y'see, now I'm all confoosed. You can't use **** on its own but you can stick 'eroe' on the end and it's fine, but the same doesn't work for S****horpe and its...er...constituent parts.

Ooh; that one got through. Good one!

Thought I might get away with it using the Z. Presuming I can't make references to S****horpe either, then.

Ra ****z uh.

All my own thoughts have been expressed already. Like several above, I have had some hope rekindled but ultimately I fear it is a little too late. We've already lost too many of the games we would have aimed to get points from, we've lost too much ground on our relegation rivals and I just don't think there are enough goals in the side. I have no doubt we will score more goals over the next 13 games than we did over the previous 13 and I am sure we will win more than two of them too, but over the piece I don't see it being quite enough. However, I no longer fear we will go down with the lowest ever points tally and I do think we can take it close to the end of the season to maintain excitement throughout the campaign when last time around we all just willed for the misery to end early. However, I am really enjoying watching my team again. I no longer fear every opposition counter attack is going to result in a goal and it's great to see so much more of the play in the opposition's half. If we do go down it is clearly going to be fighting and it feels like we have some pride back. It's still really early days and we could still just be witnessing the fabled New Manager Bounce that can be punctured at any time. If we can keep on improving and if we can find some goals from midfield after the defence has been stabilised and the fighting spirit restored, we could well make it. My fear about the ultimate conclusion is more of a gut feeling and a cautious personality than anything and two or three more decent performances and results could yet convince me that survival is on.

I have a feeling Gilmour will score today. I also have a sinking feeling we'll come crashing down to earth. 1-3, I fear.

It states "first 133 games", not every game of his 208-game tenure. I guess 133 games is about three seasons, including cup games. I think Stiepermann, Zimmerman and Trybull were regulars for much of that period. Not sure who our other German nationals were that featured in our first EPL season under Farke? I couldn't say whether the 'fact' is accurate either way.

Do any clubs loan their promising players to other clubs simply because it is a nice thing to do? Surely it is nearly always so they can benefit in some way, shape or form. I don't see how Chelsea doing it is more abhorrent than other clubs.

Spell it out to him on your twelve fingers, Ken Hairy!!

We'll not know until the end of the season. The end.

This is a really useful tip! I never new this and, without this prompt, wouldn't have even entertained the idea it might work. Thank you.

Like several others, my heart will always tell me we have a chance but my head doesn't quite share the optimism. This is partly because we have too small a sample to draw on. We won't have any real idea until we see how each of the new players fares against established Premier League performers. I am excited by some of our signings but I've rarely actually seen them play. Are they really better than their counterparts in our team from two years ago or do they just look good in highlights reels and in leagues people like me don't watch so much? I'm hopeless at telling how 'good' a player is in isolation so I have no idea how our new lads are likely to perform. I'm excited that we have spent a lot, but remember we took two steps back (Buendia and Skipp) before we could even start to move forwards. Only time will tell whether our new boys function as well or better than those two. I'm one who doesn't get too upbeat nor disheartened. It is all out of my control and my only influence is whatever I can occasionally contribute to crowd noise. I just love to watch it all unfold. To end on a more positive note; I am really excited to see how Tzolis performs this season, regardless of whether we stay up or go down. And if we do go down, I reckon we'll bloody a few more noses along than way than we did last time.