Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man

The EFL says it was related to a number of payments, totalling 550 days overdue.

This isn't for overspending; it's for not paying transfer installments on time by the looks of things. Of course, that could've been related to cashflow problems caused by overspending, but Sheffield United claim it was because other clubs were late paying them.

I'd say that's a good reason NOT to give it. Deciding such a huge game on something like this would be a farce, although admittedly Arsenal/Gabriel would only have themselves to blame if it had been given.

The problem is that Leeds and Leicester are also doing a sterling job of bottling it at the same time.

Not only did the three sides chasing automatic promotion all fail to win, but they all failed to even score this midweek. You'd have got long odds on that yesterday afternoon.

I guess we'll agree to disagree. Personally, I don't think games of this magnitude should be decided by such an incident.

There was no Bayern player anywhere near the incident and Gabriel clearly though Raya was giving him the ball in order to take the goal kick. It had absolutely zero impact on the match whatsoever. By the letter of the law, then yes, it's a penalty. But like I said before, than god common sense prevailed.

Penalties are too influential in football anyway. There's an average of around 2.8 goals per game professional football, and generally penalties have a success rate of 75-80%, despite the fact the possibility of a goal being scored in the attack had the foul not been committed generally being at least ten times lower. Penalties have a huge, and disproportionate, impact on results in a sport where scoring is incredibly low. There isn't a sanction in any sport with a discrepancy as large as penalties in football, whereby the punishment/reward is so much greater than the offence which causes it. For that reason, speaking as a neutral, thank god common sense prevailed in the Gabriel incident and a penalty wasn't awarded for something so ridiculously trivial.

But if he makes one bad decision out of 300, it means that he's incompetent, it's a sign of how bad refereeing standards are, and he should be demoted. If a player misplaces a pass however, it's fine. They're only human.

I disagree. Tuanzebe doesn't get anything on the ball, and Sargent, who is already wide of the posts, pushes it slightly wider still. Had Tuanzebe not made the foul, Sargent would've collected the ball at a tight angle, and very few referees would've given a red for that.

Sargent's final touch before being clattered was taking him wide, away from goal, so I think the ref got it spot on with a yellow. In the first half of a big derby, I think any red card would have to be absolutely clear. Personally, I thought the ref handled the match very, very well.

Bloody hell, was it really that many? That's a lot of derbies to play without a win. You can tell from his eyes that he's lived through some horrific times.

I was thinking to myself earlier that I can't remember ever seeing a better atmosphere at Carrow Road, although admittedly I wasn't at the Man City game which has been mentioned a few times in this thread. Yup, I stayed for about five or ten minutes after the final whistle today, which isn't something I usually do to be fair.

Fair enough explanation It just came across to me that you implied the three of them were not good enough, which is harsh on Barnes. Hwang wasn't great, Idah did OK in certain moments, but Barnes has been very important for us this season when available. I agree that if we had just those three then we'd be nowhere near the playoffs, but it just seemed like a blanket criticism of the three of them.

Really harsh on Barnes, who was out injured for two months during our bleak autumn. We started showing signs of improvement when he returned, and then improved even further when Sargent joined him.

Credit where it's due, he has done very well on the whole this season. I think we were all pretty unanimous in wanting him gone in November, and I didn't think he was ever going to turn it around, but with some important players returning from injury and a little less naivety in midfield, he has done a brilliant job. I'm still not completely convinced about next season because Knapper is clearly here for the long haul and I'm not sure if they share the same vision and philosophy, so we'll have to wait and see.

Duffy made four or five sloppy errors in the first 20 minutes but was a rock from then on. Gibson was excellent; I've been critical at times this season but he didn't put a foot wrong all day. Between him and McLean for my man of the match.

Pretty obvious team selection. I'm concerned about the bench though. Of the eight outfield subs, you've got four kids plus two players (Batth and van Hooijdonk) who Wagner doesn't seem to trust. Gibbs and Fassnacht are the only two viable options.

Anybody who goes to Spoons is an Ipswich fan and has posters of Fabian Wilnis in their bedroom.

I'm late again, but I'll have PSG for stats purposes.

Have you read this forum recently? Seems like there's plenty to moan about, apparently...

I can think of three posters on this forum who genuinely irritate/irritated me and this guy is two of them.

Crouch was a very good loan with four goals in 15 games, but I'm not sure if he deserves to be anywhere near this team unless he's being judged on the player he became rather the one who featured here. The best striker I've seen in a Norwich shirt since I was realistically old enough to form opinions of players, which is probably shortly after the turn of the century, is Dean Ashton.

Well, let's be honest, you were well known for your unnecessarily condescending, confrontational, mocking tone under your one of your previous guises which created argument after argument before you were finally banned, and you intentionally used it here in your response to me. And leaving this thread is probably a good idea. After all, you were also well known under your old account for a staggering lack of understanding of transfers and contracts.

The wages which he'd ask for and likely be offered by another club, ****. EDIT: Wow, I didn't think the swear filter would censor 'n u m b n u t s'