Satoshi Nakamoto

[quote user="morty"]The Avatar is a photo of a tee shirt I own.My username is one I use on several forums I am on. It started back in the olden days of the MSN chatrooms where I was first known as "Sultan of Ping" after a band I like, but soon tired of people asking me if I was a Dire Straits fan (the connection being their song "The sultans of swing) so a change was needed. The drummer of the Sultans of Ping is morty mccarthy, so that was adopted, and eventually shortened to morty.People have met me and been actually disappointed that my actual name isn''t morty.[/quote]Sultans of Ping!  Where''s me Jumper?And where did the last 20 years go?

[quote user="im spartacus"]are ugly women banned from winter sports worldwide ? not complaining just an observation [:D][/quote]I think it works like this:1.  If you''re going to get to the top of a sport you need to work at it full time2.  To go full time you need a lot of sponsorship3.  From the sponsors view, the athlete is mobile advertising / sales promotion4.  Pretty girls are better at selling / advertising stuff5.  So the pretty girls get sponsored and succeed, while the girls who aren''t attractive tend to get filtered out.And no, it''s not fair, but that''s life.

Wrong.  Just plain wrong.Just go snowboarding.Plenty of cheap places to go in Europe, and if you are up for it...http://www.worldsnowboardguide.com/resorts/japan/

I prefer that the club lives within it''s means rather than risk ruin by spending money it doesn''t have.I''d also rather see money spent on the academy and developing youth players or buying in and improving players from the lower leagues rather than pay full price for the finished article.Not that this is a terribly revolutionary viewpoint, just common sense.There are already at least two proto leagues within the existing premiership, one of which contests the title and European places, and the other contests survival.  Which one of these you are in is largely down to how much money you have, and this distorts the competition.Ultimately I believe that the league will have to tackle the lack of genuine competition in the premiership by either:1.  Removing the distortion by introducing hard limits on:- players individual earnings- size of squad- total football budget2.  Living with the distortion through some kind of reorganisation, such as splitting the premiership in two or having a European league for the top tier clubs.I would prefer option 1, but since there is probably more money to be made via option 2, I think that is what will happen in the end.

[quote user="morty"]01224 574488[/quote]Priceless!  We all need a good laugh right now :-)

The only measure that really counts is points.Promotion and relegation are not decided on how much you dominated games for, or how well you played, just the number of points (and goal difference as a secondary measure)The performance against Man City, encouraging as it was, brought us one point.  I''d have rather lost to City and beaten West Ham, which would have given us three points.So are we improving?  In terms of points output, no.As I''ve said elsewhere I don''t think Hughton is a bad manager, but I think he is the wrong manager for Norwich, he seems unable to get the best out of this group of players.

How about Jenny Jones?  She''s got time on her hands with the Olympics out of the way and might have a whole range of motivational tactics unavailable to CH.Bonus points for Aimee Fuller as Head Cheerleader.[Sighs, goes for a cold shower and a lie down]

He couldn''t do any worse!

[quote user="morty"]My personal opinion was "Give him ten games" but saw the effect that injuries had on the managers ability to be able to pick his first choice team, so was willing to give him more time. He won crucial games when he had to, and has kept us out of the relegation slots. If the board were going to let him go they should, in my opinion, have done it when we lost the league game to Fulham on Boxing day. January wasn''t the time to do it, due to the transfer window.[/quote]Give him ten games was my view before the season started, but I think injuries are part and parcel of the game, so I didn''t think he should be given more time on that basis (and I wasn''t happy after 10 games).[quote user="morty"]Its unfortunate on Hughton, but I can''t see what he can do to lift the players another level.[/quote]Agreed.  I don''t think he''s a *bad* manager, I think he is the *wrong* manager.He did well enough at Newcastle and Birmingham.  The manager doesn''t operate in isolation though, but in a relationship with the players and the rest of the club.  And, as you say, Hughton doesn''t seem to be able to get this group of players to improve.For that reason I think he is the wrong manager for Norwich.

Shhh...I''m hiding here until all the fuss dies down.

"The more I practice the luckier I get" (variously attributed to Gary Player or Arnold Palmer).But "luck" is usually a function of the better team taking advantage of their superiority.

See this is one thing that puzzles me...if CH is a "defensive minded manager" how come we concede so many goals?

I''m hoping that''s a rhetorical question!!!And the answer for the record is yes we should be worried, and take action to avoid getting into the relegation zone.

Morty will be spending the weekend building a botnet to automatically vote in the next poll ;-)

Short answer: NO!Long answer:  I can''t believe that anyone would be quite so "cut nose off to spite face stupid" to welcome relegation.

I think Hughton will stay in post for at least the rest of this season, whether we lose at Palace or not.And if we lose at Palace, it will put us in the mire, and we''ll just have to try and dig ourselves out of it.

Hi Ricardo,Thanks for that.  If nothing else it has made me feel a little more optimistic :-)Is there also a "trigger level" of negative goal difference that significantly increases the possibility of relegation?I know we''d all like a large positive goal difference, but I''m wondering if among the relegation candidates after 12 games (and at other stages of the season) there is a threshold level of goal difference which indicates likelihood of relegation.Also is there any indication that changing the manager mid - season makes a significant difference to possibility of relegation (I suspect not, but it would be interesting to have it confirmed)?Finally - what is the lowest number of points that has been required for survival in the premiership thus far, and what is the previous season that is most similar to this one in terms of points distribution and what was the number of points required for survival then?

@ricardo - going back to your OP and teams that have an average of less than 1 point per game after 12 games.Can you say how teams that were in this position but escaped relegation performed (in terms of points per game) during:Mid seasonRun inAlso, the teams from higher up that have been relegation - how dramatic has been their decline in performance over the same period to drop them into trouble?

I agree, losing would be a disaster and 40 points would be a miracle!I think we will get somewhere between 34 to 37 points.However I expect that CH will stay in post for at least the rest of this season.

We need to start winning some games soon if we''re going to stay clear of the relegation zone.If we can''t beat Palace who can we beat?So for me this is a "must win" game.