Blackpool, not overly confident

[bigbear 0]

Is Brown able to play against Blackpool on Saturday or did he play in the 3rd round for the mackems?  If a player is going to make his 1st start for a club, playing in the FA Cup against a team a division below isn''t a bad one.  A pity that Blackpool are in such a good run of form at the moment.  If our players can pick themselves up and be counted (which they don''t seem to like doing at present) then it should make for a very good game.  Hopefully the weather will be fine and dry and the pitch will play ok.  If Grant can get another face or 2 into the squad by then, the players in those positions will be feeling the heat so will have to produce, especially if Grant puts his money where his mouth is and starts dropping players who are underachieving.

I''ll obviously be hoping for a win as i would love to see a cup run which the fans deserve, but the old quotes will be out in force if we don''t, "the league is what we are concerned with", etc.  I''m very confident for the game though, and certainly wouldn''t mind getting a draw and have the replay at Carrow Road which could possibly even get televised depending on what other games have to be replayed.

[Web Team - Vince 0]

[quote user="bigbear"]

Is Brown able to play against Blackpool on Saturday or did he play in the 3rd round for the mackems? 

[/quote]He didn''t play in the third round.

[djc 0]

Brown was not invovled with the Sunderland squad for their 3rd round match, so obviously did not play, Whether he is able to play for us on Saturday still remains to be seen.

why do we, the fans "deserve" a cup run?

Perhaps it would be better to have just the league to focus on

i seriously hope we have at least 1 more addition to the squad before the weekend. we seriously need something to happen just to give us a "feel good factor" ''cos it all seems like doom and gloom at the moment.

[Alex Harvey-Jones 0]

I''m trying to be positive but I''m really worried about this game. We are rubbish away from home - Blackpool are playing well, we have a record of losing to lower league opposition and they will be well up for the game. Its a long journey for the players too. Wouldn''t want to bet on us winning!

Losing would be an outrage though! Come on Grant you have to get the players up for this game!! We deserve a decent cup run!

[norfolkbroadslim 223]

In the position we are in I don''t give 2 hoots about the cup.  We won the league cup in 1985 and got relegated.  It would be nice to get to the quarter final of the cup or better, but not at the expense of the league.  We would obviously have more games to play and therefore more of a chance of picking up injuries which we can''t afford.

Sometimes a cup run can spark league form, but it rarely happens.

Concentrate on getting safe this season I say.[:)]

[In Dubious Battle 0]

we''ve got to give our all in the cup just imagine if we could get all the way to wembley? i know that sounds ridiculous but millwall did it a few years ago if the draw is kind to us and we get weaker opposistion whilst the big teams knock each other out.....................................i should stop dreaming we''ll probably loose 3-0 to blackpool on saturday.

[Hucka Hucka Huckerby 0]

We will lose to Blackpool Saturday, I have no confidence in our team what so ever! You''ll never meet a poor bookie & they all have Blackpool as favourites to win... What does that tell you?

[7rew 0]

That you never meet a poor bookie means...

that bookies know what bets people are likely to place in a given situation. 

Bookies odds are not a direct reflection of the probabiltiy of a given

result, they have quite alot more to do with the number of people that

will bet on a given result.  They start with a true reflection of

the odds of an outcome and then they:

1) make sure that the total odds offered don''t add up to exactly one,

this is what guarentees their long term profits. i.e. if you bet £100

split over each result in such a way as to maximise your return (that

is proportionally to the odds given) then you would not expect to make

back your £100. A more concrete example is if each event -

win/lose/draw - is equally likely then the odds should be 2-1 (for

every 1 bet you get 2 back [I''m much more at home with probabilites

than odds]) , 2-1 and 2-1 but if you offer 5-3, 5-3, 5-3 then the

bookie is more likely  to make money. In the first case if you bet

£9, £3 on each you get £9 back, in the second if you do the same you

get £8 back, the bookie making a profit.

2) reduce the odds on any outcome that has an emotional attachment to

it, such as a cup upset, since people will bet on it more in hope than

expectation.

3) reduce the odds on any outcome that someone has placed a big bet on - so they lose less if it happens.

4) reduce the odds on teams that are heavily tipped in national papers, since these also attract more bets.

Contrary to popular belief, bookies do not actually have any better

idea of the exact probabilities than any other person who spends time

examining recent form.  Bookies make their money by clever

application of a mixture of psychology and mathematics.