The Championship 2018/19

No credit to Banford - hopefully a ban for at least 3 games - make it 4 or 5 if they look like making the playoff final!

 

Congrats to Norwich & especially Sheffield United. Remember the days in the late 90's & 00's when SU were always a tough little outfit & for a time a lot better than SW.

Realistically can't really see anything other than both of these teams struggling.

 

Sheffield Utd in particular appear set to be next season's Cardiff. Squad very much geared to Championship football.

 

Really pains me to see the tedious habit of kicking the ball out for non head injuries creeping back in - in contravention of the rules, which clearly say it’s up to the ref. A cheats’ charter. Villa have got a flaming nerve; no surprise to see the odious Terry in the thick of it.
And I simply can’t stand Leeds.

 

Norwich should be fine if they get a new keeper - Krul isn't what he was before his big injury - and preferably a less hit-and-miss fancy dan than Hernandez

 

I was suprised at how little Leeds did wrong in the incident after reading what happened before watchimg it. Amazed they let Villa score.

 

Fair play Sheffield United, always felt a bit sorry for them after how their previous Premier League spell went. Way too early to be writing them off, the Premier League riches (as long as you actually use them, unlike Cardiff, or don't go mental, unlike Fulham) means that nobody goes in as a no-hoper these days. As for Norwich, I think they'll do well, they have a Farke-ing good manager at the helm and have played some very good football this year

 

Yeah, no obligation to kick the ball out at all. To go on and score when it looked like they'd kick the ball out is sneaky though! Good sportsmanship letting Villa score, although I'm sure they wouldn't have done it had they still had automatic promotion to play for!

 

The best part of this incident was that after Leeds let Villa equalise, John Terry’s brain caught up in processing the admittedly unusual series of events and he started ranting at Bielsa after it had been fixed.

 

I agree. Although I think it was just a Premier League agreement that saw it actively change over here. I don't think the EFL or UEFA ever promoted the same thing, hence there's been plenty of conflict in games involving PL sides in other competitions. I've noticed it start to creep back into the PL over the past 12-18 months too. Possibly because no one has restated the convention for a while and the influx of players means habits from elsewhere are taking over again. Very frustrating. It's time the rules on this were formally changed across the board.

 

Yeah I’m with Leeds on this one. Villa have no right to demand they kick the ball and should play to whistle. Villa should also have had at least 2 red cards for assaulting the goal scorer!

 

I think the rule is fine. Ref determines if play needs to be stopped. Otherwise okay to play on. I guess if a player/physio knows someone has landed on their head they could take matters into their own hands but default position should be to play on. Too much acting these days.

 

Which rules?

 

Ideally both teams should have had 2-3 straight reds scuppering their play-off hopes.

 

Yeah, that post was a bit of a mess. What I'm getting at is the Laws of the Game should make it explicitly clear there's no need to kick the ball out. I don't think they do that at the moment. Without checking, I think it's just implied amongst the 'play to the whistle' stuff.

I'm pretty certain there was a point a few seasons back where the Premier League specifically instructed clubs, as part of their summer briefings where refs visit the teams, to pack it in and leave it to the ref to decide. And refs were told only to stop play if they suspected a head injury. It worked for a while, though only in the PL, but has definitely started drifting back in of late. I think mainly from the players' side. The ref on Saturday was more than content leaving Jota at the other end until our side lost their nerve about playing on and basically stopped so he could be treated.

 

Play to the whistle. Even thick as sh*t footballers should be able to get this one.

 

Play to the whistle.

 

Late to the party with this Leeds v Villa goal, as I don't watch grass roots football anymore . Just goes to show how different people react to similar events. Wenger offered a replay when it happened in a cup match against Sheff Utd some years ago. Bielsa ordered his team to conceded an equaliser from the kick off. What did Coppell do when it happened to us.....yes...nothing....****.

It was an unsporting incident that Leeds had taken advantage of. The thing that really blew it all up was because just before that incident, Leeds had a player injured when Villa were on the attack. But Villa elected to kick the ball out of play so he could be treated. What the Leeds player did was pretend to kick the ball out. His actions were to appear to stop playing, but the ball rolled to another player, who carried on as if nothing had happened. It was a deliberate deceit, which fooled the Villa players. It was out of order, but this is what is to be expected from Dirty Leeds. At least their manager did the decent thing.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. I'm really pleased Bielsa saw it that way, and has gone a long way to restoring his reputation after the Spy Gate scandal earlier in the season.

Leeds are another of those clubs who are plagued with dreadful fans. I hope they mess up in the play offs, just as they did in the automatic promotion push. Karma comes calling again.

 

The Championship was only fun when we were winning and near the top. There was a lot of seasons where we were mid table or near the bottom that were far from enjoyable.

 

At least they have 6 years of consolidation to look forward to.

 

Mid table nothingness in the Championship I found to be far more enjoyable than mid table nothingness in the Premier League.

My wife is a Sheff Utd fan and after our game on Saturday I went up to Sheffield for a curry and a few beers with her and a load of other Sheff Utd fans. They are all delighted at the glory of promotion, but not one of them is feeling particularly excited about actually being in the Premier League. What is there to be excited about? Premier league success is simply avoiding failure.

 

That depends on attitude. I have never thought that apart from, maybe, in our first season up.

I love the Premier League.

 

Depends what you mean by 'mid-table nothingness'. 2016-17 and 2017-18 were very meh, we were clearly too good to go down, yet nowhere near good enough in the end to threaten to do anything significant, yet this season we have come so close to doing something in the league, and have got to the cup final, which we could only have dreamed about a few years ago. For me, it's all about expectations, mid-table in the Championship was fine when we had no money and a 3-sided ground, yet now it's different, next time we get relegated, if we get trapped in the Championship it will be a massive letdown.

My least favourite season by far in my time as a Watford fan was definitely 2013-14, the season before was so enjoyable and had got my hopes up yet we did **** all. At least being similarly mediocre in the Premier League you get the chance to bloody the noses of the big boys occasionally, what good came out of 2013-14?

 

I am really not a fan of James McClean but that is uncalled for

 

Good grief.
Have people nothing better to do than be unspeakably vile.

 

Were you not around for 2007-08?

 

Eh, that's about as depressing as it gets for a team in the play-offs, but at least that season did have more highs than 2013-14 before crashing spectacularly. Either way, both seasons were considerably worse than any of our Premier League seasons in this current spell

 

Come on (Frank Lampard’s) Derby!

 

My heart wants Derby but think we'll end up seeing WBA back in the promised land.

 

I reckon Frank Lampard’s Derby County Football Club have good momentum.

 

Derby v West Brom final please.