Championship - 2022/23

Lol, Blackburn and Coventry drawing - which was the ideal result. Norwich dropping points away at QPR. Preston losing to Swansea. Could hardly have asked for more from the other games.

 

This match was a great example of how FUN, EXCITING and UNPREDICTABLE this great league is.

 

The irony from Burnley's point of view is that the club hasn't had the benefit of parachute payments, because the owners have copped the lot to pay their own debts. Burnley's funding this year was from selling every player that had value (apart from Brownhill and Roberts) and rebuilding from floor level.

 

You needn't worry about Burnley being relaxed for the Blackburn game. It's as intense a local derby as you get (though Blackburn's apathy, and their deliberate ploy to leave 6,000 seats empty in the away end when they could have made £180,000 in ticket sales from them, won't help.)

 

No one cares about that game anymore unfortunately.

 

Not going to get into the play-offs with 68 points though, and that's without factoring in the way we've been playing for the last three months (even if Leicester did manage that in 2012/13).

 

Luton will go up. You know it. I know it. We all know it.

 

I just try not to think about it

 

Please STOP!

 

There was an article in the papers about how LT will have to pony up 10M for ground improvements
if they go up . Players and agents will be demanding outrageous wages . Every cloud .......

 

£10m on ground improvements, £100m+ in prize money.

 

And Hodgson saves Palace. The season that keeps on giving.

 

Due to the nature of the PL that £10m of improvements would be spent entirely on facilitating tv coverage and other media and broadcaster requirement. None of it is for the benefit of the fans and anyway, there’s no way they’re building new stands at that dump when they’ve got plans to move in the next 3 years.

I’m sure Linekar would get one of the executive chalets though!

 

This is a strange comment in that article, unless it’s an architectural term I’m unaware of?


Project architect AndArchitects made a number of consultations with football enthusiasts and professionals to identify their key expectations for the stadium.

The consultations resulted in the identification of a number of design and structure elements, which were included in the final design of the stadium. Some of the elements included a soulless bowl, four stands, a low roof and proximity to the pitch. Steep raked seating, safe standing spaces and a home end have also been incorporated.

 

They are already insufferable as it is just by being above us in the league. If I have to see yet another "Mind the gap" joke...

 

Talking of our dear neighbours...

I have plotted how our rating has changed over the season compared to them and Burnley.

I have used the FiveThirtyEight Soccer Power Index (SPI). This is the percentage of available points a team would expect to get if they repeatedly played an average team at a neutral venue. (For reference UAE are rated 92.3, Real Madrid 88.0 and Ipswich 48.0)

For clarity I have plotted only the trend lines, not the individual data points.

So, ***** Town got better, plateaued, changed their manager and got better again.

We just went downhill all season, just at varying rates.




Sources:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/championship/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/methodology/how-our-club-soccer-predictions-work/
Accessed: 21/4/23

 

I don't think it's an architectural term. I think it's a communications **** up. My guess is the fans said they did NOT want a soulless bowl of a stadium (like Wet Spam have got) but instead wanted four stands, a low roof and proximity to the pitch i.e. a stadium in which a crowd can generate a good atmosphere.

 

I assume we're the grey horizontal line at the bottom

 

Supporting Coventry if they get in the playoffs

 

2 straight wins are we are right back in this.

 

Sammie Szmodics you disgusting cheat. Something like that should really be a red.

 

Think there is one around somewhere already…

 

Thought we were just about in with a mathematical hope there for a minute with that Preston equaliser, but I forgot Millwall were playing Blackburn, hopefully we actually will see the kids blooded now!

 

We all know we've been ***** for 4 years. But this has been disguised by at least being in the premier league, where relegation is softened by "it's the best league in the world" and being inevitable at some point for a club Watford size, by promotion during COVID where football was upside down (and we were lucky).

This season? No excuse, no lucky scrape through, no fall guy no COVID, no hiding from the plain truth that the club is doing it wrong.

Maybe there wasn't a drive to change in the past that is so blindingly obvious now that Pozzos simply can't go on like this? Maybe this will be a good thing. Maybe scraping the play offs would have been the worst outcome possible. Another justification for chaos.

 

Huddersfield (Warnock) making official complaint about Burnley's team selections
The master of the dark arts not happy . What a shame.

 

Shambles yesterday. No urgency, no fight, no plan. Body language terrible. We just cannot defend, we build so slowly, we seem to try and play through defences and we are not good enough to do so. We don't shoot enough and the ball is not delivered into danger areas quickly enough. Probably let our best striker leave mid season, yes I mean the crow and he was *****. At least we don't have to buy KD for £15 million, the "striker" who is knackered after 30 mins. Even JP and IL have lost the plot. Mass clear out needed, start again with no expectation.

 

Didn't notice him complaining at our flimsy floozies?