Comrade 86

Can we have a steward's enquiry on @rynny's total please?

Confirmed. Worth a try but that @mozza's a hard man to turn 😋

On reflection, I think I asked @mozza this about another game and for the purposes of this game, he doesn't. Annoying as I've actually remembered to submit predictions for nearly all of the games this year and I'm sick of ending the season amongst the L1 also-rans 😂

Don't earn a lot do they? For running the risk of being fried alive during take off I'd be wanting a considerably more than £120k. Also, NASA aren't going to the sunlit uplands of Mars, are they? Meandering about in space breathing in my own farts has limited appeal, there's no pubs up there for a start. It's a shame as I'm otherwise well qualified.

Seems a sensible approach to me Tamworth. I confess my sense that we'll finish top 2 is as much a hunch as any considered opionion. I backed us for the autos at fancy odds before we went on our run though, so perhaps it's my pocket talking, not my brain!

How are people arriving at their projected numbers. Curious as to the massive gulfs between some estimates and others. Aside from simply extrapolating from past performance and numbers to date, what other further factors are being accounted for? EDIT: Didn't KentRam used to do a similar thing with some intelligent weighting applied? Can't remember his username but it's something like that.

Whilst that doesn't really address my question, that's fair enough. I think in this league though, any team can lose to average teams. Even Ipswich lost the plot at one point (winless in 6 or 7 IIRC). I'd also reiterate what I said after we beat them, that being that they are a much better side than their league position at the time suggested. Their form since then has them sat 5th in the table (games since we beat them), whereas they sat 23rd with only Carlisle below them not so long ago. I'd not be surprised to see them trouble Barnsley, among others, given their performances against Portsmouth and Bolton. I do agree though that we will need to improve our own last 6 game form. Perhaps we can start by blowing away Bristol this weekend?

What a wonderful and fitting idea that is! Well played!

I'd take that alright! I'm probably a bit of a dreamer when it comes to Derby, but I'd not be surprised to see sharp improvement from the team. We've rarely put it all together this season and I just feel we might be about to and I think there's a half sensible argument to support that view. I've thought for a long time now that Portsmouth and Derby were the teams to beat. I think both have a class edge, though Portsmouth have showed greater consistency. I also thought they recruited very well and whilst it looked desperate for us for a while, bringing in Ebou and Gayle might yet prove a masterstroke. As much as anything, I just feel like our luck may have turned and I'm oddly confident we'll close this season out strongly. At times we still don't look like we've really gelled, but I'm still hopeful we can end the season looking the sum of our parts.

They are the form side currently, but we've seen how quickly that can change. They'll also be the hunted, not the hunters moving forwards and they've a toughish run in. I' wouldn't write them off, but out score us by a full point across all 10 or 11 games seems highly unlikely to me. If we have that sort of a collapse, I think I'll probably cry 😂

Ah, ok, I'll bite then 😂 With Ebou now fully fit and settled in, Gayle getting there and already having found his scoring boots, Sibley finding some really good form, Joe Ward finally showing what a threat he can be, Waggy back as cover so we actually have more than one fit 9 (his form was decent prior to injury too), Fozzy back in training, CBT to throw in the mix and even Collo due back in training in under 3 weeks, I think it's fair to assume that we might show improvement on those two games that you've chosen above all the others to form your assessment. We might even be seeing young Rooney before the end of the season and with a good few of ours having had very little football this season, I reckon they'll be finishing rather more strongly than some opposing teams' players with nigh on 40 games in their legs. I'd also argue that the performance against an admittedly poor Vale side also illustrates that whilst they're not quite back to the smoothly oiled machine we saw mid-season, our defence is getting used to changing up between a 3 and a 4 without the catastrophic brainfarts we saw earlier in the season. That in itself bodes well, as given how impregnable our defence has looked at times this season and it's clear already that having a 'fully staffed' midfield instead of just Hourihane and Bird, who were regularly overrun in earlier games, should aid them further. Likewise the arrival of Ebou, who can sit in and screen the back four as well as acting as a midfield enforcer. Defensive benefits aside, Ebou's arrival also allows Bird plus A.N. Other to pursue more glamorous exploits higher up the pitch. Likewise Sibbo, as when he chose to go forward against Vale, Ebou dutifully dropped deeper to cover the space he left behind him. In the end and this season especially, I guess we all see what we want to see, but I'd argue that we should expect to finish the season really strongly and that unlike some other sides, we still have scope to improve further. Everyone is raving about Barnsley, but I don't see it. I don't think they have the quality we and Portsmouth do, despite their good recent run of form and I remain confident that we will occupy one of the top 2 slots come the end of the season. I suspect they may beat Bolton (tonight), but they still have Portsmouth, Charlton, Stevenage, Reading and Blackpool to negotiate and Bolton's run-in is even tougher. That's my piece said, so I'll refrain from troubling you further!

No you clearly didn't. Glad to be of assistance though. No need to thank me either 😋

@mozza is Gayle 1st scorer then. I'm only asking as it's the 1st time in forever I've got the score and FRGS right 😂

Surely £1 million wouldn't even cover Marinakis' annual pie bill. If he's mithering over a tiny bill like that, especially when it's absolutely fair, perhaps he's got himself in deeper than planned. I doubt Forest will be relegated as there are worse teams than them in the PL, hard though that might be to believe, but if they do, they might find their owner bailing out quite unceremoniously. One can but hope.

Barnsley to end up 9 points clear of us?!?! Blimey. Do we not win any more games this season?

Don't know about that Angie. Most love the man from his time here, it's just some fools don't accept that we should really get him back 😋

The period we had no striker you mean. Ok.

Which games are more likely to lose than to win, in your opinion?

I can't do the one episode a week thing as I lack any patience at all, so I tend to have to wait until the entire series has aired before a weekend binge. Been looking forward to this show with some degree of anticipation, but it runs until the end of bloomin April! Grrrr!!!

Perhaps, but that seems scarcely relevant to this war. The issue in Gaza is not that either faction is unable to recollect the past, but rather that neither side is able to forget it.

Even without my Rams tinted gogs on I'd say that they are objectively the worst side I've ever seen in the top flight. Spineless too. 19% possession in a 100 minute game and not a single SoT all night! At home!! 🫢

So you'd prefer to assess our chances on a 3 match sample than one comprising half a season? Okey, dokey 🙃

We want 12...