ck-

I’ve seen some suggestions here that there was a “blatant handball and foul” by Dwight before the goal. This picture from the video above suggests otherwise. He was karate kicked over and still managed to get to the ball. 

Pretty sure xLP has us in first. It’s a disgrace that we’re falling below that

Not any more

Frankly anyone who can’t enjoy this football, who can’t see how effective it is, can’t admire the fast passing, can’t be impressed by the commitment, can’t see our quality, and insists on calling it “get it out to the wing and cross it” …. well where do you get your joy in life?
Yes we were under the cosh a bit at 2:0 up, but for every missed chance they had, we had one too.
Fantastic result. 

2 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Looks like we were lucky not to have given away a penalty for handball. Ref seems to be losing control

Think it would have been harsh. His arms looked to be close to his body, and didn’t move toward the ball. 

Just now, Mucker1884 said:

What we need is for someone to come up with a way of organising it...   👀🤣

Oh hang on. Summer holiday finance plans might be back on ….

2 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

Great plan bro.

If it wasn't for those pesky... I mean wonderful... parents, you'd have got away with it!  🤣

Damn. That’s my summer holiday finance plans ruined. 

1 hour ago, LazloW said:

Terribly unsporting of all the other top 6 to win but I knew my absence would at least mean 3 easy points (by the sounds of it).

You and me @LazloW

I was on emergency grandaughter sitting duty. 

i think people owe us a serious debt for breaking the losing run with our unselfish sacrifice. 

22 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

I think there’s a bit of a Spartacus thing going on here. There’s a lot of us who would like B4 immortalised with a regular seat.

His positivity is sadly missed and we could all learn from his lead.

There’s probably only one way this can happen. Someone needs to take a leap of faith. Here’s my suggestion:

Someone agrees to be the lead. 
Anyone who is interested sends a private message to the lead saying what they can contribute. 
The lead then adds all contributions up and sends that amount to B4’s sister.
B4’s sister posts a message on here saying “Thanks for the £xx”. This way the donors aren’t having to trust some random internet forum guy isn’t just going to take their cash and disappear. 
The volunteer donors then send their contributions to the lead.

There are two elements of trust here:
The lead has to trust the volunteer donors will come through, otherwise the lead will be out of pocket. 
The lead could lie about how many donations were offered, and send only some of the contributions through.

 I’m willing to take the risk as the lead, and would be happy to let any of the volunteer donors look at my bank account statement to verify that all donations were forwarded.

 Thoughts? Are we doing this? I know @B4’s Sister is a bit embarrassed about this, but she didn’t ask for anything so there’s no reason for her to do so.

Or of course there could be simpler way that I didn’t think of 🙂

11 minutes ago, Chris_Martin said:

It's delusional to think we are better because we've played more games than the others

I think you’re right. 
Bolton on a mini slump like us. Even on their current form though, you could argue their game in hand would get them a draw, so they’re ahead. 
Barnsley on a great run, so it’s fair to assume they’d get 4 points from the two games. That puts them a point ahead too. 
So applying a reasoned (I’m my opinion) assessment, we’re a point behind. 
A point behind with 11 games to go is wide open. 
The next 3-4 games will be interesting!

3 hours ago, Anag Ram said:

Not just three at the back but also one midfielder whose only function is to protect those three!

We pick Hourihane or Smith who are both tidy, but slow. Only Bird really supports what is then a front two. Little wonder we struggle to create chances.

And yet we’re joint second highest scorers in the division ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I don’t disagree that a lot of the football is industrial, but by that metric (add indeed goals conceded) it is effective.  

Whether other styles would be more effective is, of course, a fair debate. 

12 hours ago, Crewton said:

Crowd-fund the B4 Memorial Seat? I'd contribute.

Count me in. But only if you start all the match day threads @B4’s Sister. It’s gone to pot since you stopped 😔

If we were under this much pressure you’d be expecting we would concede

1 minute ago, Millenniumram said:

It would be nice if just ONCE we could not s*** ourselves when we have the chance to establish ourselves in the top two

Don’t then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

1 minute ago, Anag Ram said:

Moving ball

If the ref hadn’t blown early for a foul, there wouldn’t have been the chance for that. Should have let us play on given the position, and momentum IMHO. 

Still feels like we could get something. We’re been the victims of our own poor play rather than being outplayed. Would be massive to get something out of this. 

Poor ref there. We had advantage

Can’t complain about that, but the rest of the performance has been disappointing. 
Just making poor passes time after time  

1 minute ago, one_chop said:

Is it my TV or have most of our players got ginger hair ?

No. Colour looks a bit off. I thought they were playing in pink when they lined up. 

4 minutes ago, Ramarena said:

God our passing is utter rubbish this half

Was just about to post that. Nicking the ball, getting into space, then just dreadful passes. 

Been a little disappointed in Bird after his fantastic last couple of weeks. A bit of his quality on the ball is needed to settle our midfield. We’re second to everything. 
Adams similarly playing below the standard of the last few games. 
For all Barnsley’s possession, they’ve not really created much. 

Just seen their kit. B4 has got this for us. 

1 hour ago, ap04 said:

Hell yeah for numerous reasons, would be good to know which you personally trust though so that I know how to enlighten you going forward (if I were you I'd go with mine).

I think I understand, but enlighten me if you can. 
My understanding is that the xG is derived from considering the outcome of similar situations. The model is built from as many instances as possible. What isn’t clear is whether it’s calibrated according to: 
- the skill level of the player shooting

- the skill level of the league the match is in

The first one in particular surely means that we should expect to do better than xG because we should have better players than the average - otherwise how are we near the top of the table. 
 

I’m genuinely interested, not trying any silly point scoring.

Interesting research here: 

https://www.football-stadiums.co.uk/articles/first-ever-football-matches/

The first two to kick off were:

Stoke vs West Brom

Wolves vs Villa

West Brom finished before us and won 2:0 giving them an infinite goal average. So we wouldn’t have been top at any point.

54 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

Wasn't it something to do with kick off times... or maybe even a delay somewhere else, meaning our game was the first to finish?  Top on a technicality?  🤷‍♂️

I also believe that "very first top spot" was disputed/argued for years, until some evidence came to light relatively recently (This century?) 🤷‍♂️

I need to swat up!  I'm sure I've held this info in the past, but I'm damned if I can recall it now!  🤣

🐏

Ah yes - I think I’ve heard that one.