Championship thread 25/26! (31 Viewers)

skybluecam said:

Ipswich and Boro will be looking at our run and saying it's favourable - Southampton tough, but you'd rather play them than another autos contender.

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In fairness, probably not a game we go into for the rest of the season as underdog unless our form dips.

mark82 said:

100%. I wouldn't expect to win the next 4, but it's not impossible (we've had a run like that already this season).

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Were super streaky under Lampard. I wouldn’t be surprised if we win six or seven in a row again or four of the next five.

Ccfcisparks said:

Its interesting as Opta has 84 for Title and 82 for Automatics.

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80.92 for title
95.44 for autos
82 points for second place

4 more wins takes us to 83. Think we need more than that tbh.

And will get more than that.

Is it just me that thinks that Mandala is a complete donkey?

shmmeee said:

Were super streaky under Lampard. I wouldn’t be surprised if we win six or seven in a row again or four of the next five.

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The home form has held up throughout all the streakiness on the road. If it continues to were in business.

Nuskyblue said:

Is it just me that thinks that Mandala is a complete donkey?

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Yes. It’s the Mandala effect

Nuskyblue said:

Is it just me that thinks that Mandala is a complete donkey?

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He's ok, not the 2nd coming of Baresi they painted him to be though.

Ccfcisparks said:

Yes I reckon both Ipswich and Boro win every game for ther est of the season

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You're being very naughty again

The chances of your not going up from here is minute tbh, tonight was never going to change that.

As a lot of your posters have surmised, even fairly decent results on average for you will see you over the line very nicely for promotion and the title is very achievable, not that that matters as much as going up, that's just the cherry on the cake.

A 5 point advantage (or more if Ipswich drop any points in their games in hand) a "slightly" more favourable set of fixtures left and you've came up with a different way to get wins from earlier in the season that's reliable too.

Speaking of the last, we finally found a different way to play. Granted Brum went for it more which helped, Beadle's face made me suspect he was hampered and I'm still surprised they sent him out for the 2nd half, but 5 at the back meant Fry could do the lion's share of defending whilst Ayling was more responsible for playing it forward.

Other than that... My take on tonight was that This wasn't the "hellball" we're used to either.

Far less rapid passing and moving that can slice through teams but is vulnerable to a hard press at times too.

We didn't use our midfield as much, relying more on work down the channels & looping long balls (and even a headed goal relying on a decent hit ball and a striker's perfect positioning, bloody hell, not seen us have one of those in a while)

We let them have about 60% of the possession as well, content just to break and let the ball travel the distance for us. It meant we were under the cosh for periods, but ultimately if we just outscored them and were clinical enough we had nothing to worry about.

As a result we had far less shots than we usually do, but every single one we hit on target went sailing in.

Oh and if all else failed, yes I know this will meet with some scepticism to say the least, but we had the power of Hoodoo to back it up (7 wins on the bounce against Brum now very coincidentally, which is probably the biggest reason I was chilled about this game beforehand despite it being at their ground and them being in form. Even if we weren't as clinical, something else was overwhelmingly likely to go wrong for them, again see Beadle's face.)

We found another way to win that was damned effective.

Remind you of any team in particular?



I think Hellberg actually learned a fair bit from our game against you as our altered style tonight showed..It may not be as attractive to watch, but it IS efficient, which is far more important right now. Whether it will be as effective against the myriad of low block teams we will doubtless face before season end, who knows? But as you discovered with the difference from your own more expansive playing style earlier in the season, it's another way to win, which at this stage of the campaign is vital.

Terry_dactyl said:

My folks said Hull were really lucky against them. All Pompey apparently.

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I listened to the large majority of that game in the car travelling up to Cov . It was a very poor game but Pompey were the better team for certain