revolution saint

I’m going 0 - 0. Two teams go head to head in the being brave stakes to see who can pass the ball between their backline the longest. Purists will love it, fans not so much.

Think a lot depends on who else is playing in midfield but personally think we have better options available before we start talking about Aribo playing there. Only time I'd be using Aribo is as a hail mary substitute.

Agree. The squad is a decent one for this division and if they look bad now, it's because they're being misused and suffering a lack of confidence due to the manager. KWP should be ripping his opposing fullback apart but he's stuck playing in midfield, Charley can't even make the first 11 and yet Aribo starts in front of him. I don't even think Smallbone is a bad player but it's patently obvious he's not a defensive midfielder. Any decent manager looks at what he's got and works out a formation from there, playing the best players in their best positions. RM looks like a slave to a formation and system only he really understands (and I'm beginning to doubt that).

Haven't seen the interviews but he's basically David Brent, isn't he?

That starting line up is the first time I’ve seen a last throw of the dice selection start a game. Utterly bizarre and if Ipswich had watched the Sunderland and Leicester games they’d have been out of sight by half time. We’re getting worse, not better.

Good read, particularly with regards to the fullbacks.

I'll go stupidly optimistic and go for a 3-2 win. If Bednarek is back and Charles moves into midfield then it might make a difference.

Fuck me, you had to use AI for that? You must be thick.

Really sorry to hear that Whitey, not much I can say except best wishes to you and your family.

I’m still pissed off the BBC got rid of Outside Source. Loved that and Ros Atkins was really good. Since it’s rebrand and merger BBC news has really gone downhill and Newsnight is mostly shite as well.

Cheers, that’s a pretty low bar for a team expecting to be in the mix for promotion or play offs. Extrapolate that out over a season and you need to go down to 13th before you get to a side that has lost more than they’ve won. And that seems to be Martin’s level, mid table. So despite having better resources you don’t think he should be judged unless he does worse than he did at Swansea. Good to know, and obviously if he does do worse, it’s probably the fans fault. Nice.

That’s a really fine distinction that doesn’t need “horseshit” prefixing it. You’re basically saying the same thing

Yep, fucking loving it. Queue to get out last night was well easy. That was always the worst thing about going to games and boy did I complain about it to the club. Anyway, hats off - they've only gone and fucking sorted it.

Out of interest, when is the best time to judge?

Spot on. I feel completely to blame for what happened last night and take full responsibility. I didn't go to the Sunderland match but did get a bit frustrated and shouted at the TV so, again, sorry lads.

Not calling for his head yet but I expect him to start changing things pretty quickly. I've not seen the post match interviews - just the quotes on here but he should be taking full responsibility and definitely shouldn't be happy with either that performance or the number of goals we've let in over the season so far. He absolutely needs to fix that and that means none of this inverted fullback rubbish and none of this pathetic passing around the back to invite pressure until we're actually good enough to do it. We can still play a possession based game and I've no problem with that but it doesn't have to be with this structure and this formation. The squad we have is comfortably one of the best in the division. We shouldn't be conceding this number of goals and he needs to be pragmatic and deal with it. If he thinks this is just one big experiment to highlight how much he thinks out of the box then he can do one and manage a mythological club in a mythological division where results don't count.

How do you score goals out of order?

I reckon he'll play Holgate or THB alongside Bednarek if he's fit, but will drop Charles into the back if he isn't. I'd really like to see Charles and Downes in midfield if possible.

Yes, I agree but I would imagine Martin might be apprehensive of going into the game with a completely different partnership neither of which have played much this season, particularly after what happened against Sunderland. THB will probably only have had a few training sessions as well. Brave call if he does go with Holgate and THB.

What? 50 year old women on HRT? Good on 'em.

So what do we think about central defence then? If Bednarek is injured then I reckon Charles is nailed on to play at the back - bit of a shame as I'd like to see him and Downes in midfield for this one but I can't see us going for a Holgate and THB partnership just yet. Also think players the players that haven't gone away for the international break will be more likely to start as Martin will presumably have worked pretty closely with them. Should benefit players like Alcaraz, Fraser and Sulemana.

I've always been mostly in favour of VAR - as you say, it gets more decisions right than the alternative. However I've actually quite liked not having VAR and the delays that it causes so I'm caught in the middle a bit now. I suppose we haven't been on the end of a glaring injustice that's affected the outcome of a game yet so hasn't been quite as important.

Thing is that you can also apply that to arguments based on qualitative reasoning too. Often how people feel about a certain thing is at direct odds to the reality and politicians have exploited this since forever. Trump and Boris are prime examples but everyone does it so you need quantitative data to prove or disprove it. Ultimately it's up to the audience to be as informed as possible or independent fact checking services to be more prominent. Anyway, um, I'm looking forward to the Leicester game. When you think we've still got KWP, Smallbone, Alcaraz, Sulemana, Adams plus quality like Fraser, Charles, Downes then we've got a really strong squad. Oh and I hate international breaks.

The radio 4 programme and podcast "More or Less" is excellent if you have any kind of interest in statistics.

Possibly - I don't follow him and really don't care what he says but, even if that's true, it still doesn't make him mentally ill.