tisspahars

The usual reminder when the forum is this certain of a spanking.......Leeds will I imagine be about 6/4 to beat us, which, as the consensus seems to be somewhere between 3 and 5-0 would appear to represent astonishing value. What will actually happen of course is that this will get a chorus of "couldn't possibly bet against my team (I can call them useless, frauds, spineless, pathetic etc but I couldn't possibly bet against them 😄)", and we'll hear no more about it unless Leeds win in which case they'll all appear again afterwards with "easy mpney" posts. As ever, just saying......

7 games is a long time in football - some on here have gone from "We should have got Michael Carrick, he's built a fantastic team at Middlesbrough" to "If we can't even beat f******g Middlesbrough he simply has to go!"

Can be dangerous to read too much in to these things but as well as yesterday's video the club have just posted a training picture with the tagline "Grafting" which presumably isn't the sort of thing you'd do if he'd just told you he'd never wear the shirt again and his agent was lining up a move to Saudi?

Some thoughts...... No doubt about it - that was an absolutely dismal capitulation, appalling from start to finish from players and manager alike. However! Whilst not for the size of it perhaps, there are several mitigating reasons for a bad day at the office. The timing of the transfer window combined with how hectic ours was, the KO time and the location, away to a hostile rival with an axe to grind, and with reasons why plenty of 1st choice players either couldn't play or it was thought best not to risk it, made for a pretty perfect storm imo. Prior to the game most (not all, MOST) of the fans on here were pretty happy with what they had seen from the manager thus far, delighted with the end of the window and pretty confident for what lay ahead. Well you've now got three choices - immediately do a 360 and call for MARTIN OUT, wait and see what the next few tough games tell us or remain supremely confident that WE WILL PISS THIS LEAGUE. The middle one seems the fairly obvious choice to me. There will clearly be a very different look to the team for the Leicester game and Che, Shea and THB starting will clearly (imo) make a huge difference. I think RM tried to get through to the break (after the crazy window) with a fudge of a team for one game and it backfired spectacularly. I'm confident it won't happen again. As to lazy forum reaction -"Contending teams simply don't lose 5-0! No way we are doing anything this season!" - too many examples to list as to that bollocks but for a start how about the Man U team that was the most successful in PL history that shipped 5 at Newcastle and 6 to us the following week before winning the league (again)? And wily old fox Mowbray was always going to have our number was he? Maybe he could use his wiles to get above us in the league? Or maybe we should go for Carrick who so many wanted in the summer and is now presiding over a car-crash? And our cracks have been papered over till now have they - what about Leicester who hadn't been winning ANY of their games till late on (having played dross thus far) and just lost at home to Hull? I could go on....😉 Yesterday was awful - absolutely awful - but I do think there are, as well as huge lessons to learn, lots of reasons why it really might look a bizarre slip in a great season.

No, they were damp sheets.

Whilst it may (or may not) be different in the Championship, in the PL Kevin Pullein (the footie punter invariably described as a BOFFIN in the RP) has regularly over the years transposed the table over a table of wage bills and the two correspond to a truly astonishing degree.

No Che in pictures of players arriving.....

I can't believe he's signed like the club were always completely clear he would, I was sure the bedwetting nutjobs view based on absolutely nothing would prove to be correct.

I think the only thing for certain is that we will be cooking - although it may be with leftovers.

All about opinions I guess but of the players who might realistically stay he'd be top of my wishlist.

1/100 (and that's because that is the lowest the Betfair market goes!) after defeat at Forest. End of thread. See you next year for the "Promotion prices thread".😎

1/25 after defeat at Newcastle (although we touched 1/10 at HT! 😉).

1/20 after the latest debacle against Bournemouth, which, if you have the means, seems high!

1/6 after the heroics/capitulation (delete as appropriate) at Arsenal.

1/12 after defeat to Palace.

Clearly....😄

Firstly, as I have said we will be 1/20 for relegation if we lose to Palace it is clear how little chance I think we would have if we fail to win. Secondly, a two part question..... a) Are we absolutely certain to go down now? b) Have there been somewhere between 7-10 games since the World Cup that this forum has described as "must win" that we failed to win. Answering those two correctly should help you figure out if it is me or the forum (or SOME on this forum) who don't understand what "must win" means.

1/5 after defeat to Man City. Palace next and whilst that's still not a "must win" (people who talk about "must wins" generally don't seem to understand what that means, strangely) it is the closest by some way we've come to one this year. Win and we'll be about 1/2 again (imo), lose and we'll be about 1/20.

That said, having had a night to digest the weekend's results, the market has moved in your direction to 1/4.....

In my experience the fans of every team in the mire always think they are more "gone" than the market does and a read back on these threads over the years tells you ours definitely do!

1/3 after defeat at West Ham.

Eased a touch to 4/7 after the point against Spurs. 9 (NINE) teams at less than 6/1 to go down which is absolutely unprecedented at this stage.

Touched 4/6 after the point at OT, 1/2 after defeat at Brentford, which, whilst that was a bitter blow is somewhat removed from the 100% down narrative that is back in town.

Not picking on you individually because you read this sort of stuff a lot, but this is just nonsense! We don't HAVE to win to have a chance to stay up - obviously it would help (!) but if we draw with Brentford and beat Spurs are you really going to be thinking we are definitely down on Saturday night? Of course not, so we don't HAVE to beat Brentford. Rant over.😉