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Reply | If a miracle happened and we went up via the playoffs
at 00:31 22 Jan 2025
I would agree with you that finishing 16th in the Premiership after a relegation struggle is better than finishing between 16th to 20th after a relegation struggle in the Championship as we have done in the previous two seasons.
It will only be better in the Championship if we keep finishing between third and tenth and compete for the play offs season after season rather than trying to stay up in the Premiership. But then each fan has their own opinion so I can only truly speak for myself. It has been a while since we troubled teams at the top of the Championship so the current run we are on is welcomed. |
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Reply | 28 games in - only 8 games lost
at 23:48 21 Jan 2025
Very true. We had lost 7 and won once after 16 games so only one defeat since then when we got stuffed like the turkey at Swansea. |
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Reply | Rest of the Championship thread
at 23:45 21 Jan 2025
Whatever Burnley's shortcomings up front you have to hand it to them that we are into late January and they have only conceded 9 goals. That is pretty impressive even if they are as boring as George Graham's 1-0 to the Arsenal. |
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Reply | Recognition
at 23:39 21 Jan 2025
Great for all those who went to both matches and rewarded for doing so winning both. No doubt they were all at Leicester too so these two wins make up for the cup result. |
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Reply | If a miracle happened and we went up via the playoffs
at 21:41 20 Jan 2025
To be fair to Luton last season they were involved in much closer games than Sheffield United. They certainly were not losing 5-0, 6-0 and 8-0 at home like the Blades.
With FFP being an issue Luton will benefit from gate receipts if they can get 23 to 25k in the ground whatever the new capacity is. If we remain at Loftus Road with 17 or 18k then Luton may be able to pay bigger transfer fees and wages so players join them rather than us with their greater gate receipts.
If we are not to move away into a bigger ground then we will need to be in the Premiership again to boost the income and above all, stay there. It won't be this season we go up anyway but we must ensure next season we don't waste the first 15 games again. |
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Reply | If a miracle happened and we went up via the playoffs
at 19:51 19 Jan 2025
I agree we didn't play our best side and that contributed to us conceding six on the day. However, it has to be remembered in the first half of the season we had a lot of injuries and couldn't win at home. Clearly our reserves are not up to the Championship levels which is a problem when you play a side a league above.
My point is that if we won this season's play offs and had a similar problem with injuries in the Premiership next season, then we could play many sides with our team weakened. Imagine Nardi and Dunne out for months and fielding a similar defence that played at Leicester week after week. In the Premiership against better players than Leicester have it would be carnage. We don't have enough strength beyond our first choice team. |
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Reply | If a miracle happened and we went up via the playoffs
at 19:36 19 Jan 2025
Really? A 100% incorrect? That cannot be right as I don't want us to go up now but do so at some point and I am certain many others think the same that we are not ready. There will be very few fans who never want to play in the Premiership again and I am unconvinced when anyone says they don't as surely they want to win this league like under Warnock or experience another win at Wembley? [Post edited 19 Jan 19:52]
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Reply | If a miracle happened and we went up via the playoffs
at 18:33 19 Jan 2025
I don't think anyone is saying they don't want to go up ever. What they are saying is they want better foundations and more time to get ready. I am saying it is too soon to go up and Marti hasn't had much time to build. He arrived to fight a relegation battle and basically has had to do the same this season after a poor first period of this campaign. Personally I think there is more chance of us turning up another blind alley than getting promoted this season. We are never far from another crisis so it seems as the years relentlessly pass.
Whilst it might be good financially to go up ASAP, it doesn't mean we will be a yo yo club like Fulham were. They managed to use their financial gains when returning to the Championship to hold onto Mitrovic each time they came down. He would bag them 30 goals to get them back up. Eventually this paid off and Fulham stayed up and developed into an established Premiership club without Mitrovic.
If we go up and come straight back down, we don't have a prolific scorer for the Championship to get us straight back up. We would need to find somebody like that in the Premiership and hope he stays with us after relegation and that's the hard part.
Southampton are doing their best to emulate Derby's record of one win and 11 points. Since that catastrophic season for Derby, they have never returned to the Premiership and I would hate to see us have a similar season and then not return to the Premiership for decades.
If we could use the parachute money to challenge at the top of the Championship continually then fine but we could go down to league 1 like Derby or be in the relegation zone like Luton today. How we use the Premiership riches on relegation is the key. |
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Reply | Rest of the Championship thread
at 13:18 19 Jan 2025
I agree with you about Rowett being a good manager but to be fair to the previous Oxford manager, he had a decent home record which was better than ours when he got sacked. His downfall was they were poor away and that is what cost him.
The truth is there are several clubs in this league who have struggled away as Oxford have. Clubs like Luton, Derby, Plymouth and Portsmouth have found away points hard to come by. I think Portsmouth have won five on the bounce at home but away from Fratton Park they keep losing. They can win 3-0 or 4-0 at home and then lose a week later by the same score away which is a big swing in performance levels.
Since Swansea beat us 3-0, they seem to be losing by the same score ever since. Trust us to be their Christmas present... |
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Reply | If a miracle happened and we went up via the playoffs
at 12:45 19 Jan 2025
Well I'm not saying I don't want us to ever go up. I am just saying not now as we are not ready for that leap just yet. I know if we go up now, the owners eyes will light up with big money pound signs and then when we are bottom, they will sack Marti because they want to stay with the money. We will still go down and then face Championship football without Marti. Is it worth that now? Let's have a few good seasons under Marti where we are now and then push on. |
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Reply | If a miracle happened and we went up via the playoffs
at 12:29 19 Jan 2025
I don't think it is an issue. We won't go up as we don't score enough goals and we still have a lot of tough games to face. If any side in this league had a prolific goalscorer they would walk it.
I want us to go up automatically in the future when we look good enough to compete. I do not want us to get a Southampton style dismal points total of 6 points by mid January or a Sheffield United masterclass of 8-0, 6-0 and 5-0 home defeats of last season. Getting humiliated could scar our players and Marti in the long term so we need to be ready. Only a few weeks ago we were bottom so let's learn to walk before we start running.
The Leicester defeat last week demonstrated we are not ready for the top league against a side who have lost 7 in a row without scoring. We concede 6 and then Palace and Fulham go there and win 2-0. There is a yawning gap between us and even mid table Premiership sides. The money would be nice and make us more competitive in the Championship but at what cost? I bet we would sack Marti half way through a Premiership one season disaster.
[Post edited 19 Jan 12:31]
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Reply | Plymouth Match Thread - Post Captain Pugwash !!
at 15:35 18 Jan 2025
Rather annoying missing so many chances to have won comfortably. Need to discover a killer instinct as we should have boosted our GD today. Spurning chances cost us a win at Watford but after creating very little in recent away games this was more like it today.
Still any win at Plymouth is to be welcomed as it has felt like the last time we won there was back in the days of the Spanish Armada. |
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Reply | Rest of the Championship thread
at 21:23 16 Jan 2025
Yes you could add Hull too but I picked Portsmouth and Plymouth because they are dreadful away and consistently lose 3 or 4-0 on their travels. My point is that had we got six points in those two games, we would be sitting on 37 points challenging for the play offs and Portsmouth and Plymouth would be on 20 points. No way either of them would make up 17 points on us with their terrible away form. We would be pretty safe now had we won both home games. [Post edited 16 Jan 21:24]
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Reply | Rest of the Championship thread
at 22:49 15 Jan 2025
If we had those 5 points we tossed away at home to Portsmouth and Plymouth we would virtually have been safe now. Two very poor sides away from home constantly losing on their travels. |
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Reply | Rest of the Championship thread
at 22:41 14 Jan 2025
I hope they are tired as they haven't won in the league since 5 November. It is all set up for us to change that and they seem to raise their game for us looking at our results against them over many years. |
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Reply | A bit of perspective please!
at 16:11 13 Jan 2025
Yes our record against teams at the bottom is dubious with defeats to sides like Rotherham. Plymouth might be on a high now but that could change if they don't beat Oxford this week. One can only hope some of the Plymouth team will have one eye on playing Liverpool and not be so committed against us so they don't pick up injuries and miss out on playing Liverpool. |
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Reply | A bit of perspective please!
at 15:24 13 Jan 2025
To be honest I don’t think we have fielded our strongest team in the cup for over 25 years. Look how often lower division teams have knocked us out in both cups. It seems to be club policy to field players who are not first choice in the cup no matter who the manager is. Even when clubs play their better players they don't play at the same level as they do in the league. It appears cup ties are not taken seriously until the 6th round.
Saturday, losing 6-2 was bad to a Premiership side, but is it worse than losing 2-1 to league 2 Fleetwood after being one up? We get these results because the club appears to have an attitude to accidentally lose on purpose when it comes to cup games. I love Marti but he made himself look like a lying politician by promising something in the lead up to Saturday and then doing the opposite on the day. The government make promises in electioneering but once in power do the opposite to what they said they will do.
When you look at our result and you see Watford losing 4-1 to Fulham, West Brom losing 5-1 to Bournemouth, Norwich losing 4-0 to Brighton and Swansea losing 3-0 to Southampton, who are worse than Leicester, then why is it? Yes there is a big gap in class but you have to question the attitudes of the Championship clubs who seem to want to get the cup over and done with to concentrate on making the play offs or avoiding relegation. Perhaps playing 46 games is seen as more than enough. |
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Reply | Effect on Team Form - Momentum Changer !!
at 18:18 12 Jan 2025
From memory the few cup games we won we fielded a weakened side. These stats for the last 10 years still show that 10 of 14 games were not won. I imagine the point of fielding a weakened team in the cup is to actually win the next league game rather than draw it so it has not been a great success.
However, this poor record in the cup has been ongoing for at least 25 years including early knock outs before the third round in our league 1 days and beyond my memory capacity as to what teams we fielded over 10 years ago. |
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