ponsaelius

A better question would probably be whether a team has beat another one 5 or more times. I've checked the big CL match ups between English clubs and non of them seem to have happened. I thought Inter might have done it to Milan two seasons ago (home and away in CL semi, supercoppa and league) but Milan won the home league fixture.

Be loads of ones with League Cup semis I reckon. For example a quick check finds Man City 2013/14 beat West Ham 4 times (including 9-0 on agg in the League Cup). We also beat Southampton four times when we got to the final in 2022/23.

Howay man I know you dutchies can take things literally a lot but this taking the micky

Really? I've been watching Spurs tonight and thinking it was one of the most half arsed and pathetic performances I've ever seen I kinda see why they wouldn't care given the context of the season, but it's pretty pathetic

Still wouldn't swap it

2 in reality as they have an option to extend.

This Scottish Cup semi final is beyond grim. Celtic 4-0 up and a load of their fans leaving at half time. St Johnstone just scored a fantastic consolation goal and it's been disallowed for a ridiculously soft foul.

Chelsea be back ahead of us before we play Ipswich

Unfortunately I think we are going to be without him for the rest of the season more or less. It's the one thing that worries me about where we finish - I'd have been confident if Eddie was in the dugout.

Howay man, can you imagine the reaction if we'd made a load of changes bringing our crappy backup players in after winning 4-1 and 5-0. Unfortunately we don't really have that many options. Our biggest strength is our first XI and momentum - we just have to roll with that until we have more strength in depth. It will catch up with us, particularly when we play in quick succession and against a team with lots of options.

Howay man, we've won 4 of the last 5 against them. They're a good side and this can happen unfortunately.

It's felt like this could happen all game like. Really poor.

Probably worst performance of the season. Villa a good side admittedly. Feels exactly like the game two seasons ago.

At the moment it's a matter of time before Villa score again. Got to say I don't know what we can really do to change it. We know our bench is what it is.

Love Murphy but this is not the game for him

100%. It's an option we don't have against teams that are any good and press high. We always have to look for the channels or kick long.

Yeah feels like we'd go up another level with a CB with pace and a goalkeeper who can pass the ball.

Watkins feels like the worst kind of player for our back four to play against, running us ragged like he did in that game two years ago.

Bastards

Is it not just a case of the biggest city never to have a top flight club? IE without the PL cut off. I think it probably is Wakefield - the city area is like 325k. Although that's a bit of a fudge as the town itself is much smaller and it's not really a contiguous urban area. If we're talking proper cities, it is Plymouth. Bristol City played in the top flight in the late 70s.

It's four not five that you must name. And if Longstaff goes we will have zero, as Gillespie is not home grown. So we will have to name a 21 man squad (with four empty spaces) if Longstaff goes - but Miley would not need to be named so would effectively be a 22 man squad. It's not ideal but I don't think the club will prioritise keeping players for those purposes over getting fees for players who aren't good enough long term tbh.

No he doesn't, correct. However the point kinda still stands in that he's basically an extra first team player that doesn't need to be named in the squad. If Longstaff goes we're going to have a 21 man squad in the CL - so having Miley around as an extra player is very useful. We're even thin on the ground for U21 players as all the ones we've signed in last couple of years can't be registered as youth players in Europe.

If the Europa has the play-off round losers from the CL drop into it and had the current Conference League entrants from the top 5 leagues from the outset - would make it a stronger competition again. Everything is just spread too thinly now for me. You've got a massive bloated CL where most of the clubs will be present but never come close to winning it - teams that would have previously had a good shot of winning the EL. Then you've got everybody else left over strewn across two other massive competitions.

Yeah basically I think the Europa league needs more quality dropped into it - but conversely the Conf League needs the the top 3 or top 5 leagues taken out of it to be more true to its intentions.

Doesn't need an extension if he's already got another year. I've thought he should go off into the sun on a high tbh but he's playing so well at the moment that I'm leaning towards wanting him to stay. Particularly if there is only pittance of a fee and saved wages on the table. We'd probably need to sign another fullback if he went and it'd be easier if we could kick the can down the road on that.