Paullow

Would people prefer a Man City win (or draw) vs Brighton? Shit. Brighton winning is surely the worst outcome.

Yeah, since their PL relegation in 2018, this is Stoke's Championship record, pretty consistent really. QPR were a yo-yo club about 10 years ago when they had a bit of money about them, but they've been shite as well for a while, as you say.

? Since 2002 Stoke have only been promoted and relegated once each. We ourselves have had 2 promotions and relegations since 2009.

Cracking match between QPR and Leeds. QPR were 2-0 up, but ended up 2-2.

My train gets into central at 1.26pm, so I'll just head to where everyone is at from there.

I know there's other benefits, corporate, concerts etc. but just from a pure capacity POV, 12-13,000 extra seats hardly seems worth the hassell of a new build. 70-75k would have been much more of a statement and felt far more significant. I'd image a fair few clubs will be going over 65k in a few years, a bit like what happened when we originally increased to 52k.

They played Barca, and that was on the Thursday night, so much less turnaround, but it didn't go to extra time.

They didn't in 2023.

Likely wouldn't / won't make that much of a difference to the end outcome, but it does feel we have been a bit unlucky with the scheduling of these Champions League games when it comes to our opponents. When we played Man City the other week, they played Real on the Tuesday and following Wednesday with our game sandwiched in between on the Saturday, but when we play Liverpool they are doing the Wednesday and Tuesday combo with them having an extra days rest (than they could have) when it comes to play us. It would have been favourable if it was the other way round in both ties (although again, probably academic as far as the results went).

If Joelinton picked up another yellow card last night, he would have missed Brentford and Leicester, not the cup final. He's still got 4 league matches to go to avoid the 2 match ban as well.

Those are the current 'top 4' odds. Doesn't appear to be 'top 5' odds, despite it being fairly apparent 5th in the PL will get CL football next season.

It doesn't actually feel that much of an advantage when you consider the 1-4 to Bournemouth, losing to Fulham and then Brighton in the cup recently, and somehow coming out with a win over Forest , but 6 of our last 10 are at home, which should be an advantage. Unlike EVERY other team in the top 11, our non league campaign ends (win or lose) on Sunday, we then have 16 days to prepare for our next league fixture Brentford at home, and the next 2 after that are well spaced out (Wed-Mon-Sun). As others mention, our next 6 games are pretty kind on paper, 4 at home all to current bottom half sides, as well as Leicester away, and if we do get say 11-13 points from those 6 games, we'll be well placed to attack the final 4, 2 at home, 2 away where some of those teams might have nothing to play for, or preparing for European / FA Cup semi's etc. The position does feel a lot better after that result.

Can't string a pass together here like

Finally a positive PL result this weekend. Bournemouth will be kicking themselves for letting that slip. Decent spectacle in the end.

Still in mate, just me, likewise with KI, just PM me the details.

Spennymoor have a relatively wealthy owner in Brad Groves allowing them to maintain their current status. He was apparently looking at Blyth and Bishop Auckland as well 15 or so years ago when he took over.

Another great win for Spenny following their FA Trophy QF win the other day, this time 2-1 at home to Darlington in the league in front of 2,088 (433 away). Sounds like Darlington will be kicking themselves for chances they missed, especially in the first half. Spenny have won 5 of their last 6 league matches and could be making a late charge for the playoffs like they did last season (ultimately unsuccessfully), but probably too much ground to make up.

Pretty sure it's just a one off match.

Consett had a great 3-2 away win at a team down the bottom, but Heaton's decent form came to an abrupt end with a 0-3 defeat. Another cracking win for Spennymoor in the FA Trophy, through to the semi final after a 2-0 away win at Sutton who are in the league above.

They were 2-0 up at the time of the red card around 60 mins as well. Would have been a handy 3 points given how tight it is at the bottom.

Huge win for Carlisle away at Cumbrian rivals Barrow. Carlisle have only won 6 times this season but have now beaten Barrow twice.

The worst part is that soon enough we could do with these taking points off actual rivals, but doesn't seem likely at this stage.

Not really. Southampton (even if extremely unlikely) and Wolves winning would have clearly been far better than Chelsea and Fulham respectively. You could argue Brighton drawing would have been more preferable as more points would have been dropped, but if there had to be a winner, Brighton was better. Palace beating Villa was good though, so more of a mixed bag really.

Villa had been looking more threatening as well. They might be checking this Palace goal.

We've actually got them all live here in the UK for once, but what I meant is the 3 closer, interesting looking matches are all on at the same time, so unless you multi screen / different devices, you can only watch one, but they're showing Chelsea vs Southampton 45 minutes later at 8.15pm local. Had they had Brighton vs Bmouth on at that time instead, you could have watched say Palace vs Villa in its entirety then watched the full second half of Brighton when the first match had finished, but the later match seems hardly worth watching (outside of Chelsea fans) considering how shite Southampton are, so disappointing scheduling.