TomYam

What a game! Truly spectacular! Nothing against Posh at all, but glad Wednesday won; good club and hope they get back to the PL in coming years.

Really like De Zerbi. If we were to lose Eddie tomorrow, he would be my second choice after Pep. Wonderful feeling this evening. Will be some atmosphere against Leicester.

Coventry's future is still insecure with regard to having a home. I believe Ashley finally agreed to a 5 year tenancy at the Ricoh. Who knows after that? They've had a new (American) owner for only about 4 months, having finally rid themselves of the vampiric SISU that have preyed on them for 25 years or so. It'd be truly astonishing if they make it back to the PL. Heartwarming stuff. It would seem an impossible task to stay a second season if they do get promoted. However, those parachute payments would be transformative. The club's very future has been in doubt for a long time and now they have a real chance to normalise and prosper off the pitch as well as on it. Mark Robbins has been heroic to the Sky Blues's cause.

The PL, UEFA, the media and commercial entities will always want ManU, Arsenal and Liverpool to qualify for the CL and compete for the biggest trophies. The odds are stacked in their favour. I don't believe there's an agenda against other clubs. In fact I suspect the majority of the aforementioned groups would rather we competed at the top than Brighton because our club garners more interest and is more newsworthy.

Surely it takes a lot longer to travel from Blyth to Gloucester than to Bishop's Stortford? More frightening too with the ghost of Fred West lurking on some roadside. The geographical centre of England is Fenny Drayton, near Tamworth. In theory, any club south of there should play in NLS. Sadly there's more wealth in the south and south east and therefore more investment in clubs located there. The north-south divide is very evident outside the upper reaches of league football. Hardly surprising BStortford are unhappy; they're having to drive great distances (that clubs like Blyth always do as a matter of course) when the majority of clubs in NLS are less than 100 miles away.

...and Cov won the FA Cup in 1987, of course. I had backed Cov that year as I felt the team was developing excitingly after a decade of final day relegation scraps (Ogrizovic, Kilkline, Gynn, Magrath, Regis, Bennett). A manificent day when they won their first major trophy. Sadly, just a few years later they returned to final day relegation scraps. Really hope they beat Luton (despite the Ashley link).

Luton have had a hard time, for sure, but Coventry have had it equally hard and, in my opinion, a much better club too.

In short, it's a big deal for Espanyol and for Barcelona...not so much. There isn't really an equivalent here in the UK. Barcelona are one of the biggest clubs in Europe (possibly the biggest on a local level) while Espanyol and Espanyol have basically always been in their shadow. Although the two clubs were formed ay much the same time, their histories and culture are very different. Barcelona were leftist, anti-authoritarian, separatist. Espanyol were broadly compliant to the central authoritarian government. Of course Real Madrid have been Barcelona's real rivals for the last century because they are the only club of similar size in Spain but also because it was Franco's club (the oppressor of Bcn) and the club of the establishment.

They did. I lived in Barcelona at the time.

Manchester United Women F.C was only formed in 2018 and were immediately invited into the newly formed Championship, which they won in that first year and so got promoted to the PL after one year. They were Johnny-come-latelys but got their act together in the nick of time. Ashley didn't care one iota and so by 2018 we were the only one of the top 16 clubs in the country to show no interest in having a women's team (let alone a competitive one). If it hadn't been for Chris Hughton and Rafa Benitez, the senior men's team might have been as uncompetitive as our (non-affiliated) ladies and youth and u-21s. The man was poison.

Sadly, Everton are certain to stay up now; there have been too many bad teams to sink them. Leicester's situation reminds me so much much of our 2008-09 relegation; a rudderless ship with too many queasy passengers. They're doomed. Forest have more battle and that should see them to safety.

To be fair, Sunderland have had a really good season. Mowbray, nice but dull, has done very well. I hope they beat Luton in the play-offs and are then the ghost of Jimmy Hill inspires Cov to a 10-0 destruction of the hapless mackems at Wembley.

Durham Cestria winning 2-0 at HT. The lasses will need to keep calm and hopefully put the game to bed with a second goal.

Just a little tweak imparting geographical reality.

Groundbreaking top 4 right there. Let's hope we finish 3rd and Brighton 4th.

Three cheers for Big Sam: ? Hip, hip, hippo heed ?

Deeply depressing, but hippos for courses if their team stays up.

Prior to 1964, LeedsU couldn't have been regarded among the biggest 25 clubs in the country. Limited history, smallish crowds for such a large city, won nothing. Revie changed all that. Chelsea and ManC had richer histories but, like Leeds, their stories grew substantially from the mid-60s onward. Liverpool had been a bigger club than any of the aforementioned but, just like the others, their story grew from the mid-60s (monumentally in their case). Inviolably, and this has been the case since the mid-60s, to qualify as a 'big' club these days (by most people's reckoning) that club must be located in a big city. Forget that Burnley has a much richer history than Leeds, as well as a far greater local supporter base relative to population size, few would regard them as the bigger of the two. That's partly due to that 1965-74 decade, but it's also down to demographics/economics.

Too close to call, but I agree that Everton will likely stay up if still in touch come the final day - and, sadly, I'm certain they will.

Quite right. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was a monumental and transformational owner for Leicester. Desperately sad. Doubtless they would not have fallen away like this if he was still alive.

Leicester win. 10-0 will do.

Aww. I rather like seeing Delia every other year; recalls alternate Christmas dinners with the in-laws.

There are some clubs you dislike (eg. ManU and Chelsea) and there are others, the majority, you have no problem with. Two clubs I have a genuine fondness for are Ipswich and Argyle, so I'm chuffed that they both got promoted today.

To be fair, Sunderland have had a really good season. To he even fairer, I'd love to see Cov promoted via the playoffs - along with us qualifying for the CL, that would send prozac sales soaring on Weirdside.

The first time was back in the Edwardian era when they were still called Newton Heath. It was a marketing ploy to try to emulate the much more popular and successful Uniteds of Sheffield and Newcastle. The reason for their huge (remote) fanbase today is as much to do with marketing as Busby/Ferguson. As far as I'm concerned, they are still and always will be Newton Heath.