Into the Lion's Den D2 2017-18

[Kevin S]

Fairly amusing that the Championship Playoffs Class Of '15 - Boro, Brentford, Ipswich and Norwich - are nearly all in a line again at the moment. Goes to show that Norwich and Boro didn't really capitalise on their promotions.

[Kevin S]

One more from me for now. I know it's only Monday but it's East Anglian derby week. Looking at some of the historical records it seems like it's time for Ipswich to get the monkey off their back.

Here's a few of those records:

• According to Wikipedia, Norwich's win at Portman Road last autumn moved them ahead in competitive derby matches.
• It's now Ipswich 45 - 20 - 46 Norwich, which I think is the first time Norwich have been in the lead since winning the Texaco Cup matches in 1973.
• Ipswich still have not won a derby this decade. Neither team has ever gone through a decade without winning at least one East Anglian derby.
• Norwich's current run of nine unbeaten derbies is a new record, surpassing Ipswich's eight unbeaten from 1978-1981.

Yeah, 45 - 46. Are any other derbies this close over the years?

[Snake Plissken]

Burnley are W41, D19, L42 vs Blackburn.

[Kevin S]

Blimey. And apparently Derby-Forest is 38-39 with 23 draws. So, not that unusual then!

[Uncle Ethan]

One more from me for now. I know it's only Monday but it's East Anglian derby week. Looking at some of the historical records it seems like it's time for Ipswich to get the monkey off their back.

Here's a few of those records:

• According to Wikipedia, Norwich's win at Portman Road last autumn moved them ahead in competitive derby matches.
• It's now Ips 45-20-46 Nor, which I think is the first time Norwich have been in the lead since winning the Texaco Cup matches in 1973.
• Ipswich still have not won a derby this decade. Neither team has ever gone through a decade without winning at least one East Anglian derby.
• Norwich's current run of nine unbeaten derbies is a new record, surpassing Ipswich's eight unbeaten from 1978-1981.

Yeah, 45 - 46. Are any other derbies this close over the years?

Ipswich won't win this one either. The "highlights" from the match against Burton weren't.

[Paul S]

According to Wikipedia the following derbies apply:

Rangers 159 - 99 - 152 Celtic

Southend 32 - 17 - 28 Colchester

Aston Villa 52 - 30 - 38 Birmingham City

[Kevin S]

How about:

Newcastle 53 - 49 - 53 Sunderland

However, the high proportion of draws is unsatisfactory - which is also the case for the Steel City derby.

The East Lancashire and East Anglian derbies are tight historically but have a pleasingly low proportion of draws.

[cantagalo]

This London derby isn’t so tight.

Brentford 5 - 3 - 2 Arsenal

[Glass Half Empty]

Sheffield United 49 - 45 - 48 Sheffield Wednesday

Seems quite a few are very close, what's the most one sided?

Even Stoke 19 - 17 - 16 Port Vale isn't as far apart as I might have expected.

[ad hoc]

First league win since the Magna Carta.

It seems like

[Amor de Cosmos]

And a good one too.

I wonder if the loss will kick-off Derby's annual end of season nose dive?

[Mr Beast]

I hope so but doubt it, Rowett is a better manager than any of those who supervised those nose dives.

[pebblethefish]

Derby are merely doing what is expected of a team near the top of the Championship at this time of year. You're new to it, Villa, but if you want to fit in round here then you need to learn the rules. From now until May, you have to look as if you are desperate not to go up. You're fine to win all your games (in fact it's encouraged) until you reach fourth, but from then on you have to act like you've never seen a football, let alone your teammates before (you're Villa. We know you can do this). Other rules include automatically losing your next game if Mark Clemmett calls you the "form team" in the division; "coming up on the rails" means you lose two.

[Patrick Thistle]

Even Stoke 19 - 17 - 16 Port Vale isn't as far apart as I might have expected.

I guess if you're playing derbies then you tend to be in the same division in the league. Unless the teams are perennial champions versus top flight fodder, then the results are likely to be close.

[Snake Plissken]

Oh you and your sensible explanations for things.

[Kevin S]

Aye, the idea that "Rival Team A and Rival Team B have been in the same division a lot, sometimes one team is better than the other, but in the very long run it basically balances out" is probably not the way most of us like to think about our tribalism.

Incidentally though, a couple of more lopsided ones:

Manchester City 51 - 52 - 72 Manchester United
Everton 66 - 72 - 92 Liverpool

[JM Footzee]

Fantastic value statement from Barnsley on their new manager (who, without wanting to sound parochial, doesn't seem like a wonderful candidate for a Championship relegation battle).

Particularly enjoyed "Morais has spent time as Head Coach with Tunisian giants Espérance, where a 74% win ratio saw him gain further plaudits across the footballing world." This was ten years ago, for the record.

[cantagalo]

I can’t work out whether Brentford’s first half dominance was due to us being really good or Sunderland giving the worst Championship performance I’ve seen since Blackpool in 2015. A bit of both, I suspect. Anyway, a 2-0 lead could and should have been 5 or 6.

The second half was disappointing with Brentford happy to sit on their lead and, although Sunderland improved, it was a comfortable enough win.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Money stole our stream so I didn't see today's match but, after winning the second half at Wolves last week, we comfortably saw off a resurgent Bolton side who were reduced to ten men for most of the second half. There are a few encouraging green shoots now, Paul Smyth laid on a beautiful pass to Mathieu Smith for the second goal, and has looked a handful up front in all three of his appearances. While Eberechi Eze looks to have the vision and work-rate to become an excellent provider. Here's hoping.

[Fearful Symmetry]

Ey up lads, how's it going? TAFKA Hamish! Dougal! here, I've been away and come back again, and it's safe to say, the goings on at my beloved club have been what can only be described as banteriffic.

Another shambolic pre season, with anything not nailed down sold for peanuts and replaced by cripples (hi Fraizer!) or loaned from the mass production line of patently-can't-be-arsed-disgraces-to-the-profession-pretty-boys from the dark forces of Stamford Bridge. The avuncular Leonid Slutsky shuffled this disparate pack, and had a team that could score at will, but subsequently gave masterclasses in 'defending' that made the Keystone Cops look as efficient as the Stasi. Then we stopped scoring, the transfer window hove into view, and cuddly Uncle Leonid was handed one of our beloved owners' confidentiality clauses, so we still don't know if he resigned or was sacked.

Mr Positivity himself had been spotted at a few games upto the Slut's departure, and stepped in and proceeded to bore the living fuck out of the dwindling crowds with a brand of football that should be outlawed under the Geneva Convention, and has led to some games being described as being as bad as anything endured in the late 90's, Sunderland away drawing comparisons with an infamous defeat at Doncaster 20 years ago. Along with his grating post match rhetoric ('The warm up was excellent'? Give me fucking strength), Adkins is already marginally more popular as a manager than Iain fucking Dowie was. And yet, despite this, it seems that there's 3, maybe 4 teams even fucking worse than us, and despite our transfer window signings consisting of a sickly centre back and Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, players returning from injury and the retaining of flying wingers Bowen and Grosicki will probably, inexplicably see us stay up.

But off the pitch? Well, things are finally, finally starting to get very interesting indeed. After 4 and a half years of antagonism, broken promises and general shithousery, things came to a head a few weeks ago when the boy Ehab called a meeting between himself and fan representatives (there's been a few of these, what the anodyne and jurassic leaders of the Supporters Trust call 'dialogue', but where nothing changed, and we should have stopped trying to talk ages ago), turned up to said meeting, thanked everyone for coming then promptly closed the meeting over what he perceived to be 'threats' made against him by the ST (they sent him an 'Allam Out' scarf. No, really). After so long trying to appeal to their better nature (snigger), this appears to have been the lighting of the blue touch paper. And, as if by magic, the perfect platform for large scale protests has presented itself with a live television match this coming Friday, and it seems that a lot of long term stay away supporters are returning to make their feelings known (I would have been one of them if I wasn't already away that night). Bizarrely, the boy Ehab held the sale of tickets for home fans until Friday just gone, and issued a statement basically saying 'you don't want to go causing trouble, you know' in a thinly-veiled-threat sort of way (he does this whole 'sinister badass gangster' shit, when in reality he's as thick as a Welshman's cock), and rumours of Sky bending his ear about potential disruptions has put him in as compromising a position since the last time he saw Ahmed Elmohamady. Allegedly.

So yeah, there will be, as the kids say, scenes. Do tune in, it could be fun.

[longeared]

Question for Glass Half Empty; what's going off in the boardroom at the Lane at the moment and what's the general view of the fanbase about it? Not trying to troll or anything, genuinely interested.

[tracteurgarcon]

Just made a note in my diary. Simply says "Bugger".

[Various Artist]

Hard going t/g. I only realised a little while ago while browsing the Observer's league tables that the fixture was at noon, so ran upstairs to grab my phone to look for updates and found that Ipswich had just scored an 89th-minute winner two minutes earlier. Went back down to retrieve my coffee, and mooched back upstairs just in time to hear the phone beep an update through, muttering to myself "That'd better be a late bloody equaliser" in the resigned knowledge there was a 99.8% chance it was the full time score.

Imagine my surprise when I found it was a 95th-minute Norwich equaliser after all. I believe the phrase rhymes with "clucking bell".

[Hot Orange]

Given that Mick McCarthy apparently reacted to Ipswich's goal by gesturing and shouting "Fuck off!" to the Town fans*, I find it quite amusing that Norwich then equalised.

* I haven't seen anything of the game, but I read this is what happened.

Edit: Here he is. A jolly well done to you, too, Mick.

[Various Artist]

Wow. I shudder to think what gesture and/or comment he must have made after the equaliser, then.


Amid all the excitement, meanwhile:

Ey up lads, how's it going? TAFKA Hamish! Dougal! here, I've been away and come back again, and it's safe to say, the goings on at my beloved club have been what can only be described as banteriffic.

Good to see you, FS/H!D!, but what's with the identity change? Have you forgotten your login password or something? If so, our beloved and munificent overlord Snake could merge your old and new profiles for you: he's already done so for Kevchenko/Kevin S and Ms D/Ms Dayglo after they had to start up new profiles for one reason or another.

Edit: I mean, he's merged each of those two people's old and new profiles so they have access to their complete posting history again. He hasn't merged Kev with Ms D, which would be fearfully confusing.