2014/15 Championship Thread

[Dolphin Ziggler]

First topic message reminder :

Well, it's all decided now.

Birmingham City
Blackburn Rovers
Blackpool
Bolton Wanderers
Bournemouth
Brentford
Brighton & Hove Underdogs
Cardiff City
Charlton Athletic
Derby County
Fulham
Huddersfield Town
Ipswich Town
Leeds United
Middlesbrough
Millwall
Norwich City
Nottingham Forest
Reading
Rotherham United
Sheffield Wednesday
Watford
Wigan Athletic
Wolverhampton Wanderers

Forest have Pearce, Leeds may have investment, Olly has reasons to be cheerful and Wigan don't have European distractions.

[Ent]

Hope not itvs football coverage is Poopie.

They made an absolute hash of it last time.

[Duty281]

Yeah the BBC are a bit hard up for cash; they are selling part of their coverage of the Wimbledon tennis to BT, apparently, and the license fee is being frozen/cut.

ITV have a bit more of a surplus now they have lost Champions League and Europa League football from next season.

Townsend's tactics truck? Certainly is, Clive!

Still not confirmed yet, so no reason to worry!

[NickisBHAFC]

Yeah I've heard BBC are hard for cash. Didn't know they are losing Wimbledon. Jesus

[NickisBHAFC]

Steve Clarke new Reading manager. Good appointment.

[dyrewolfe]

Yeah I've heard BBC are hard for cash. Didn't know they are losing Wimbledon. Jesus

Looks like its time for the Beeb to resort to advertising. No point clinging to the licence fee and being proud of having no ad breaks, if you can't even afford to show anything decent.

[dyrewolfe]

Well done Boro,

We were garbage today, pinging passes all over the pitch to noone and looked like we had no ideas at all. If it weren't for Grant it could have been a proper embarassment.

Thanks for the praise, but I actually thought you played the better football.

Don't know if you noticed, but Derby dominated possession for a lot of the match, doing the slow, patient passing game and building up from the back.

Whereas Boro did the high tempo "bomb forward at every opportunity". If anyone's passing was crap it was ours - we tried to play so quickly that most of our passes went astray and we kept giving possession away cheaply.


That said, we were defensively sound (somehow) and as mentioned, stifled most of Derby's attacks - think Dimi only had 2 or 3 proper saves to make all game. As Owen said, we did work ridiculously hard to close you down and push forward when we did have the ball.

Two or three real quality passages of play - one of which led to Bamford's opener, the other to Shotton conceding the penalty (very clumsy tackle). Also a great double save from Grant to prevent a third.

Derby did look like a quality footballing side, but as mentioned Karanka obviously did his homework and you actually reminded me of Boro from a couple of seasons ago - we could pass all day long without actually looking like scoring a goal.

[Derbymanc]

I thought we looked absolutely clueless at times. We did have a lot of posession but did nothing with it (Boro seemed to close everybody down very very quickly.)

We had one shining moment at the end with what was probably our only decent shot on target. Other than that we looked devoid of ideas and just generally tired.

It's gonna be a long haul until the end of the season and i've got a feeling it could go right down to the wire because nobody seems to want to keep top spot at the minute.

[Mat]

Steve Clarke to Reading by the looks of it.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

I'd imagine Reading have won the league then, if everything Nick tells me is true then Steve Clarke is the best manager since Paisley

[Mat]

He'll start well then tail off badly if his time with us is anything to go by. Probably get a few Chelsea players on loan, maybe Chalobah, saw rumours Chelsea were going to call him back in January as Burnley weren't playing him enough.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Now at derby and seen no Redmond again. Fuming

[Derbymanc]

Good goal by Russel, Norwich had one disallowed for Jerome being offside (very good decision, could have been in trouble if he hadn't been a smartarse and flicked his foot out)

[Derbymanc]

2-2, Norwich deserved that, just gutting to concede from a blatant handball 5 yards fm the ref.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

I can't believe I just witnessed a Steven Whittaker last minute equaliser. Fabulous performance, should've had all three

[GSC]

Ugh, Championship refs

[TopoftheChops]

Does anyone believe ipswich aren't serious contenders now?

[Derbymanc]

I think it's close enough that you could say near enough most of the teams could be contenders. All it would take is a couple of good runs to get up there with everyone else (if everyone else has a bad run.)

Looks like Forest were very unlucky again yesterday. Think they could very well be the dark horses and start storming up the table again once Reid is back.

[TopoftheChops]

Forest need to sack pearce if they have any aspirations of promotion

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Does anyone believe ipswich aren't serious contenders now?

Yes.

[TopoftheChops]

Does anyone believe ipswich aren't serious contenders now?

Yes.

Why not?

[killer-boosh]

Because he is a Norwich fan!

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Haha partly true but also because as far as I'm aware you've played most of "better sides" at home, so you'll have a tough schedule and the good form doesn't last forever, you'll hit the blip soon enough. Playoffs should be the aim.

Its not only Ipswich, Bournemouth and Brentford will both fall away too

[NickisBHAFC]

Ipswich on paper have a poor team. Just McCarthy is working wonders with his style of play.

[TopoftheChops]

Ipswich on paper have a poor team. Just McCarthy is working wonders with his style of play.

Absolutely hilarious nick, have you seen Ipswich's 2nd goal vs middlesbrough, it's a goal teams like Brighton and Hove dream about. The typical stereotype with mick mccarthy and his hoofball tactics is not true with this team, yes they play it from time to time like most teams but they also play it on the deck as well. Teddy Bishop is leading the way with this kind of football, the lad is only 18 but is controlling games against experienced central midfielders like grant leadbitter and adam clayton for boro.

You say our team is poor on paper but players like mings and mcgoldrick are linked with 8 figure sums to the epl, especially mings who is attracting arsenal and chelsea. The top scorer in the league is daryl murphy who has come leaps and bounds under terry connor's guidance, you wish he was a brighton player!

The most important thing is that the team plays for each other, the team cohesion is the strongest in the league it's why teams like norwich and forest are lower than where they should be, remember football is a team game and ipswich have the best team in the league even if we don't have the best individuals according to your expert opinion

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Meeeeoooowwww

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

I'd also like to say the reason we're not doing so well is because we can't defend, not that we don't play as a team.

[NickisBHAFC]

Ipswich on paper have a poor team. Just McCarthy is working wonders with his style of play.

Absolutely hilarious nick, have you seen Ipswich's 2nd goal vs middlesbrough, it's a goal teams like Brighton and Hove dream about. The typical stereotype with mick mccarthy and his hoofball tactics is not true with this team, yes they play it from time to time like most teams but they also play it on the deck as well. Teddy Bishop is leading the way with this kind of football, the lad is only 18 but is controlling games against experienced central midfielders like grant leadbitter and adam clayton for boro.

You say our team is poor on paper but players like mings and mcgoldrick are linked with 8 figure sums to the epl, especially mings who is attracting arsenal and chelsea. The top scorer in the league is daryl murphy who has come leaps and bounds under terry connor's guidance, you wish he was a brighton player!

The most important thing is that the team plays for each other, the team cohesion is the strongest in the league it's why teams like norwich and forest are lower than where they should be, remember football is a team game and ipswich have the best team in the league even if we don't have the best individuals according to your expert opinion

[GSC]

Ipswich fans 

Its a shame you can't win promotion in December

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Nick using style of play to defend Brighton again. Been banging that one for a few years and you've never been that good to watch

[TopoftheChops]

Ipswich fans 

Its a shame you can't win promotion in December

It's a shame you keep talking about the days under clough but don't stop on my account

[GSC]

You'd probably need to point out where I started

[GSC]

I'm still wondering quite where that reply came from.

Mind you its from somebody who still bites on Nicks trolling in 2014

[NickisBHAFC]

Nick using style of play to defend Brighton again. Been banging that one for a few years and you've never been that good to watch

How was I trying to defend Brighton? Were rubbish end off. Mick McCarthy has his style of play and evidently it's working.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

I'm still wondering quite where that reply came from.

Mind you its from somebody who still bites on Nicks trolling in 2014

Inferiority complex. Ipswich fans still like to pretend they support a big club rather than accepting its not 1970 anymore.

[westisbest]

Haha partly true but also because as far as I'm aware you've played most of "better sides" at home, so you'll have a tough schedule and the good form doesn't last forever, you'll hit the blip soon enough. Playoffs should be the aim.

Its not only Ipswich, Bournemouth and Brentford will both fall away too

Don't think Bournemouth will fall away this season.
Cant stop scoring, they have a good squad, and can match anyone in that league.

Think they will make play offs at least.
Can see them making automatic to.

[GSC]

I'm still wondering quite where that reply came from.

Mind you its from somebody who still bites on Nicks trolling in 2014

Inferiority complex. Ipswich fans still like to pretend they support a big club rather than accepting its not 1970 anymore.

Tbf id struggle to let go of 1970s if I saw it everyday

[westisbest]

I would like to see Bournemouth, Ipswich and Brentford come up.

Bournemouth, cos i live here, friends are fans.

PIpswich, cos have always been a fan of MM. Doing a great job.

Brentford, cos i do like an away day in london, surprising a few people i would say.

[NickisBHAFC]

Brentford won't be allowed to play at there current staidium if they get promoted. Groundshare with QPR or Fulham I believe.

[NickisBHAFC]

Been given permission to speak to Karl
Robinson. Deserves a shot at the championship yes. But we need an experienced manager to get out of the mess we are in.

Wrong appointment.

[Fernando]

Guess who's back, back again Heskey's back Signed a short term deal at Bolton

[NickisBHAFC]

Great signing.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Millwall at home

Has 1-1 written all over it

[TopoftheChops]

Brentford away today, will happily take a draw considering they have won 7 in 8. Our boxing day form is pretty awful though so fingers crossed

[TopoftheChops]

That escalated quickly, murphy scoring as usual, goal after 20 seconds!

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

We couldn't hit a barn door yet we scored 6. Madness

[NickisBHAFC]

Steve Clarke tactics were very surprising today. 60th minute takes off Murray and Taylor, 2 best Reading players. Tactics also change. Gifted us the point if true be told.

[GSC]

Almost as if he he isn't gods gift to football management

[TopoftheChops]

Almost as if he he isn't gods gift to football management

Yeah because that's psycho's role isn't it?

[GSC]

King Aitors actually

[NickisBHAFC]

I just don't get Forest, great team but under achieving again. Pearce needs a big 2nd half to the season.

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