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.

[Guest]

McClaren stated there is no clause in Bent's deal for him to return back to Villa

[Derbymanc]

I hope not, it was bad enough when Liverpool did it for Ibe

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Middlesbrough have keeper sent off and are 1-0 at Birmingham. Booya

[westisbest]

Hopefully Sherwood can install confidence again in Benteke.

Say we stay up, he may want to keep Bent.

Derby may want to sign him though.

Olly.

Think Bent is still good enough for the prem.
Shame Lambert wasn't a  fan.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Derby fans starting a #boycottnorwich hashtag because tickets are £40 when they charged £37 is hilarious.

Not only will it mean less away fans thus more home fans, but imagine the crying when they go up and have to pay prices in the prem!

[Fernando]

Have to wonder if it's Bournemouth's year to go up both Derby & Boro have had a game in hand and both Frak it up so far Think Watford will make a late surge for it though.

[NickisBHAFC]

Tbf Norwich prices are shockingly bad, given the fact you're going to an horrific part of the country and the stadium is hardly excellent. 

Brentford's treatment of Mark Waterburn is shocking. Really hope they stay down and end up in a relegation battle next season.

[owen10ozzy]

Would hardly call having a keeper sent off yet picking up a point away from home frakking it up. Out of the all the sides in the Top 6 we have the best form in the last ten.

Next 5 games will be key for the promotion battle I feel;

Bournemouth; Brentford (a), Forest (a), Blackburn (h), Wolves (h), Fulham (a)

Derby; Sheff W (h), Charlton (h), Fulham (a), Brighton (a), Birmingham (h)

Boro; Leeds (h), Bolton (h), Sheff W (a), Millwall (h), Forest (a)

Ipswich; Reading (h), Birmingham (h), Norwich (a), Leeds (a), Brentford (h)

Watford; Norwich (h), Rotherham (h), Leeds (a), Fulham (h), Wolves (a)

Norwich; Watford (a), Blackburn (a), Ipswich (h), Wigan (h), Millwall (a)

Norwich and Bournemouth probably have the tougher set of upcoming 5 games and there are plenty of games pitting those around the play off spots against one another. At this point in the season the games you don't want to lose are against the sides chasing promotion alongside you....can quickly dent momentum.

I'd be happy if we picked up 9 points from our next 15 available; should stand us in decent enough sted. Anyway who picks up 5 or less over the course of those fixtures can say goodbye to automatic promotion in my opinion.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

I wouldnt be surprised if Boro got 15 from them, but then its the Championship so they could get 0

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

We've got Derby, Ipswich and Middlesbrough all still to play at home, so fairly confident we can pick up points on them if needs to

[FootballLight]

Its very fair to say after our recent defeat at home to Wigan, Clarke certainly needs to sort out some consistency with this team and quickly. We've just beaten Derby away in the FA Cup, excellent result but then we lost to Wigan at home who have won 1 game since November? That's truly shocking, but it happens every year. Ever year at home, we will lose to a team at the bottom. No surprise if we lose to Blackpool away and someone else at the bottom at home.

[Derbymanc]

Derby fans starting a #boycottnorwich hashtag because tickets are £40 when they charged £37 is hilarious.

Not only will it mean less away fans thus more home fans, but imagine the crying when they go up and have to pay prices in the prem!

So you think 40 quid and 37 quid i a fair price in the championship???

Maybe if other fans would do something like this then you wouldn't be charged ridiculous prices

#justsaying

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Boycotting a few games will not change a thing ultimately, it's just one of those things we as fans have to accept if we want to follow our teams

[GSC]

There's a flaw in your logic Olly.

Namely that Norwich fans have 40 quid

[Derbymanc]

Boycotting a few games will not change a thing ultimately, it's just one of those things we as fans have to accept if we want to follow our teams

Am sure it did a few years ago when QPR ended up dropping their away prices (dunno who started that one,)

If more fans did it then it would. Everyone moans about the prices but when actually asked to do something it's 'nah that's the way it is'

[owen10ozzy]

I wouldnt be surprised if Boro got 15 from them, but then its the Championship so they could get 0

Ha, true enough....as a Boro fan I have literally spent the best part of the last 3 months waiting for our inevitable mid-season slump....somewhat surprisingly we seem to have avoided it this year; I pray to god were not saving it for end of season run in.

To be honest though; given we have only lost 1 of our last 20 games I'm very hopeful that were just far to good to go on any kind of horrendous, especially when you factor in our outstanding defensive record.

Regards Norwich Olly; can be both a good and bad thing having so many teams to play around you; take points off them and you can set the cat amongst the pidgeons confidence wise...however begin to drop points, especially at home, and it becomes difficult to keep pace and keep momentum.

[Fernando]

Would hardly call having a keeper sent off yet picking up a point away from home frakking it up. Out of the all the sides in the Top 6 we have the best form in the last ten. < That's because it was still 1-0 at the time...

Next 5 games will be key for the promotion battle I feel;

Bournemouth; Brentford (a), Forest (a), Blackburn (h), Wolves (h), Fulham (a) = 9pts

Derby; Sheff W (h), Charlton (h), Fulham (a), Brighton (a), Birmingham (h) - 11pts

Boro; Leeds (h), Bolton (h), Sheff W (a), Millwall (h), Forest (a) - 10 pts

Ipswich; Reading (h), Birmingham (h), Norwich (a), Leeds (a), Brentford (h) - 9pts

Watford; Norwich (h), Rotherham (h), Leeds (a), Fulham (h), Wolves (a) - 13pts

Norwich; Watford (a), Blackburn (a), Ipswich (h), Wigan (h), Millwall (a) - 12pts

Norwich and Bournemouth probably have the tougher set of upcoming 5 games and there are plenty of games pitting those around the play off spots against one another. At this point in the season the games you don't want to lose are against the sides chasing promotion alongside you....can quickly dent momentum.

I'd be happy if we picked up 9 points from our next 15 available; should stand us in decent enough sted. Anyway who picks up 5 or less over the course of those fixtures can say goodbye to automatic promotion in my opinion.

[owen10ozzy]

That's the point Nando.....we were 0-0 relatively comfortable and had 45 mins to play and pick up a win....the fact that we then went down to ten men....then went behind and still came on strong and drew level suggests it was a very good point in the end.

[Fernando]

It was a good point but if you want to get promoted and the leaders give you a game in hand you have to do better then drawing away to Birmingham gotta taken advantage of these situations

At my point of comment you were Frak it up though

[owen10ozzy]

I wouldn't say drawing away to draw specialists is a bad point regardless of whether we had ten men or not. It's not like we dropped points to a bottom 3 side.

Derby, Bournemouth both dropped points against lesser sides (in derby's case, far worse)...so whilst a win would have been great when put into context a point away against a team who have only lost 3 in last 15 is decent enough.

Like i said, think next 5 games shapes the automatic spots and I would be dissapointed if we came away with anything less than 9 points from them.

[Fernando]

To be fair i pitched Middlesborough & Ipswich for play off spots and i got laughed at in the beginning of this season

The only one Boro should struggle with in them 5 is Bolton, Lennon is a doing a good job on the quiet slowly creeping up the league.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

I wouldnt be surprised if Boro got 15 from them, but then its the Championship so they could get 0

Ha, true enough....as a Boro fan I have literally spent the best part of the last 3 months waiting for our inevitable mid-season slump....somewhat surprisingly we seem to have avoided it this year; I pray to god were not saving it for end of season run in.

To be honest though; given we have only lost 1 of our last 20 games I'm very hopeful that were just far to good to go on any kind of horrendous, especially when you factor in our outstanding defensive record.

Regards Norwich Olly; can be both a good and bad thing having so many teams to play around you; take points off them and you can set the cat amongst the pidgeons confidence wise...however begin to drop points, especially at home, and it becomes difficult to keep pace and keep momentum.

I guess I'm confident because we have been much better against the better sides this season.

We beat Ipswich, Bournemouth, Brentford away, drew with Derby away, beat Watford at home - the only team we got a spanking off was your lot at the Riverside!

It's the teams that come and sit 10 men behind the ball and counter we have issues with, not teams who give an open game and space (like the top teams tend to do as they attack more often)

[FootballLight]

Olly, I've just PM'd you...

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Oooo mysterious

[FootballLight]

Ipswich away today, one very difficult game. But, we seemingly do better away from home, which is very strange and usually quite poor at home, which again, I don't understand. Its usually said its harder to pick up points on the road, which is true. So why are we making it difficult for ourselves by trying to win games away from home when it is harder for us because we are away and its easier for the home team because they are at home. Steve Clarke says that needs to change, thankfully. Adkins, that was just a recipe for disaster really. Don't mind him using our good youth set up to bring players through, which in truth, he has done in Aaron Kuhl, Jordan Obita, Jake Taylor, Michael Hector etc. I hope Clarke uses that to his advantage as well and will be in full pursuit of that sometime soon, but he needs to sort out home and away form out.

Collecting 3 points against sides at home and at least 1 point against sides wherever we can. That's just the best policy for now.

[Derbymanc]

Or you could try and pick up 3 points whenever you can and that would be the best policy.

Play to win 3 away games, if you only win 1 then you've still got the same amount of points as you would have had if you drew all 3. Win 1, draw 1, or 'gasp' win more than 1 and you've got more points than you would have had.

[owen10ozzy]

That was like watching Arsenal vs Middlesbrough last weekend....only we were the Arsenal in the equation this time. Chance after chance gone begging, though keeper has been in fine form.....worry that it's going to be one of those days.

Didn't realise how good Leeds have been lately....and won 4 of 5 games against the top sides

Frustrating just how poor the first touch is across the park for the Boro, especially our two strikers who have pushed the ball to far away from them on multiple occassions. Would like to see Bamford on by the 55th minute if we haven't equalised....always adds a touch of compusure and ability to bring others into play.

Come on You Boro!!!

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

You'll win Owen no way Leeds can ride there luck like this for 90 mins tbh

[owen10ozzy]

You want to bet....I've come away from watching mate, infuriating to say the least. One of those days sadly...great keeping and plenty of luck in terms of bounce of the ball.

Sadly this confirms to me that we will have to settle for play-off spot at best....simply haven't got the goals in us to get the automatic places.

As for Karanka....he needs to get them in for extra corner training because we are f'ing sh*t at them! Never once did we look dangerous from them.....and that isn't the first time I've found myself saying that this season!

[GSC]

Moving day so far.

No one in the top 7 winning

[Derbymanc]

Noone in this division seems to want to grab it by the scruff of the neck. sooooo frustrating.

[GSC]

Sometimes its that way.

Sometimes a Leicester type team just keep going.

[FootballLight]

Great result so far against Ipswich.... 0-1, Macie 14'. Couldn't be any better, lets just make sure we keep it that way for the next 45 minutes.

[Derbymanc]

Carries on GSC maybe we will get lucky and see both of us go up.

[GSC]

We've left it too late

[FootballLight]

Forest have been nowhere near good enough to merit a play-of place. Them teams above them have been consistent enough, Forest are going to need to win their next 5/6 games to get anywhere near. That can happen in this league, but I doubt it will.

[Derbymanc]

We carry on the way we bleeding are you might get above us yet GSC

[GSC]

Bolton have had some nasty injuries today. Ream stretchered off and Lonergan just got knocked out giving away a penalty

[FootballLight]

Unfortunate but Mills shouldn't have got sent off really. Sheffield Wednesday are winning at Derby, really good result for them. We're still winning at Ipswich, really good so far.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

CAMJAM BABAY

[Derbymanc]

You beauty Bent. Maybe now we'll move it up a notch.

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Mass exodus at vicarage road

[FootballLight]

Come on now lads, last few minutes, this would be a great result to Ipswich. I work with someone who is an Ipswich fan as well, be great to get one on him this week. Done the double over them this season as well as it stands..... URZ!!

[GSC]

Looks like #Freedmania wasn't the problem at Bolton.

[GSC]

Ipswich

[FootballLight]

We'll be playing Villa next season now. 1-2, Moses penalty. Vlaar sent off, his error.

[GSC]

Not sure how thats relevant here

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Ipswich

But but didn't they already win the league in November?

[FootballLight]

I still can't get my head around why you put that video up about Ipswich GSC?

[GSC]

Mainly because Olly would find it funny.

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