Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

We're 4 points behind Southampton with 13 matches to be played. If we continue winning like this, we can bridge the gap quite easily. A lot depends on the head to head matches with the match at Emirates being the one where we could most likely drop points.

In to the quaterfinals of the FA Cup now.

I see whilst I was gone you all stopped posting, was obviously a silent protest against the tyrannical moderation system we have on this site.

Football has been good in the last couple of weeks. 6 points off second and 7 off top, with Boro, Derby and the Binners all still to come to Carra. Our next game is Watford, too.

edit - Norwich City FCVerified account ‏@NorwichCityFC

NEWS | #NCFC's home game vs @Boro will now take place on Friday April 17 (7.45pm), with live coverage on @SkySports.

Nice, guess that was always likely to happen with our recent upturn in form.

Banz said:

In to the quaterfinals of the FA Cup now.

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Between that and the Europa League, it seems possible that Liverpool will have a surprisingly memorable season.

Weeaboo Name said:

I see whilst I was gone you all stopped posting, was obviously a silent protest against the tyrannical moderation system we have on this site.

Football has been good in the last couple of weeks. 6 points off second and 7 off top, with Boro, Derby and the Binners all still to come to Carra. Our next game is Watford, too.

edit - Norwich City FCVerified account ‏@NorwichCityFC

NEWS | #NCFC's home game vs @Boro will now take place on Friday April 17 (7.45pm), with live coverage on @SkySports.

Nice, guess that was always likely to happen with our recent upturn in form.

Click to expand...

I can't really complain with our position at all, but the positive feeling has hit a bit with these results at Arsenal & Birmingham. A win against Leeds tomorrow will be very important for us. Our run of fixtures after that is quite nice on paper.

It's crazy how seven teams could still win the league (maybe cut that to six if Brentford continue their form).

Despite the midweek draws I'm still backing Boro and Derby for 1 and 2. 7 or 9 points from Watford, Blackburn and the binners and then I'll start thinking we might have a shot at taking one of them.

I'm just hoping our top 2/playoff position status doesn't come down to the final day, we play Fulham on that day.

Well that was disappointing, Leeds have now robbed us of six points this season. There's still no rest for us yet either, we have another four games to play before we get a full week off again. I hope we can make it through those games without dropping too many points because we've lost our edge lately after playing so many games in a short period.

If we had a deciding game at the end of the season it would be against Brighton at home which is pretty favourable as long as they aren't fighting to stay up.

That was so reminiscent of a lot of our games this season, especially Charlton at home. Their keeper and captain had monster games though. Typical of this Championship season, go top, lose.

Wow, those results. Perfect away performance by us, 3 goals and a 4th clean sheet in 5 games.

I really can't complain with the results around us, we've pretty much got away with it to some extent. That said the gap to 7th is a lot smaller and your lot now seem very threatening.

A win against Bolton on Tuesday will probably sort out any anxiety I have over our season, but at the moment there's that large worry that we can throw everything away in the second half of the season like we have so many times before.

On the plus side, I think Ipswich will be the team that doesn't make the playoffs so I'm optimistic in terms of us staying in the top six.

Edit: After looking at Ipswich, it seems like any injury or loss of form for Daryl Murphy would completely screw them up so yeah I'm going to say their hopes are a bit fragile on paper.

I really can't see Boro finishing outside of the top 6 but I understand the anxiety because we're feeling the same thing down here.

On paper I would think that Norwich, Derby and Boro have the 3 strongest squads and are best equipped to cope with the loss of a key player, although your lot seem a MUCH better side with Tomlin on the field. We've shown that today by leaving out Redmond and Hooper and bringing in Hoolahan and Jerome, both players had key involvement in the game. I could see Forest continuing to improve and maybe breaking the current top 8, and I agree that if any of the current top 6 are to drop out it will probably be the Binners.

4 points or more from the Blackburn and Ipswich games and I think I'll start believing in a top 2 finish again.

Tomlin is a 'moment of magic' player for want of a better term. He can be quiet for 85 minutes of the game, but usually ends up providing a great touch or finish that results in a goal. We would be worse off without him, but I don't think it would completely ruin us.

You seem very well equipped with strikers at the moment with Grabban & Jerome firing yesterday and Hooper available too. I'm sure further down the pitch you have a strong squad too which is why I'm sure you'll be there at the end of the season.

I have the feeling this recovery from Liverpool isn't stopping anytime soon and Van Gaal could end up sacked as a result when United finish 5th because of it.

I think he'll get the summer and next season even if they finish 5th. It might delay their plans of bringing in the best another season though.

Heh, I guess I haven't seen/listened to enough Boro games to judge. In the few I have he was absolutely bossing things.

Yeah, our strikers have been pretty great recently. It was only 1 at a time under NA but AN seems to have got them all going. Grabban is like a totally different player.

Tettey would probably be our biggest loss right now. Johnson has the physical attributes to 'do a job' in his role but no way near the ability to read the game or timing of tackle, probably why he's playing the best football of his life whilst pushed out wide. Gary O'Neil and Jonny Howson don't have that the presence and Vadis has been out pretty much all season. Have a horrible feeling that he'll pick up another yellow at Blackburn and miss the derby.

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Well that was quite a set of results. Over to you, Bournemouth.

https://vine.co/v/OQYU6YXTnwM JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON JOHNSON

I thought I'd been hasty in saying you would be big challengers at the end of the season when I saw your lot down to Blackburn, but sure enough you fought back and made me even more convinced.

Karanka seems very unhappy with our performance despite us winning. It's definitely better than controlling all aspects of the game and losing to Leeds.

Brentford didn't just have a one off revival it seems which is a shame because it keeps pressure on us all to keep our playoff spots nevermind challenge for auto.

Norwich seem to have scored a lot of brilliant goals this season.

Was a bit of a strange game yesterday, we were dominating them but not really creating clear cut chances, then we switched off for a set piece, something we haven't been doing under AN. At half time every other top 9 side was winning, really felt like it was going to be one of those days. I would have been happy with a draw before the game knowing the strikeforce we were going up against, but those two were rather quiet. I reckon their manager would have gone by now if it wasn't for the FA cup.

I said 7 points from the next 3 games [Watford, Blackburn, Ipswich] and then I'd have genuine hope again, that has obviously changed to 9 now. Most meaningful East Anglian derby I've ever seen coming up on Sunday, more often than not they have been bang average and we've been either going for promotion or right towards the bottom. Starts a month where we are at home 4 times and away to Huddersfield and Millwall.

I watched the Boro vs Leeds game and their keeper and captain just had one of those games. Looking at your fixtures you sure do have a lot of head to head games with the top 8 left. Exciting times.

Well Bournemouth have slipped there. I'm sure they won't drop off completely anytime soon, but it gives us a nice cushion to separate us from third.

Bad times for Arsenal.

Listened to the Bournemouth game and felt to me like they were running out of steam. Then again everybody will probably have a wobble, and theirs probably won't last 2 months like ours did.

Brentford, Wolves, Derby, Watford, Boro and Ipswich all away this weekend. A slip up or two sure would be nice.

Edit - Much nicer than I had even hoped. Shame about Leeds being shit.

Well another opportunity to gain on teams lost. We're in a terrible state at the moment it seems with even the Bolton win being a bad performance. Today seemed odd because we've kept a consistent lineup all season and then suddenly we had made five changes with three players who haven't played much at all for us.

Oh well on to the next game.

March will be massive for Boro's automatic promotion hopes. I'd imagine Forest away is suddenly looking a lot more intimidating and playing sides in relegation battles is rarely comfortable at this time of year, even at home.

A win for us tomorrow and I think the belief a few seasons back will return. A weekend where you beat and leapfrog your local rivals to go within a point of second sounds a little too good to be true though.

Edit - Johnson at it again https://vine.co/v/O2lOOe1IELF

The odds of getting that past the keeper and the defender's outstretched leg must have been pretty slim, great finish.

A lot of our fans have decided that we have been subject to the famous Manager of the month curse so we should be in the clear this month. I think it's just a case of scrapping as many points (hopefully 4, probably less) from Milwall & Forest and then finally getting a full week off to really sort the team out. I'd be very surprised if Norwich & Watford weren't ahead of us this time next week, but it's all about staying in touch until the last few games so I guess that's not too bad.

Video now.



If the net wasn't there that might have taken somebody's head off.

Well and truly in the hunt for the top 2 now. As long as we don't lose to your lot or Derby I'd say we have a good chance. Can't believe I'm actually saying this after that horrid run. What a difference a few weeks can make.

inb4 we're beaten by Wigan on Wednesday.

I loved the liverpool man city game, the players just never gave up, and we deservedly won! #YNWA
We are liverpol tralalala we are liverpol tralalalala!
Come Scousers continue like this and a top 4 stop is assured!
And btw is it just me or I'm one of the only hardcore football and pokemon fans?