Leaderboard

No. Since the takeover there’s been far too little animosity and petty squabbling on here. I even like CT now, ffs

I remember you saying to me a while back why not just have 2 or 3 on an evening and you may have well just been talking mandarin, I couldn't comprehend doing this at the time. Used to justify my binges by my long stints of abstinence, I'm a "famine or feast" kind of bloke, etc. I'm glad for those stints of abstinence as it probably saved my liver amongst other things, but man can binge drinking still fuck your brain in the longer-term. I'm realistic enough to know I can't really ever enjoy booze again like I used to after what I've been through, but as I said it's massively liberating to know going forward this is through choice not necessity. Of course on the flip side you also quickly realise that quitting or controlling booze is not a panacea and the reason you've been doing this is because life in fucking hard whether you're sober or drunk. But without drink its very likely you'll become higher functioning and your anxiety and depression will likely improve, and definitely not worsen. This place helps, was a God send to me last summer. Good luck Craig, reaching out is the start of getting on top of things.

Sorry to hear that, mate. I lost a friend to xG last year. He’s not dead, he’s just a tedious cunt who no one wants to talk to anymore.

KCG: "STOP! Stop, will you?! Stop that! Stop it! Now, look! No-one is to ban anyone until I blow this whistle! Do you understand? Even—and I want to make this absolutely clear—even if they do say ‘xG’." Toontastic:

I take the positives from what Fish and Gloom are saying whilst still maintaining Man Utd didn’t have to do a lot to beat us. We played ok but there wasn’t any point that I thought we’d win. Man Utd knew too much, without shutting us down completely they were confident they’d keep us out. I don’t think we’d have scored if we were still playing now..,

Sorry to hear that. A break from it might do you some good by the sounds of it. As for myself, I'm at a place I never thought would happen. After a few months of occasionally bad cravings last year, they've now completely disappeared. The key was after 5 months was actually responsibly having a pint and the odd glass of wine whilst on holiday (talked through with wife). Reason being at the time I didn't want to be defined by the addiction, and was curious. Plus I suspected the alcohol was a symptom of my problems, not a cause. Now I am sure of this. So I enjoyed the taste, had zero desire to get drunk or even have that "just one" extra drink. Now with the realisation alcohol isn't forbidden, I feel completely in control of it and I can choose not to drink based purely on rational thought processes (i.e. knowing in my case it can lead me to very dark places and for me personally the hangover is NEVER worth the pleasure anyway). No cravings at all, ever. If we'd won on Sunday I might have has a couple of glasses of champagne, but I never really wanted to drink during the match, as despite the stress, I knew it wouldn't make me happy. So why drink at all and "risk it" I guess is a fair question. Again, just comes back down to not wanting to define myself like this, not wanting to count days, weeks, months, or even years of abstinence. I'm now just someone who chooses most the time not to drink, and that is so liberating. So anyway Craig yes, give yourself a reset. I can vouch as well that alcohol free beers are pretty good now too. Might take a few weeks but it could help lift the fog and won't make things worse, that's for sure.

They are desperate for the Saudis to pull out aren't they. If only their fathers had.

Don't worry lads, it's scared me to the point of speaking to someone professional (not for the first time in my life). A lot is deep-rooted from childhood and I've got a cunt of a brother to thank for most of it. Appreciate the kind words and support.

Talk to someone Craig, a professional. Sadly I know all too well what can happen when someone doesn't talk, so please do.

fyp

This is worse than losing the final.

He's sounded off about xG in the pub and got it all wrong is my guess. Good luck Craig, hope you're alright.

I'll have you know I don't care about any of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Absolutely not falling into the trap of telling you what you should or shouldn't be doing in a broader sense, but let's just say I did the 2011 Great North Run on an alcohol-heavy training routine and it wasn't pretty. To rub salt into the wound, an octogenarian runner overtook me on the South Shields seafront. I would not recommend it.

I suppose the other way to look at it is we’re building gradually and supposing we make the CL. Then you’re in a competition you haven’t got a cat in hells chance of winning, with (even with best will in the world in terms of additions this summer) a squad nowhere near being able to compete on all fronts. I’m canny chilled about it tbh because I think it’s inevitable we’ll become an established top 6 side but it might take a few years. The state the club was in (in all areas) might mean doing it over 3/4 years at least. Obviously I’m nee spring chicken and would like to see success asap but a lo of people have no realism when assessing what should be done / timescales. Which I get because if you’re not emotionally attached as a fan there’s not a lot of point in supporting a team tbh

Fuck’s sake man, Gloomy doesn’t know we lost yet!

Gloom mentioned xG and the fucking Last of the Summer Wine crew turned up, is what happened, ACTUALLY.

Fish’s argument here is lessened because he’s clearly only got into stats so he has yet another excuse to fill the servers up with another 15GB of text

"Resistance is futile, guys!"

Sunak says being in single market and UK makes Northern Ireland 'world's most exciting economic zone' Hold on, isn't that exactly what the rest of the UK also had before Brexit?

I think their quality obviously showed on the day. But you could argue our not having much of a sniff in their third boils down to Wilson. He’s been one of the top 3 players at the club since he arrived. But he’s been really struggling of late and it’s hard to think of anyone who had a worse game on Sunday. It just about sums his performance up that he played Casemiro onside for the first. I think the convoluted point I’m trying to make is we were probably only a player or two away from giving them a real match

We're not even 'miles away', we literally got to the cup final, had a lot of the ball, played some good stuff too. If Wilson was on form, or if we had another Bruno-level player I think we could have won that game.

Dr Gloom disagrees.

Even if a ban is initiated, after I have delivered another point (at least) at the weekend with my match thread, I reserve the right to mention the nonsense statistical reference in the subsequent match thread titles as you are swept along on Toonpack's "match threads of glory" odyssey.

Whoah! Easy, tiger

2 games from this season https://understat.com/match/18382 https://understat.com/match/18348 The 0-0 Arsenal game was pretty even. We had the bigger chance But they dominated possession and forced us to defend deep - xG wont give you that info The 1-4 Saints game Their xG was higher believe it or not Our finishing was just better. Or to some degree the xG model is expecting their keeper to save Wood's and Bruno's efforts, or for them to be blocked more than 90% of the time xG is just a model to possibly give some other insights into games, which may or may not be apparent to the naked eye Its not a religion 🙂

Oh no an 8th place finish in the PL what a complete disaster, only one spot behind their best ever PL finish .

Didn’t use bulldogs either… Savage.

Condolences. I was one of the lucky 40%

Let's compromise. Mentions of xG are allowed, but only as external links in full stops as if they were being posted by spammers.

I reckon we’ll see an xV mostly against this, which doesn’t mean that’s the way the vote will actually go, but…

I “saw the light” a good few years ago, haven’t been proper drunk in ages. I had the choice on Sunday of a 1pm start in Town with a lad I know from offshore, or 3:30pm meeting my brother in a local. Me and bro had 5-6 beers over the duration, not even groggy on Monday. I rang my mate the next afternoon and he sounded like Tom Waits

An excuse to get this gif out again.

We need a ban on Xg chat on here. It's so fucking tedious

ok, forgive me if i'm getting this wrong. xG implies we created the higher value goal scoring opportunities, no? and therefore we created the better chances? because that wasn't my takeaway having watched the game. it looked to me like we had loads of the ball, but Man U created the better chances. however i confess

Tbh now the final is out of the way I wouldn’t be surprised to see our form pick up. Isak needs to start like. You’d think Wilson had a lobotomy in December

last 2 times I said 3-0 win and a maxi hattrick we lost the match.

Ace lager to do fanbases

Yeah we’ve no chance of winning but it’s the money the champions league brings in that would be the most significant thing for me, the standard of player we could attract etc. Am like you, more than happy with the progress we’ve made. But if we don’t finish top 4 I think its fair to say that it’s a missed opportunity that may be difficult to repeat, especially next season and f we’re in the Thursday/Sunday slot 👍

The period pre world cup was beyond anything we probably expected which has got some ahead of themselves. Yes it may well be our best chance for a while but I don't want us then to fail immediately.

No not a stereotypical one, but he's more of a goal threat than Wilson is, right now.

Isnt that what xG is telling us? xG isnt saying we should have won, its saying they scored 2 from chances that were worth way less than that, so their finishing was clinical We scored 0, when we could have expected to score 1 goal, so we were relatively wasteful Its just confirming exactly what you said... Anyway, we are less than 18 months into new ownership and we've been to Wembley, which is more than the previous ownership achieved in 14 years The future's bright, the future is Black and White

Like about 90% of southerners tbf.