rogerbarton

It's also a lot easier to stay in profit now than last time we were promoted with the insane TV deals. I agree it makes sense for Ashley to invest in a team that can challenge for Europe and therefore has no risk of relegation. On the point of getting out of the Championship - got to say I'm delighted we're out. The quality of football has been woeful, the standard of officiating dreadful and the amount of bed wetting whenever a bad result comes along frustrating. I prefer the idea of us ploughing a furrow as underdogs in the PL than the amount of pressure on us to be promoted this season. Plus we won't have the added difficulty of every single team raising their game against us.

You called that one

It's simple really. He'll stay if Ashley gives him the right backing. Will the idiot finally learn his lesson?

Yup, playing hardball with Ashley already. Quite right too really. "I will have to analyse everything."

Brilliant. Rob Lee and Peter Beagrie talking some sense too which is a rarity for Sky's Championship coverage. That handball on the line has to be one of my favourite moments of the season

Lib Dems apparently making a 'big announcement' in Vauxhall - the remain majority seat of Labour's Brexit MP Kate Hoey. They're anticipating it might be a big name Labour defection.

Originally said 1-0, but given the events of the weekend I fancy us to play with confidence for the first time in a while. Should be a good night.

The thing is I hear people asking who'd replace Corbyn. Almost anyone would be a better choice - Abbott and McDonnell aside. Labour have a history of picking losers. Jezza is a walking disaster. I liked Ed but he was patently the wrong choice. Kinnock did a good job of modernising the party so I'll hold back on him. But then you have the Foot debacle which is strikingly similar to what's happening now. In some ways I think Labour need to start again and rebuild for the post-Brexit world. I do think they need to be very careful in how they approach the leadership election in the summer, though. Corbyn might try to hang on since the PLP won't nominate any other far left candidate (the current leader is automatically on the ballot). In that case they'd be best off finding a better unity candidate than Owen Smith and running them against Corbs. Yvette Cooper is making a good pitch at the moment (and I voted for her in the first place). Dan Jarvis or Keir Starmer look like good options too.

Saw a few people suggesting he had Norwich almost relegated... actually, he kept them up first season and they were outside the relegation places when he got the sack. Given the limitations of their squad I wouldn't deem that a failure of any kind. Great man and great manager.

Not soopa Kevin Nolan is it?

The crowd were good against Leeds but I think a day of drinking beforehand helped there... Actually we haven't won away from home since Huddersfield - so four games. Draws at Reading and Birmingham, defeats at Sheff Weds and Ipswich. If anything, our last three home games have been some of the better performances at SJP this season.

Would agree with a lot of this. I think what might also be interesting is there was some evidence Labour --> UKIP switching in the last election aided the Tories in Middle England. If UKIP are suddenly a much less viable option for working-class voters, does that actually aid Labour? My source for this is actually myself but here's what I wrote about it in the wake of the 2015 GE: "I charted turnout and vote distribution in the 39 closest English marginals (where Labour and the Tories were within 5 percentage points of one another). Labour won 19, the Tories 20. These seats were all broadly similar in terms of turnout, rise in the Green vote, fall in the Lib Dem vote and increase in Conservative vote share (3.2% average in seats they lost and 3.3% average in seats they won). So where did the difference lie? Labour’s vote share increased by an average 5.6% in seats they won, compared to 2.2% in the seats they lost. UKIP, meanwhile, polled an average 9.5% in seats won by the Conservatives, compared to 13.9% in those won by Labour. This suggests to me that, in some of these key marginals where there was a popular movement to UKIP, the Kippers swept up undecided voters that polling had suggested would swing the seat Labour’s way. It did not seem to affect the Conservatives anywhere near as adversely in the seats that mattered. The combination of this with voters’ fear about the SNP combined to make for a deadly blue cocktail. In summary – the worst combination of two nationalisms."

Do you think Labour could credibly come out and say the single market would be their red line in Brexit negotiations? That way they're not 'betraying the will of the people' TM but are veering towards a very soft Brexit. They would leave themselves open to the obvious suggestion that we wouldn't get control on immigration that way, but could it be worth the gamble? I'm not sure, because it looks like they're draining working-class support anyway and this would be a position sure to lose votes in middle England and even the north. Would genuinely be interested to know what people think Labour's Brexit position should be.

I think they really can lose their core seats. We saw it in Copeland - okay, there was the nuclear issue, but a government clawing back a seat from the opposition? In virtually all recent polls, the Tories have a commanding lead over Labour among C2DEs. They've been losing working class support since the early 2000s, but Corbyn's leadership has accelerated the process. I hope Labour are able to cling onto their 2015 voters, but there was even a poll out last week showing that less than half of those 2015 Labour voters think Corbyn would make a better PM than May.

Labour are between a rock and a hard place. Tories will campaign on the hard Brexit they've already set out. Lib Dems will campaign on reversing it. Labour don't know what their stance should be and, quite frankly, I'm f*cked if I know what they should do either. I think the Tories will clean up in middle England and possibly beyond, to the extent they might start making inroads into parts of the north where it would have seemed inconceivable even in 2015. Where I think it'll be more interesting is in south, where I think the Lib Dems could claw back some of the seats they lost in 2015, but might well attract a lot of disgruntled natural Tory voters worried about the economic impact of Brexit. As a Labour supporter who never backed Corbyn or Brexit, I'm personally thinking that this was probably an unwinnable election given the circumstances anyway and hoping there can be a rebuild job after the 'experiment'.

Don't think he's played much this season anyway, they've usually gone for a three at the back with Luiz, Cahill and Azpilicueta. I think Zouma is first back up as well.

He's slow as fuck, but to be fair he's coming straight from the champions elect rather than a year in the wilderness after a disaster at Notts County

I think a few are forgetting the Wally with the Brolly has already been sacked again by Derby

Redknapp just covering for the last three games I presume? One of which is against Huddersfield They have indeed gone from just outside the play-offs to a couple of points from safety. I hope he gets a reaction because before Hudders they play Villa... That said, Joey Barton's autobiography gave quite a revealing insight into Redknapp's tenure at QPR. It felt a bit like he'd given up. EDIT: As for Terry, I'd take him on footballing ability / experience. Rafa has worked with him before of course.

I think that really has saved us. If we can actually muster a performance against Preston that should more or less seal it. Incredible it came to this like.

Oh dear. That will really put the pressure on.

By far the worst performance I've seen this season. That was shocking. We are lucky Huddersfield's game in hand comes in the final week, though at the moment I'm worried that more performances like that will see us bottle it anyway.

There's no question Mitro offers more overall. I thought he was superb last night. But I think he had one shot all game? I think he and Gayle together could be lethal, but obviously there are other considerations to how that affects the midfield balance.

Still gutted about the result but I thought we were excellent last night. Mitro was instrumental, Hayden made a massive difference and Mbemba showed the benefit of having a CB who can play the ball. I must say ball watching in the 95th minute is pretty criminal though. Hopefully we bounce back and play like that against Ipswich in which case I'll have no worries.