The Fish

Hughton being a nice bloke and able to organise teams to be hard to breakdown doesn't make him a Premier League manager. Doesn't sound like he had full control over the transfers, but he wasn't up to much at Norwich either. I'd rather he was in the Premier League, ahead of unlikeable twats like Rodgers, but whaddyagonnado?

Heard Ashley offered the trip, but unsurprisingly the team preferred to have holidays with their friends and family, so he agreed to pay out bonuses instead.

Aye, it does feel like they could have had a 10 episode season up to the Battle of Winterfell, then another entire season for the focus to shift onto Kings Landing. Is one name still a list?

Is that really in keeping with her character so far?

Blistering episode. Several "Holy fuck" moments. All the storylines would have taken a few episodes to get through in previous seasons, but holy hell they didn't half rattle through them.

Love the last day of the season when bonkers results appar. Crystal Palace v Bournemouth, Man Utd losing at home to already relegated Cardiff, lovely stuff. Always seem to be a couple of worldies an all.

That's a very photoshopable picture for those with that talent.

No it hasn't, but a few characters had fulfilled their arcs and got soft exits; Tormund, Sam, etc. Will either of them return? What would either bring to the overall story? She's an excellent character, but leaving her as a jilted lover doesn't really add owt to her story, or anybody else's, does it?

No I didn't.

Which is fair and fine if the plan was sound to begin with and it went awry. e.g. there was criticism that the trenches needed the Dragon to light them and that that was stupid. But they had contingencies, the archers, and the runners too. Having the Unsullied protect the retreating forces was sound. Even having the catapults outside the walls makes sense given the tiny courtyard which was filled with those tank-trap looking things. But the Cavalry was wasted in a mad rush, instead of being used from the flanks, the trenches should have been in front of the catapults and there should have been more of them. That's the point, I'm not an expert at all, but I know that it was daft. Greyworm was needed, sure. Was Tormund, or Brienne? Would her story not have had a satisfying end if she'd been killed saving Jaime? Tormund served his purpose and any part he played in ratcheting up the tension between Jon and Dany could have been played by any number of other characters. Aye exactly. I'm not trying to make out like I'm Scipio or owt, just that these tactical choices were bizarre.

Praising Allardyce, saying other fans of other clubs lack class, dismissing the amount spent... All sounds eerily familiar. Would another season in the doldrums chip away at that delusion of theirs?

It wasn't a satisfying culmination of 8 seasons of surprising, entertaining tv. I'm not advocating a Hollywood ending at all, in fact what I'm advocating is a departure from the "everyone survives after the hero switches off the hive mind" that we've seen in so many films since Independence Day. I'm suggesting two B-level heros die, I'm suggesting the presumptive protagonist is shown to be little more than an annoyance to the presumptive antagonist, I'm suggesting an ending which avoids gaps in logic and feasibility within the established rules of the show.

I 100% said that. No it isn't, it's in-keeping with their storylines. GW is fearless and Brienne is noble, Jon is noble, brave, and foolhardy, Arya is sneaky and is putting her family first. I get that it was the plan all along, but if laymen like me can spot huge gaps in logic and feasibility of the plan, then it's not a very good plan. And the suggestions I make don't deviate from the central idea of the original plan, they just sand down some of the bits that jarred with me.

Agree he'd be stupid to have a fight if he didn't need to. And if he'd been set up as physically weak, but geet good at magic, then fair dos. But the way he was presented was as a formidable opponent both physically and magically. That's why I was saying have him fall into the melee in the courtyard. Definitely not part of his plan, so he'd have to fight his way clear, and Jon being the person who give him most trouble elevates them both as characters. Should he casually cut Grey Worm and Brienne down, then Jon provides more of a problem. It shows NK is really good, still better than Jon, but Jon must be really shit hot at swordplay too. Then Arya pops up, jumpy jump, catchy catchy, stabby stabby, we all go home happy. 7 or 8 emotional pops to end the episode. Plus the fall out from GW & Brienne's deaths next episode.

I can only think of one that he's beaten one-on-one, bar Ramsay Bolton (who was always an archer not a swordsman) and Half-Hand who threw the fight. A White Walker. Other than that however, he's cut swathes through Wildlings, Undead and Northmen. So he's clearly a very good fighter.

All the battles he fought and Ramsay Bolton says "The way people in the North talk about you, you're the greatest swordsman who ever walked"

It would subvert expectations though, Jon has been set up as this phenomenal swordsman and protagonist of the show. Having him have his arse handed to him by the NK, and the glory stolen by Arya, would have been surprising and satisfying. Instead, there's a bunch of questions about how Arya managed to get past the legions of undead and surprise the NK when the NK is so omniscient he was even aware of the projection of Bran. Killing more important people in this episode would have made sense. Jorah's death was a satisfying end to his story, and I would have thought a recently knighted Brienne would have also been a satisfying end to her story. As it stands, Grey Worm and Brienne's stories have surely come to their logical conclusion. Sam should have died an all, the useless wet fart was swarmed by the dead at least twice that I can remember. Agree that the fight against Cersei is way more interesting than the fight against what is essentially a force of nature. You can't really have Bronn, Tyrion and the Hound dropping hilarious witticisms to annoy the zombies. So many character conflicts; Jaime and Cersei, Tyrion and Cersei, Arya and Cersei, The Hound and the Mountain, Jon and Dany, Sansa and Dany, Sansa and Jon, Tyrion and Dany, Bran and weed killer. Re: the houses that are left; Stark, Lannister have a few people. Aryn has Robin, Greyjoy has Yara, Tarly kind of has Sam (not sure if there's a point in the Nights Watch anymore). Baratheon only has a bastard, Dorne has no one, Mormont doesn't have anybody left alive, and there aren't any Tyrell's.

Because she dropped from a height to attack him (unless she's now able to leap 6 foot in the air?). Also, if she'd taken a zombie face, there's no way the show wouldn't have had that as a reveal. re: Jon v NK. That's kind of my thinking; Jon's an annoyance to the NK, rather than his focus. Jon attacking him with all his skill and strength, but being parried and pushed away with relative ease. Not to drag more ire my way, but the NK should have been like Thanos. Not just the leader of a massive army, but apparently unbeatable one-on-one. One idea could have been that when he dropped from his dead-dragon, rather than falling outside, he lands inside the courtyard, the living see him and press towards him. They're intercepted by the generals and weight of numbers, but one or two get through. NK despatches a couple of the "heroes" (Grey Worm & Brienne? giving them satisfying endings) until Jon emerges and goes toe-to-toe with NK. They spar a bit, but it's clear Jon is comfortably outmatched. Then, with NK looming above a fallen Jon, about to destroy this annoyance once and for all, that's when Arya leaps from somewhere to play out the final death pretty much as we saw in the garden. I get that the above is lurching 90mph into fan-fic territory, I just I think that while the episode was incredible as a spectacle, it let itself down tactically, logically and narratively. When much of the series has subverted expectations without it being outside the logic of the universe in which it's set, this last episode was jarring.

The very same. There's a few better ways to kill the NK, surely? Have there be a distraction that takes NK and his general's attention in the opposite direction, and Arya appear from the bushes. Have the Living deliberately target the generals to reduce the numbers of the undead in the build up to this scene, with NK bumping off a couple of them, then Arya peels a general's face off and stabs NK in the chest (although they shatter when killed don't they?). Have Mel or Bran Magic up a Magic Mcguffin that pops up a shield around the garden so that only the NK is powerful enough to get through. Then have him fight Jon mano-e-mano, have him getting the upper hand and about to deliver the death blow to Jon, then Arya Stark, outta nowhere!! I've no problem with Arya delivering the final strike, but for there to be so many minions between her and the NK, and for there to have been so little illustrating his power beyond raising the dead, made the final act a little underwhelming in hindsight.

I get it from a cinematic point of view, those shots of a charge into darkness, one by one the lights stuttering out. The shots of the dragons illuminated only by the fire they're breathing down onto the amassed ranks of the undead. Brilliant shots that you'd never have expected to see on a tv show. But it would have been so simple to ask an expert exactly how a force would defend a position against overwhelming numbers. I know the square root of fuck all about feudal military tactics, but I was taken out of the battle scenes by the way it played out. I don't believe they couldn't get the same kind of shots if they'd set out the armies with a bit of common sense? The Arya backlash is just ridiculous as well. She's been training most of her life to become a death dealing badass assassin. We even complained about how long they were spending on her training montages. Even during this episode it showcased the lessons she's learned. How to kill quickly, how to be stealthy, how to steel her nerves. It would have been far worse had bumbling idiot Jon done in the NK. Yes he's a good swordsman, but he's patently a moron. Who would have died permanently seasons ago, were it not for the shiny suit of plot armour he's wearing.

Agree with the above. If we'd had Almiron and Perez fully fit, we'd stand 1/2 a chance. But they're not, so we don't. Best we can hope for is their forwards have an off day and our back 7 are flawless, nick a 0-0.

I'd maybe give a 1yr extension so that we've got an experienced body in midfield, but he shouldn't be in the 1st team, barring injuries. He did have a good tail end of last season, but he's not repeated it, and he's only going to get older and slower.

Absolutely idiotic "strategy" by the living. Surely you set up with the cavalry on the flanks to harrass the legions of undead to force them to bunch up. You certainly don't send them all rushing forward into the darkness with no support whatsoever. As the Dothraki nibble away at the sides of the advancing army, lob big blazing balls of burny stuff into that congested centre from the catapults (THAT YOU DON'T position ahead of the trenches!). Why didn't they have big pools of oil/tar set ablaze to slow down the zombies, or force them into bottlenecks? Why didn't they use the dragons to set the front of the undead army on fire, and give a bit of illumination to the battle field? It's not like anyone but the Night King (and maybe his generals) have those Dragon-killer spears. Even if you have one do a pass while the other looks out for the undead dragon. Mind you, the NK was tactically stupid as well. Why does he need to be there for 99% of the battle? If his sole aim is to kill Bran, why didn't he a) fly his dragon into the garden, dismount, let his dragon deal with the Cockless Allen and his mates while he kills Bran or, 2) let his undead horde kill everyone in the castle and watch from afar, then when that's done, stroll into the garden and kill Bran or iii) direct his entire force to the garden and overwhelm any defenders there then casually kill Bran. Can't be much of a force left to face Cersei. Most if not all of the Dothraki are gone. Same for the Unsullied, Wildlings, and Northmen. Maybe there won't be another big fuck off battle and it'll all be politicking? Which makes Tyrion, Sansa and Varys much more useful.

@Monkeys Fist You're a good man. What bellend would put spoilers out? Oh ay, Ant would. Gemmil's still not forgiven him for ruining the Shield.

The news of the undead army's advance would reach KL way before they did, giving both the North and the South enough time to mobilise their troops and allow them to surround the undead army with Dragons and Plot-Armour clad folks on one side of them, and Dragonfire-spewing Mad Queen's on the other. Tactically, it's stupid.