Haven’t you heard of divorce?
Nobody else would put up with me.
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Surprised Hull have sacked Rosenior. I thought he’d done a decent job. We did the double over them but on both occasions it was against the run of play.
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That is a shocking decision.
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As this is ( I guess) the non-Premier League thread, I would just like to say how enjoyable last night’s Champions League Semi Final was.
Not a phrase that features often where these matches are concerned
Full of atmosphere and Dortmund saved by the woodwork on several occasions
Yeah, you get away with that now there’s no EPL teams left 
I went to the Bolton game and was treated to a mad evening. Bolton in the final but they did have a very good go at messing it up.
Good demonstration of the brutality of the play-offs when MK Dons, who could have beaten us to automatic promotion, crashed 3-0 to Crawley. Neither team well-liked but both in possession of good young managers delivering in difficult circumstances. Crawley were tipped for relegation and now…
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Someone’s going to be happy ‘ Norwich attacker Ashley Barnes ruled out of play-off semi-final first leg’ 
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Think PSG hit the woodwork 6 times over the 2 legs. Pleased to see Dortmund through. Real Madrid always the main event for me so looking forward to tonight.
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For those of a scientific bent, Barnes’ omission for the first leg and inclusion for the second could be a near perfect experiment, providing the answer to undoubtedly the forum’s biggest question: Are Norwich a better team with him, or without?
(Assumptions would include that Barnes plays in the second leg, Leeds play with the same players throughout, and in the same style over the two legs!)
There’s a Nobel prize here for someone…
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Stats will subsequently be used to prove right is wrong, black is white & up is down.
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….and that the earth really is flat.
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Surely the forum’s biggest question is what is Delia Smith not to blame for?
@twofifty Barnes question already decided
When he has played 90 minutes in any tournament this season Norwich have lost 1 game. When he’s not started or not finished they’ve lost 15. In the 15 games they lost at least 2 of Sara, Sainz or Rowe played. Now, granted some of those games you would expect them to lose e.g. Liverpool, but those losses also include heavy defeats to teams who were relegated or fought a relegation battle when Barnes was injured. When he was back none of those teams managed the double.
Interestingly, when he’s not completed 90 minutes they have won 1 more game than they have lost (16 v 15) so they can and obviously have won without him but when he completes 90 those losses are much more likely to be draws.
When these stats. pile up it’s near impossible to argue stuff like “you can say anything with statistics”. All the Opta stats. have him down as their most important player this season so by that metric their result in the first leg of the semi may be critical. It may also be irrelevant as my understanding was that he wasn’t likely to be back before the final.
Obviously stats never tell a full story but, to me, the combination of official and unofficial stats; the evidence of the match highlights reels where you can see the clever ways in which he doesn’t necessarily run around like a teenager but makes short drifting runs which he then pulls up to create space as previously mentioned, and, the comments of other fans in the Championship (at least 6 teams forums have fans bemoaning that they don’t have an experienced head “like Barnes”. 3 of those teams were relegated) for example, kind of speak for themselves.
I always find people’s attitudes to stats. quite fascinating. Yes, some can be misused but that’s quite a hard thing in sport because we already know what the other variables are which we need to consider and we can factor them in.
Hopefully it will bring those endless discussions to an end 
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I hope Dortmund win the final, but they’ll be underdogs. They were the only team in the Group to deserve to beat my team, and seeing this was one of my highlights of the season…
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‘Like’
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Gutted!
Depends whether they were home or away.
You might need to expand on that. Given the numbers they were clearly home and away.
Sara has played every game and our away form has been abysmal so it’s no surprise he crops in a disproportionate number of defeats compared to Barnes.
Anyway I thought we’d agreed to put this matter to rest as everybody, me included, is bored rigid.
Looked back and I’ll be damned if I can find where I agreed to that Think of the discussion as a driver for others to change the subject/post their win stuff.
It was fun looking back though. You are the man who said
@Canaryfan predicted 10th to 17th.
and here you are in play off semi-final.
On the other hand @kaypeejay and I spent August bemoaning how awful Cannon was in our midfield and he ended the season having scored probably 3 of our top 5 goals and rightly being a contender for player of the season.
Find myself torn on the Championship playoffs. With the exception of WBA for whom I’ve no affinity at all, I’d like to see Leeds, Norwich and Southampton back in the EPL.