North London Red

I believe our game at Forest in early February will go down as the last ever FA cup replay. Aston Villa played Chelsea in a 4th round replay the same evening, but Chelsea won that in 90 minutes whereas our game went to extra time and penalties.

If they beat Watford this afternoon, Southampton could suddenly be back in the hunt for automatic promotion. They go to Leeds on the last day, which could be tasty. They also go to Leicester in a couple of weeks.

They were ranked 10th from May to August 2021. Edit: and climbed to 9th later that same year.

It’s not true. Belgium and Croatia at home in the nations league, Italy home and away in the Euros qualifiers, Spain in Seville, and Denmark in the last Euros, were all ranked in the top 10 when England beat them. Haven’t checked any other games but pretty quickly found six examples of Southgate beating top ten teams.

Chance to catch up with friends from around the country who support other clubs and who I’ve travelled to previous tournaments with. Loyalty points which build up to guaranteeing tickets for the big knockout games in world cups and Euros (‘you’re so lucky to get tickets to that quarter / semi final / final’ - no, its a result of putting in the hard yards at dour friendlies and qualifiers). Tonight wasn’t great, and I’d far prefer home games to go on the road around the country, but there are reasons people go!

Pedantry alert, but it was 12 points initially, then reduced to 6, then reduced to 0. I think the appeal was made by Sugar on the grounds the irregularities were committed under previous owners.

We’ve been losing a six figure sum every week for years (transfer profits notwithstanding), so are we really in a position to turn down an extra thousand or more away fans by restricting away sales to 2,000? Not every team will bring more than 2k but some do. And it’s not as if we’ve got an equivalent number of home fans unable to get tickets every week.

OK thanks, makes sense.

Which City player were they referring to (sorry if explained elsewhere and I’ve missed it)?

Swansea corner that went for a throw-in on the same side as the corner taker has been the highlight so far.

21st and 22nd both currently have 38 points from 35 games. Extrapolating that to 46 games would equate to 50 points. Now Stoke and Huddersfield might both pick up a bit between now and May, but that would likely be at the expense of one of the other 7 teams currently between Huddersfield and ourselves in the table (or ourselves, in an Armageddon scenario), so 50 points is probably a reasonable proxy for where the line will be drawn. Peterborough went down on 54 a few years ago, which was an exceptional year. By the time Rotherham come to Ashton Gate they’ll already be down. That game is probably the likeliest source of a win in our remaining games, and I suspect we’ll scramble a few other points here and there to take us past 50. The other thing in our favour (at present) is goal difference - it’s more than 10 better than each of the current bottom 8. So in summary, I think it’s unlikely we’ll go down, but not impossible. Cue a final day relegation decider at Stoke now I’ve said that.

Coventry in a play off final would be a 7th different ground in living memory for older fans (Ashton Gate, Highfield Road, Ricoh / Coventry Building Society Arena, Sixfields, St Andrews and Burton), although I think the game at St Andrews was behind closed doors due to covid restrictions.

West Brom’s finances are tight at present so I would expect this is primarily an economic decision. Either they’re confident of selling the extra 1,000 tickets to home fans (where there might some uncertainty on their side as to whether we’d sell a full 3,000 allocation) or their policing and stewarding bill might be lower if there are fewer away fans.

London to Manchester, Manchester to Middlesbrough on two separate tickets works that day. It’s a long time on trains, with an early start and a late return to Euston, but it’s doable.

Last posting day was yesterday. From today it’s collection only, which is a pain as an exile who can’t make the Leeds match on Friday. Couldn’t the club have extended the postal deadline by a couple of days? 8 days before the game seems a bit extreme.

Finally two quality deliveries into the box, and what do you know? We score

One of my more surreal experiences watching a City game was when we played Cardiff in the FA cup around 2010. I was overseas with work at the time and the only live stream I could find was from S4C with commentary in Welsh. It was snowing quite heavily at Ashton Gate and I think an orange ball was being used. It felt a bit like watching an obscure Eastern European game.

Why do so many of our set pieces either hit the first defender, or miss everyone altogether?

Are these Robins TV commentators watching a different game? They keep saying how City have been the better side, and that Preston’s goals have come against the run of play.

TV could also be a factor here given a couple of replays will be televised live. I suspect the TV companies are waiting for the result of tonight's final third round game before deciding which replays to show, and on what days. If Man Utd draw at Wigan tonight I wouldn't be surprised if ITV wanted to show the replay at Old Trafford (Man Utd games command significantly higher advertising revenue than games involving most other clubs).

No sign of Stefan Marinovic, I notice. He has been in NZ squads this year but hasn’t played for them since September 2022 as far as I can see. Currently playing club football in Israel.

I have a hunch there’s more to the story about Sterling returning to the U.K. during last year’s World Cup than has been let on. Southgate has barely picked him since. There might be nothing in it, but to continually not pick him when his club form has been decent seems odd.

Yes. Currently at Heathrow about to fly to Basel, and then flying from Basel to Skopje tomorrow morning. Looking forward to it; I’ve been to Skopje a few times before (the Peter Crouch game in 2006, and a few trips with work).

As there was contact between Rashford and the defender, I think any deemed obstruction would have resulted in a penalty, not an indirect free kick. I think an indirect free kick for obstruction only arises if a player is obstructed without any contact AND with the ball being deemed to be out of playing distance for both players, which is quite rare. It’s also why players shepherding the ball out of play while being harried by an opponent, or taking the ball to the corner flag to waste time towards the end of a game, generally aren’t penalised for obstruction.

Realised I'd forgotten Bury, Rushden & Diamonds and Tamworth, so my City total should be 97. Have also totted up the overseas ones. I've seen England at 92 different grounds (13 of which are in England or Cardiff), and 15 other overseas grounds for non-England games. Overall total is, I think, 206 (97 with City, 9 of the current 92 not with City, 79 others with England that aren't already counted, 15 other overseas grounds, and 6 others in the UK).