Better than you thought

In our first 10 games we've played ALL the top six teams. It's only when you look at that , that you realise just what a baptism of fire we've had, and that objectively things really aren't anything like as bad as we might have thought.

What's more, it might well prove that this blitskreig we've survived - being out of the relagation places despite all this- might in the end be the very thing which has hardened us up quickly enough to complete the season well, and fulfill my contraversial prediction that we will finish around tenth. ( I wanna hear some words from certain people WHEN that happens by the way).

We all know that we've got this huge problem in our scoring ability, but actually when you look at the returns, we've scored as many goals as Wolves and more than most of our rivals at the bottom . Then you look at the teams we've scored against and you'll see that these are, ( with the exception of Fulham) , teams which have hardly conceded any goals so far.

After playing these teams , mid and low half teams will seem a lot more possible than they might have done two months ago and , as I keep saying, we're improving all the time while they're getting worse.

Our actual problem is giving goals away , not scoring them. Only Fulham have conceded more and we've got a problem here most particularly late in the game . Personally I'd answer this by bringing on two defenders and parking the bus for the last twenty minutes until we're up to speed in this department , but I'm sure that Sir Neil has seen this difficulty and he knows a lot more about it than me so I don't doubt that he's onto it.

To quote Churchill, this isn't the end , nor even the beginning of the end, but it's certainly the end of the beginning !

Those few cowards amongst us who were ready to concede defeat can now gain some courage, and the vast vast majority of real supporters who kept their heads under heavy fire can congratulate themselves for making a significant contribution to the effort, which I'm sure we shall now see take shape .

Also played all the bottom three haven't we?

Also played all the bottom three haven't we?

Yes. We drew with two of them when we were just starting and hadn't yet settled in and we hammered the other.
You're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it's a rather negative and defeatist one to be frank, and not supported by the facts.
If that attitude were present in the team, the manager or the majority of supporters then we would certainly fail, but we won't.

You were recently quite rude to me personally because you apparently found it implausible that I might have worked out likely outcomes from known facts rather than simply reacting to the last thing that happened, but I can assure you that this is quite possible and actually I do it all the time.
I suggest that the logic of my original post is quite sound , but we shall see whether it proves to be correct as the campaign progresses. There are many possible unknown factors which might come into play during all that which I cannot foresee , so you may yet have your way - but I remain confident that Cardiff City will not be ultimately beaten back into mediocrity .

I repeat, we will finish around tenth. Defeat is not an option I'm afraid .

Also played all the bottom three haven't we?

Not sure if they were all in the bottom 3 when we played them But now they are so let's hope they stay there

Also played all the bottom three haven't we?

Yes. We drew with two of them when we were just starting and hadn't yet settled in and we hammered the other.
You're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it's a rather negative and defeatist one to be frank, and not supported by the facts.
If that attitude were present in the team, the manager or the majority of supporters then we would certainly fail, but we won't.

You were recently quite rude to me personally because you apparently found it implausible that I might have worked out likely outcomes from known facts rather than simply reacting to the last thing that happened, but I can assure you that this is quite possible and actually I do it all the time.
I suggest that the logic of my original post is quite sound , but we shall see whether it proves to be correct as the campaign progresses. There are many possible unknown factors which might come into play during all that which I cannot foresee , so you may yet have your way - but I remain confident that Cardiff City will not be ultimately beaten back into mediocrity .

I repeat, we will finish around tenth. Defeat is not an option I'm afraid .

A lot of truth in what you say, we def have it in us to stay up as morale seems high despite a difficult start, 10th is not going to happen in my opinion. Will take 17th now.

Also played all the bottom three haven't we?

Yes. We drew with two of them when we were just starting and hadn't yet settled in and we hammered the other.
You're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it's a rather negative and defeatist one to be frank, and not supported by the facts.
If that attitude were present in the team, the manager or the majority of supporters then we would certainly fail, but we won't.

You were recently quite rude to me personally because you apparently found it implausible that I might have worked out likely outcomes from known facts rather than simply reacting to the last thing that happened, but I can assure you that this is quite possible and actually I do it all the time.
I suggest that the logic of my original post is quite sound , but we shall see whether it proves to be correct as the campaign progresses. There are many possible unknown factors which might come into play during all that which I cannot foresee , so you may yet have your way - but I remain confident that Cardiff City will not be ultimately beaten back into mediocrity .

I repeat, we will finish around tenth. Defeat is not an option I'm afraid .

I didn't give an opinion....

As for your apparent facts and whatever mumbo jumbo you were talking about in the other post it's complete nonsense. You tried to overplay your knowledge to make yourself look better and it's a little weird. There's not a single reputable professional gambler that would mark us down for 10th this season and there's no markers or any stats or statistics of any positive data you could possibly use to make that assumption.

I'm not sure why you didnt just stick to making a prediction like the rest of us.

As for your apparent facts and whatever mumbo jumbo you were talking about in the other post it's complete nonsense. You tried to overplay your knowledge to make yourself look better and it's a little weird. There's not a single reputable professional gambler that would mark us down for 10th this season and there's no markers or any stats or statistics of any positive data you could possibly use to make that assumption.

I'm not sure why you didnt just stick to making a prediction like the rest of us.

Not sure about that I bet on it.

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

As for your apparent facts and whatever mumbo jumbo you were talking about in the other post it's complete nonsense. You tried to overplay your knowledge to make yourself look better and it's a little weird. There's not a single reputable professional gambler that would mark us down for 10th this season and there's no markers or any stats or statistics of any positive data you could possibly use to make that assumption.

I'm not sure why you didnt just stick to making a prediction like the rest of us.

Whether you gave an opinion, or indeed whether you are capable of forming one has no bearing upon my statement that you are entitled to one.
I wouldn't personally associate the expressions "professional gambler " and "reputable " as a natural pairing , and of course you can't make a statement like that unless you've sought the opinions of every " reputable " professional gambler, which you obviously haven't .
I did explain to you last time that I don't like or use statistics so I don't know why you're stuck on that one. You will find in the real world though that the majority of people fail to assess known information very effectively, and that's why bookies make money you see .
Put another way, if a million people have a dumb idea it's still a dumb idea, and conversely the fact that an opinion is unusual does not make it wrong or baseless.
You have no idea who the f--k I am, so how would it be possible to make myself "look better" to you ? That in itself shows an absence of logic, and I won't even go to the question of why you think I'd care .

I stand by my opinion, being sound logic whether or not you like or grasp it. I've been perfectly clear and so why don't you just wait and see whether I turn out to be right or not ?

As for your apparent facts and whatever mumbo jumbo you were talking about in the other post it's complete nonsense. You tried to overplay your knowledge to make yourself look better and it's a little weird. There's not a single reputable professional gambler that would mark us down for 10th this season and there's no markers or any stats or statistics of any positive data you could possibly use to make that assumption.

I'm not sure why you didnt just stick to making a prediction like the rest of us.

Not sure about that I bet on it.

and i hope you win

As for your apparent facts and whatever mumbo jumbo you were talking about in the other post it's complete nonsense. You tried to overplay your knowledge to make yourself look better and it's a little weird. There's not a single reputable professional gambler that would mark us down for 10th this season and there's no markers or any stats or statistics of any positive data you could possibly use to make that assumption.

I'm not sure why you didnt just stick to making a prediction like the rest of us.

Whether you gave an opinion, or indeed whether you are capable of forming one has no bearing upon my statement that you are entitled to one.
I wouldn't personally associate the expressions "professional gambler " and "reputable " as a natural pairing , and of course you can't make a statement like that unless you've sought the opinions of every " reputable " professional gambler, which you obviously haven't .
I did explain to you last time that I don't like or use statistics so I don't know why you're stuck on that one. You will find in the real world though that the majority of people fail to assess known information very effectively, and that's why bookies make money you see .
Put another way, if a million people have a dumb idea it's still a dumb idea, and conversely the fact that an opinion is unusual does not make it wrong or baseless.
You have no idea who the f--k I am, so how would it be possible to make myself "look better" to you ? That in itself shows an absence of logic, and I won't even go to the question of why you think I'd care .

I stand by my opinion, being sound logic whether or not you like or grasp it. I've been perfectly clear and so why don't you just wait and see whether I turn out to be right or not ?

you talk about an absence of logic but then still try to peddle this myth that your prediction of a top ten place is anything more than a guess where your heart has ruled your head.

as i said before, i hope your guess is correct

Also played all the bottom three haven't we?

And took five points off them, so that's a positive, we need to be taking points off the teams around and below us

As for your apparent facts and whatever mumbo jumbo you were talking about in the other post it's complete nonsense. You tried to overplay your knowledge to make yourself look better and it's a little weird. There's not a single reputable professional gambler that would mark us down for 10th this season and there's no markers or any stats or statistics of any positive data you could possibly use to make that assumption.

I'm not sure why you didnt just stick to making a prediction like the rest of us.

Whether you gave an opinion, or indeed whether you are capable of forming one has no bearing upon my statement that you are entitled to one.
I wouldn't personally associate the expressions "professional gambler " and "reputable " as a natural pairing , and of course you can't make a statement like that unless you've sought the opinions of every " reputable " professional gambler, which you obviously haven't .
I did explain to you last time that I don't like or use statistics so I don't know why you're stuck on that one. You will find in the real world though that the majority of people fail to assess known information very effectively, and that's why bookies make money you see .
Put another way, if a million people have a dumb idea it's still a dumb idea, and conversely the fact that an opinion is unusual does not make it wrong or baseless.
You have no idea who the f--k I am, so how would it be possible to make myself "look better" to you ? That in itself shows an absence of logic, and I won't even go to the question of why you think I'd care .

I stand by my opinion, being sound logic whether or not you like or grasp it. I've been perfectly clear and so why don't you just wait and see whether I turn out to be right or not ?

you talk about an absence of logic but then still try to peddle this myth that your prediction of a top ten place is anything more than a guess where your heart has ruled your head.

as i said before, i hope your guess is correct

Well thank you for your fairly conciliatory reply. I was quite harsh in my reply really and no one wants to start one of these pissing contests we often see in discussion threads.
We can disagree without being disagreeable and it is to be hoped that we all share the same ambition.
Lateral thinking isn't an exact science and the result depends entirely upon the individual's experience and ability in that art.
In fact, if you can define it broadly it's about spotting those factors which have been missed by linear thinking and otherwise quite sound logic. It works though and I could write you a long list of conflicts and problems where it has been the decisive factor.
That's all very well, but in this case we can't actually put this lateral thinking into action by making the decisions unfortunately - we are in the hands of Sir Neil and Mr Tan for that. However, I recognise in Sir Neil a great lateral thinker and I've observed him employing that in his tactics for years to achieve surprising results and outcomes with rescources which appear on the face of it insufficient.
He comes across as a grinning northern idiot who can barely form a sentence or control his emotions , but that's an act and part of his methodology. Whatever he's saying to the cameras I'd bet that he's thinking very much along the lines I've described. Don't you think he absolutely intended an automatic promotion place last year despite his old bullshit about a play off place ?
I believe he thought he could pip Wolves actually, and he didn't come up far short.

Anyway, I say all this to explain my thinking rather than to insist upon it because only the outcome will give it weight. In fact, even when it happens - which it will- you may well say it was just a lucky guess and I still couldn't prove otherwise . Won't matter though because we'll be where we need to be in order to move on to the next stage.

Important set of games coming up in November .

Important set of games coming up in November .

Yes indeed. I'm hoping that the Liecester game isn't cancelled because we risk losing our momentum , although a game I hand is always useful. As long as we haven't got too many injuries we might well pick up quite a few important points in this phase.
Next vital phase will be just after Christmas when we have the opportunity to seal the deal . A few very hard away games at the end of the season, so we need to be sorted out before them - not much chance of last minute escapes in the last three or four games.

Big assumption alert based on limited evidence. Are you retired SirJimmy and were you a teacher? I only ask this as you appear to have the luxury of time to draft these meticulous (and entertaining but controversial) posts of yours fairly frequently.
Of course it's none of my business, just curious!

Big assumption alert based on limited evidence. Are you retired SirJimmy and were you a teacher? I only ask this as you appear to have the luxury of time to draft these meticulous (and entertaining but controversial) posts of yours fairly frequently.
Of course it's none of my business, just curious!

Yes I'm sort of retired, although I do a bit of building , ( less hands on than I used to unfortunately). I've had three main careers , one after the other. Soldier, something else ,then I qualified as a lawyer late in life and practised criminal law till I had enough money to do what I wanted . I've also written some stuff along the way and travelled all over the place.
I wish I could say these posts were carefully drafted but I'm afraid they flow out very quickly and I don't think about them much because I'm so used to churning out drivel on demand !
I would do more but there's a limit to what you can talk about in a football forum. Thank you for asking, I'm very glad that my old bollocks has made at least one person smile !

It's also interesting that you mention teaching because I made a promise to my old English master that I'd return to the valley in retirement and give something back by teaching at the school. I'd have done that too - always meant to - but unfortunately they pulled it down and abolished discipline in the mean time, thus making it impossible to educate children properly and for me to keep my promise .

I went there one day about twenty years ago and it was a car park , which I'll be honest made me cry, and I've never been back since.

SIR JIMMYSCHOULAR

Sounds like you have a head the size of a pumkin to store all your knowledge and eat dictionaries for breakfast don' t take offence reading your posts is like reading one of those very large broad sheets which my chips used to be wrapped in many years ago so carry on buddy .

SIR JIMMYSCHOULAR

Sounds like you have a head the size of a pumkin to store all your knowledge and eat dictionaries for breakfast don' t take offence reading your posts is like reading one of those very large broad sheets which my chips used to be wrapped in many years ago so carry on buddy .

Well you haven't got to read it, have you ?
It's there if you want it and it doesn't really hurt you if you don't , so I don't know why you need to say that.
I am what I am, mate. Maybe I'm clever and maybe I'm stupid, but why does that bother you ?
Sorry if I try to speak English properly, or use six dollar words, but the reason for that is to convey more shades of meaning. That's what language is, and I would think that everyone would try and use it to express their thoughts as well as they can.

I do agree though that chips should really be wrapped in newspaper despite recent health and safety concerns. If you try not to get it too greasy, you can take it home and save money on lavatory paper too. Of not you can use it to start your coal fire and the congealed dripping helps it catch. Mind you, before you do any of that, you can also read them.
Be very careful of doing that though, in case you pick up too many big words, which can potentially lead to too much knowledge which we know is a very very bad thing.

I'm sorry Monty. I'm only pulling your leg and you mustn't take any notice of me.

Was meant as a complement and was not meant to be offensive will avoid in future.

This thread appears to be predicated on 2 points.
1/ City are doing better than YOU thought. This is a false premise as the vast majority of fans expected City to get at least 10 points from 5 games so I would ask who "YOU" is? Most fans would have only been surprised by the loss to Burnley.
And
2/That the guess of City finishing at least 10th is based on some "wisdom" and lateral thinking. However, the reality is that they will either just survive or they won't. I am very hopeful that they will.
The odds of City finishing 10th or better should have been at least 66/1.
Not impossible but extremely unlikely! Any money placed on this bet is, in my opinion, money donated to the bookies.

Was meant as a complement and was not meant to be offensive will avoid in future.

Monty, I'm very very sorry indeed. I totally misread it and acted like a complete tosser. I didn't actually realise it was you who'd said it and I went onto auto-defend. I even apologised for being a dick straight afterwards without knowing that.
Please understand that I'm used to keeping company with people who routinely say the most awful things to each other without meaning any harm, but I know that doesn't excuse what obviously seemed like rudeness and was, in hindsight, bloody rude.

I don't mind confronting anyone, but if I realise I've been nasty or offensive to a decent bloke like yourself I feel crestfallen and ashamed of myself. None of the above, for the avoidance of doubt, is meant sarcastically, but is a very very genuine apology .

I hope you can accept it and forgive my idiotic behaviour.

This thread appears to be predicated on 2 points.
1/ City are doing better than YOU thought. This is a false premise as the vast majority of fans expected City to get at least 10 points from 5 games so I would ask who "YOU" is? Most fans would have only been surprised by the loss to Burnley.
And
2/That the guess of City finishing at least 10th is based on some "wisdom" and lateral thinking. However, the reality is that they will either just survive or they won't. I am very hopeful that they will.
The odds of City finishing 10th or better should have been at least 66/1.
Not impossible but extremely unlikely! Any money placed on this bet is, in my opinion, money donated to the bookies.

Well, I meant precisely that the SITUATION is better than you thought. Perhaps I should have said "Better than you might think".
Strictly, it should be "better than ONE might think", but I've always had a problem using that expression because I find it somehow pretentious.

Look, the whole point here was to encourage people that the likelihood of a mid table position isn't just a hope, but a reasonable expectation. It wasn't to convince anyone of my own credentials, which some people seem to think.
What's more , it wasn't a fairy tale to bolster confidence either.

Someone was questioning it based on betting odds, but they don't apply here. As I said I just wouldn't ever bet on Cardiff City because it's too personal for me. Same person spoke of professional gamblers though, and actually you'll find that they try to get the bookies away from racing, on which they're hard to beat.
Why ? Well apart from flat races being so easy to fix, ( hence keep to the sticks ), if one horse has beaten another horse over a particular course with similar bends and inclines with the same jockey on the same going, you can be almost certain it'll happen again and again. Racing being their bread and butter, they seem inclined to apply this rule to all sorts of events where it doesn't work so well because the determining circumstances and even abilities of the competitors change much more than they do with race horses .
Takes me to statistics, which are increasingly used to replace logic, ( perhaps because anyone can be taught the subject), and in a way are what sometimes trip the bookies up. In short, they're the intellectual equivalent of painting by numbers and they don't really work. Even an idiot can count up figures and form conclusions from them, so you can teach any silly bugger to use and understand them, which is better than nothing I suppose, but there are so very many ways they can yield false results that you'd be silly to rely upon them in anything really important.

So called "scientists" are frequently victims of this total reliance on arithmetic without lateral thought. I've got a copy of the Times from 1st January ,1900 in which they're doing a "millennium " feature in which they predict the developments of the coming century. Actually, I think it was the very first thing which made me ,as a kid actually, ( though quite a few decades after its publication ), recognise this logic trap into which people easily fall.
Anyway, one of their predictions was that the biggest city in the world by the year 2000 would be Cardiff with a population of 22 million or something. Of course this drew my attention and I wondered why it didn't seem to be progressing that way by the mid point of the century. Well, it was for the reasons I've set out.

They'd looked at past and current events and just assumed they'd be repeated without including change in their calculations. Cardiff had I think six or eight hundred people in 1800 before the industrial revolution,coal ,iron,steel and dockyards to export them. By 1900 it was a large thriving city of course and they just extrapolated the figures for the last 100 years to conclude that the increase would be proportionally repeated over the next 100 years .

Trum , Brexit and Cardiff City - none could or can succeed if things didn't or don't change. Whilst no one can predict the future, the trick is, in my experience, to observe the trends of change before they're being generally picked up on, and to know the difference between a permanent negative condition and a temporary obstruction which is being successfully addressed.

So, in short, we'll finish about tenth.

This thread appears to be predicated on 2 points.
1/ City are doing better than YOU thought. This is a false premise as the vast majority of fans expected City to get at least 10 points from 5 games so I would ask who "YOU" is? Most fans would have only been surprised by the loss to Burnley.
And
2/That the guess of City finishing at least 10th is based on some "wisdom" and lateral thinking. However, the reality is that they will either just survive or they won't. I am very hopeful that they will.
The odds of City finishing 10th or better should have been at least 66/1.
Not impossible but extremely unlikely! Any money placed on this bet is, in my opinion, money donated to the bookies.

Well, I meant precisely that the SITUATION is better than you thought. Perhaps I should have said "Better than you might think".
Strictly, it should be "better than ONE might think", but I've always had a problem using that expression because I find it somehow pretentious.

Look, the whole point here was to encourage people that the likelihood of a mid table position isn't just a hope, but a reasonable expectation. It wasn't to convince anyone of my own credentials, which some people seem to think.
What's more , it wasn't a fairy tale to bolster confidence either.

Someone was questioning it based on betting odds, but they don't apply here. As I said I just wouldn't ever bet on Cardiff City because it's too personal for me. Same person spoke of professional gamblers though, and actually you'll find that they try to get the bookies away from racing, on which they're hard to beat.
Why ? Well apart from flat races being so easy to fix, ( hence keep to the sticks ), if one horse has beaten another horse over a particular course with similar bends and inclines with the same jockey on the same going, you can be almost certain it'll happen again and again. Racing being their bread and butter, they seem inclined to apply this rule to all sorts of events where it doesn't work so well because the determining circumstances and even abilities of the competitors change much more than they do with race horses .
Takes me to statistics, which are increasingly used to replace logic, ( perhaps because anyone can be taught the subject), and in a way are what sometimes trip the bookies up. In short, they're the intellectual equivalent of painting by numbers and they don't really work. Even an idiot can count up figures and form conclusions from them, so you can teach any silly bugger to use and understand them, which is better than nothing I suppose, but there are so very many ways they can yield false results that you'd be silly to rely upon them in anything really important.

So called "scientists" are frequently victims of this total reliance on arithmetic without lateral thought. I've got a copy of the Times from 1st January ,1900 in which they're doing a "millennium " feature in which they predict the developments of the coming century. Actually, I think it was the very first thing which made me ,as a kid actually, ( though quite a few decades after its publication ), recognise this logic trap into which people easily fall.
Anyway, one of their predictions was that the biggest city in the world by the year 2000 would be Cardiff with a population of 22 million or something. Of course this drew my attention and I wondered why it didn't seem to be progressing that way by the mid point of the century. Well, it was for the reasons I've set out.

They'd looked at past and current events and just assumed they'd be repeated without including change in their calculations. Cardiff had I think six or eight hundred people in 1800 before the industrial revolution,coal ,iron,steel and dockyards to export them. By 1900 it was a large thriving city of course and they just extrapolated the figures for the last 100 years to conclude that the increase would be proportionally repeated over the next 100 years .

Trum , Brexit and Cardiff City - none could or can succeed if things didn't or don't change. Whilst no one can predict the future, the trick is, in my experience, to observe the trends of change before they're being generally picked up on, and to know the difference between a permanent negative condition and a temporary obstruction which is being successfully addressed.

So, in short, we'll finish about tenth.

Here you go again using 100 words when 5 would do and again making yourself seem more knowledgeable on matters that dont really exist.

I bet on trump to win too by the way, and predicted brexit also (didnt bet on that though) both are examples of 50/50 (at least in outcome) and not really relevent to cardiff.

mid table isnt a reasonable expectation whatsoever
youve let your heart rule your head and bet on a top 10 finish (ill say again, hope your right)
there no trends or any indicators what so ever that point to Cardiff finishing in the top half, and to write essays claiming so just to back up your guess is just weird.

i predict we will get relegated, but i hope your guess is better than mine.

In our first 10 games we've played ALL the top six teams. It's only when you look at that , that you realise just what a baptism of fire we've had, and that objectively things really aren't anything like as bad as we might have thought.

What's more, it might well prove that this blitskreig we've survived - being out of the relagation places despite all this- might in the end be the very thing which has hardened us up quickly enough to complete the season well, and fulfill my contraversial prediction that we will finish around tenth. ( I wanna hear some words from certain people WHEN that happens by the way).

We all know that we've got this huge problem in our scoring ability, but actually when you look at the returns, we've scored as many goals as Wolves and more than most of our rivals at the bottom . Then you look at the teams we've scored against and you'll see that these are, ( with the exception of Fulham) , teams which have hardly conceded any goals so far.

After playing these teams , mid and low half teams will seem a lot more possible than they might have done two months ago and , as I keep saying, we're improving all the time while they're getting worse.

Our actual problem is giving goals away , not scoring them. Only Fulham have conceded more and we've got a problem here most particularly late in the game . Personally I'd answer this by bringing on two defenders and parking the bus for the last twenty minutes until we're up to speed in this department , but I'm sure that Sir Neil has seen this difficulty and he knows a lot more about it than me so I don't doubt that he's onto it.

To quote Churchill, this isn't the end , nor even the beginning of the end, but it's certainly the end of the beginning !

Those few cowards amongst us who were ready to concede defeat can now gain some courage, and the vast vast majority of real supporters who kept their heads under heavy fire can congratulate themselves for making a significant contribution to the effort, which I'm sure we shall now see take shape .

yep its certainly the end of the beginning...
and you were doing so well....

SirJimmy

Did you see my two apologies on other posts?

If not sorry.

If you have sorry.

This thread appears to be predicated on 2 points.
1/ City are doing better than YOU thought. This is a false premise as the vast majority of fans expected City to get at least 10 points from 5 games so I would ask who "YOU" is? Most fans would have only been surprised by the loss to Burnley.
And
2/That the guess of City finishing at least 10th is based on some "wisdom" and lateral thinking. However, the reality is that they will either just survive or they won't. I am very hopeful that they will.
The odds of City finishing 10th or better should have been at least 66/1.
Not impossible but extremely unlikely! Any money placed on this bet is, in my opinion, money donated to the bookies.

Well, I meant precisely that the SITUATION is better than you thought. Perhaps I should have said "Better than you might think".
Strictly, it should be "better than ONE might think", but I've always had a problem using that expression because I find it somehow pretentious.

Look, the whole point here was to encourage people that the likelihood of a mid table position isn't just a hope, but a reasonable expectation. It wasn't to convince anyone of my own credentials, which some people seem to think.
What's more , it wasn't a fairy tale to bolster confidence either.

Someone was questioning it based on betting odds, but they don't apply here. As I said I just wouldn't ever bet on Cardiff City because it's too personal for me. Same person spoke of professional gamblers though, and actually you'll find that they try to get the bookies away from racing, on which they're hard to beat.
Why ? Well apart from flat races being so easy to fix, ( hence keep to the sticks ), if one horse has beaten another horse over a particular course with similar bends and inclines with the same jockey on the same going, you can be almost certain it'll happen again and again. Racing being their bread and butter, they seem inclined to apply this rule to all sorts of events where it doesn't work so well because the determining circumstances and even abilities of the competitors change much more than they do with race horses .
Takes me to statistics, which are increasingly used to replace logic, ( perhaps because anyone can be taught the subject), and in a way are what sometimes trip the bookies up. In short, they're the intellectual equivalent of painting by numbers and they don't really work. Even an idiot can count up figures and form conclusions from them, so you can teach any silly bugger to use and understand them, which is better than nothing I suppose, but there are so very many ways they can yield false results that you'd be silly to rely upon them in anything really important.

So called "scientists" are frequently victims of this total reliance on arithmetic without lateral thought. I've got a copy of the Times from 1st January ,1900 in which they're doing a "millennium " feature in which they predict the developments of the coming century. Actually, I think it was the very first thing which made me ,as a kid actually, ( though quite a few decades after its publication ), recognise this logic trap into which people easily fall.
Anyway, one of their predictions was that the biggest city in the world by the year 2000 would be Cardiff with a population of 22 million or something. Of course this drew my attention and I wondered why it didn't seem to be progressing that way by the mid point of the century. Well, it was for the reasons I've set out.

They'd looked at past and current events and just assumed they'd be repeated without including change in their calculations. Cardiff had I think six or eight hundred people in 1800 before the industrial revolution,coal ,iron,steel and dockyards to export them. By 1900 it was a large thriving city of course and they just extrapolated the figures for the last 100 years to conclude that the increase would be proportionally repeated over the next 100 years .

Trum , Brexit and Cardiff City - none could or can succeed if things didn't or don't change. Whilst no one can predict the future, the trick is, in my experience, to observe the trends of change before they're being generally picked up on, and to know the difference between a permanent negative condition and a temporary obstruction which is being successfully addressed.

So, in short, we'll finish about tenth.

Here you go again using 100 words when 5 would do and again making yourself seem more knowledgeable on matters that dont really exist.

I bet on trump to win too by the way, and predicted brexit also (didnt bet on that though) both are examples of 50/50 (at least in outcome) and not really relevent to cardiff.

mid table isnt a reasonable expectation whatsoever
youve let your heart rule your head and bet on a top 10 finish (ill say again, hope your right)
there no trends or any indicators what so ever that point to Cardiff finishing in the top half, and to write essays claiming so just to back up your guess is just weird.

i predict we will get relegated, but i hope your guess is better than mine.

Lot more than 100 words there I can tell you without counting . No, I haven't bet on it - I keep saying I'd never bet on Cardiff City because it's too important to me. I also keep telling you that at this point we've all made it clear what we think will happen and there's little point in arguing in circles. Let's see who turns out to be right .

As regards that post,I was merely offering some stuff about logic which anyone can take or leave. Some might find it interesting and I hope that's the case, but I'm not going to stop saying things just because you don't like it. We know that you take a different view of such matters and that is entirely your own decision- you can take a horse to water etc - so I don't know why you keep trying to convince me that I should doubt myself or attribute motives to my posts.

Here's an interesting idea for you , which I doubt you'll bother considering, but others might. It's much more important than it seems on the face of it in point of fact. We never actually know what someone else is thinking, so we're wasting our time trying to deduce it and doing so often leads us in entirely the wrong direction. A lot of people seem to have an illogical aspiration for everyone else to look at things as they do, and then get extremely upset when this doesn't happen. Of course this comes from their failure to appreciate that others may be less or more intelligent or moral than them or have a different viewpoint due to their own priorities and necessities.