CB Fry

Well, that didn't take long. Excellent wilful misunderstanding. Bravo.

Yes, it's not complicated because I think it is over simplistic. Lots of voters can't name their MP, will vote on party lines not as an endorsement of what the MP does or doesn't do, or they vote because they don't like the leader of the opposition or they oppose a local hospital closing or whatever. I've seen some stuff online this week of people saying "COP is a disgrace no one voted for net zero" when in actual fact pretty much every single person who voted in 2019 did exactly that. They all did but funnily enough they didn't read the manifestos in detail. The mugs. So, it's not correct to put the entire assessment of an MPs behaviour entirely in the hands of a pretty disengaged electorate. You can say "well more fool them, they're fools" or whatever but it's an unfair burden to expect the electorate to make specific judgements on adherence to indivdual standards/rules/behaviour amongst all the other stuff that happens at an election. In the same way we don't ask them specific particular questions about nuclear policy in Kent or Cheshire cheese standards or investment into the justice system for family disputes or teenage knife crime or relations with Ghana. Representative democracy literally means you give people power to do that stuff for you. Like set up independent standard committees for MPs. The last changes to the system were set up by the last government under Andrea Leadsom who was voted for and her ruling party was voted for to government. Voted to sort that kind of thing out. Having a standards and people to assess and uphold them is essential and is baked into the system. Our "democracy" is not quite as simple as "as long as you win your seat you are exonerated and have our blessing to carry on doing whatever the fuck you want until the next election". It doesn't just start and end with a vote. This is too precise a concept for this forum so I already regret writing it. But the point is the Conservatives know this stuff and if they say "the voters can decide later" they know what that really means. Cynical simplistic and populism but they win because of the safe seats they have are not going to be even scratched by this.

Wasn't one of those 12m players that Koeman bought, er, Sadio Mane? Actually no, I've looked, it was £10m. Bizarre.

Japanese super hero kids TV show isn't it?

Disingenuous nonsense but you already know that. Basically what you're saying is any MP in a safe seat can do whatever they hell they like and then at the end of a four/five year term take inivitable reelection as the public's blessing to carry on. And even by some miracle they do lose their safe seat well they've creamed it for four or five years anyway so whats the problem. Winning a seat is basically the starting pistol to fill your boots right up until the next election is called, no questions asked. Great system.

Gerrard being appalling at Aston Villa seems so starkly obvious to me. Achieving at Rangers don't mean shit. Maybe he'll prove me wrong. But he won't, he'll be terrible. Haven't they suffered enough with Tim Sherwood? Actually what do I care, that's a club who can take up valuable space in the bottom six.

Not sure what this is, but it is definitely not a "sanity check". It's batshit insane.

The previous forum nutcase was banging on about 15% of the population being exterminated back in the summer, so this guy is way behind the curve. I remember discussing this insight at the time. Nutcase said 15% dead in a year, it's the government plan, wait and see you'll see I'm right. Etc. It basically means ten million people dropping dead in a single year in this country. Just the 200,000 people a week, every week for a year. A city the size of Reading dying again and again and again. It's pretty weird that this massacre hasn't started yet: I mean I had my vaccine in like June so by rights I should be dead by now, surely?

Your general point is right though. Major and Blair's visit was just one day, it got universally sneered at and no one paid any further attention. It wasn't a topic really in the campaign. It was really only during the treaty negotiations when Theresa May said "No British Prime Minister would EVER (her emphasis) agree to a border down the Irish Sea" that the topic really came up. She was wrong, of course, because the very next Prime Minister did precisely that, won an election on it, and it flew through the Commons with Ian Duncan Smith and all the Brexit Spartans waving it through saying it had all been debated, the ERG Star Chamber had read all the detail and how marvellous it all was and what a wondeful job David Frost had done.

There was a high profile day during the referendum campaign when two ex Prime Ministers from opposition parties travelled to Northern Ireland together to explain and publicise the issues and the risks. Obviously got dismissed as project fear remoaners etc etc etc.

In practice it would. If Liverpool want him and bid £50m, Chelsea only have to bid £38m to "match" it (ie we get the same fee in either scenario).

I'm usually braver than that. If we're on mid-twenty points by the time FA Cup R3 rolls around then I'd start to think we're pretty safe (because at that point we can actually afford to lose five in a row and still stay up).

Agree, it's too early to think we have climbed out of it. We are perfectly capable of losing five on the spin, just like Villa have done. A new-manager bounce defeat to Norwich, followed by predictable defeats to Liverpool, Leicester, and we go into the Brighton match in a very different mindset. People moan about knee jerk reactions to defeats but we win a couple and people are pontificating about which of the pleb teams are going down but obviously not us, we're brilliant.

Indeed he was. And the Newcastle one was going through arbitration panels and hearings and all sorts played out in public and reported by the press.It wasn't just "mentioned in the media".

Smith was basically Chris Wilder but with a significantly better star player. Arguable Wilder is actually better manager as he made less go further, more quickly. Wilder finished above him in the Championship and again in year one in the Prem (much higher). Wilder then started spending last year and blew it, maybe the same here with Smith and the Grealish money. Both are basically Championship level managers who can get promoted but probably not really going to consistently deliver much more at the top level. Will be fascinating to see who they get in - agree it would be insane for Ralph to go there right now.

I, for one, welcome our new Japanese overlords.

Reading up a little on the Villa thing, it is interesting to note that during the summer Villa did actually deploy the trademark SaintsWeb forum never-fails-solution-to-everything. Villa recruited back-room coaching help to Smith: a new first team coach, and a new set-piece specialist coach. But despite how this is so often presented as the magic bullet on here (HE NEEDS HELP ON THE TRAINING PITCH) hilariously it seemed to bring no benefit whatsoever. Add this to the previous poster boy of transformative new managerial assistants, Newcastle's Graeme Jones (just the zero wins in eleven this season under the influence of this breath of fresh air shaking things up). Maybe, lads, the mythical powers of changing/"improving" the coaching team over the managers head not as great as you're making it out to be?

Smith got the sack because of his form across the calendar year of 21. 18 league defeats across the second half of last season and then this season. Only one manager has delivered as many Premier League defeats as that in the same time. No prizes for guessing who. Feels like quite a tough sell to the Villa fanbase.

Not quite the same as Koeman, who was a cast iron success across two brilliant seasons. And he was coming to the last year of his deal. Unlike Ronald, I think Ralph will also feel some level of loyalty and comfort in his current role. He's got things as he wants them and he is The Man here. Would be a bloody brave move by Purslow to go to the Villa fans an unveil as their new manager, to "take them to the next level", a guy that, er, finished below them last season. So, I think there's a combination of us being able to stand firm, Ralph probably not being hugely desperate to move, and that the Villa fans will not be clamouring for him - all those things together mean to me its not that likely. Personally I'm praying for Gerrard because that puts Villa right in the relegation mix.

Is it a crime to be confident of beating a team that until yesterday had went on a run of 20 Premier League games without a win? What do you want the consesus to be here? Norwich are absolutely amazing, better than us and we're going to get annihilated?

It's called confirmation bias.

We should have kept him for three full seasons, to let him bed in and get his ideas across because Alex Ferguson or something.

I imagine they are going to go route one and Big Sam it. I doubt it would be Bruce as he'd have to sacrifice some of his compensation dosh which, if it is as high as they're saying, is not something you want to give up.

Absolutely delighted that Ralph made a tactical switch very early in the second half (ten mins in) that changed things enough to stop the Villa onslaught and even things up. It made sense because as others said it released our full backs again. People have moaned (i say people, me) about Ralph’s tendency to make no changes until it is too late. Well, let's appreciate what he did last night. And at least now we have lost the tag of "they've lost the most points from winning positions" that yer commentators absolutely love to blather about. Clean sheets and solid one-nil wins literally the opposite of that shit. Fantastic Ralph.

Not seen many of those corner kicks that were definitely going to win us the Euros tonight. And there's been enough of them.