CB Fry

Players taking up different positions and roles all over the pitch you say? Defenders ending up as attackers, you say? A kind of, I don't know, total football approach? This is definitely a brand new thing that has only just happened in the history of world football when Pep turned up.

Whoosh them cars went. Whoosh.

No but the point people are making is that the formations/roles/positions/tactics have all been there. What is new is technology and a proliferation of theories. Your dismissal of a diamond formation 4-4-2 as not being the same as some jolly exciting modern formation is a case in point. There aren't many new ideas at all, all that there is, is a room if 14 analysts going into the minutiae of the detail and then an entire industry selling that data back to TV companies and other media to create content. I think you need to accept that the history of football is a lot more complex than everyone was a caveman 442 slogger until Pep and Carling Opta stats turned up.

Well, I know for a fact that there wasn't a single Ipad in that coaching set up, none of them had a clue about XG and the level of freeze frame video analysis of formation and positioning was absolutely woeful. Are where were the computer game data guys? Nowhere. So no wonder it didn't work. Quite frankly I struggle to see how any teams won anything back in those days. Hopeless.

What's the hipster name for the Terry Venables Christmas Tree formation?

Please come over here and take our jobs.

Well, Cummings has said in interviews that VL would not have won without it. It was a claim with huge cut-through and spontaneous recall with the general public - even now people remember it well, which is a huge achievement for any advertising slogan/pitch let alone a political one. And there was research showing huge chunks of the population believed it, so it was hugely effective on every single metric. Plenty of people believe the central premise even now. There's not really "a debate" around how influential it was. It was hugely influential and believed. The people who created it planned for it to be influential and it was. That's why they put it everywhere. Being that the entire vote could have swung the other way on a small percentage and how close it was, it is very easy to say that the message convinced enough to swing the result in a particular direction. You have a marginal vote and in the middle of that campaign you have the single most effective political message in the last thirty odd years. It clearly moved the needle. But I know that doesn't suit your usual "ah well, I'll guess we'll never know" routine, so not really sure why I've bothered to write that out. But there we are.

He wasn't signed for the first team, he was signed to the B team. With a view to joining the first team eventually. "Eventually" not meaning "by the end of September in his first season". He won't be playing for the first team any time soon.

Who is saying that Armstrong is better than Ings? I think no one. Equally, why the fuck people are offering up the idea that Ings is currently a better player than Adam Armstrong as some kind of killer insight is equally baffling. Obviously he is, I'm lost as to what the debate is. What's the next topic, if only we had Van Dijk instead of Stephens?

It's always important to remember that a central defender who can't cope with the intensity of The Championship will probably do really well in the Premier League because you get more time on the ball or something.

Last time I looked, we weren't involved in the Champions League this season.

Well, we did have some tough draws on the way to the final a few years back. Also, we're out and no mistake.

Fifth.

We're only allowed to judge a player on the back of a single game if the judgment is that they are brilliant and will be definitely worth £40m and/or we've made a huge error only loaning this guy we have to buy him, he's a class above etc etc etc. Otherwise single game analysis is not permitted.

Apologies for eating at the football and everything but worth putting on the record that the sausage rolls here are excellent 👌

I don't think he was injured, he just wasn't picked. He lost his place to Hurst and couldn't get it back. I'm not the expert though, I only really know him as the Saint and Greavsie guy. Funny old game.

What Derby need right now is a multi millionaire from the city and passionate fan of the club. Oh. They’ve already got one.

Every single witch ducking pool in the country has a working capacity calculated in cubic litres. Thank you very much Brussels.

Yes, too dangerous. On the news obituary last night there was a thing about him inventing a little fold up electric bike (I think called the zike) which at first glance genuinely did look like an idea better than scooters.

This load of bollocks about imperial measures will make no difference to that sweetheart.

The changes the UK are asking for on the Irish protocol are fundamental and go all the way back to Theresa May's original strategy, Boris/Davis resignation and the oven ready deal he ultimately signed as Prime Minister. It's the unsolvable issue we are still trying to wriggle out of. It's not a nip or a tuck. Plus we are still extending grace periods and kicking cans down the road. Still, its all over, it's finished and done.

Well, we are.

She'd be in a failed state when I'd finished with her.

Brilliant.

She is, what my old mum would describe as, "dumpy". But from the neck up, I'm with Lighthouse.