verlaine1979

If the data says that racist incidents are increasing, and your response is that this isn't a problem, chances are YOU are the problem.

Oh, that's great news. Well done us. We should write a forum letter to Kick it Out letting them know that the problem has been solved, and that players like Raheem Sterling and Danny Rose have been worrying about nothing.

Racism is a zero-tolerance issue in football these days, hence a lot of racist fans have learned to shut up. And yet the number of racist incidents is still increasing year on year.

Just a few days ago a BBC pundit was sacked for indulging in a bit of casual racist stereotyping about the character of black players. Then a week or two before that official figures were released showing that racist incidents at matches have increased by 50% year on year, and more than doubled since 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jan/30/football-related-racist-incidents-sharp-rise-police-kick-it-out But I'm sure with your Pepe the frog avatar you're here to debate the problem of racism in good faith, right?

Right, excuse me while I pop off and conduct a couple of years of field work in order to prove to you that a sport that has historically been a lightning rod for overt racism (and still is elsewhere in Europe) has, on average, more racist attendees than Crufts.

Sure, sure, what about those dog trainers, eh? The crowd at Crufts has been notorious for the amount of racist cant spat from the stands over the years.

Thank god we've completely solved the problem of racism in football in this, the year of our lord 2020.

When he tries to win the ball in the air, instead of jumping, Vest sort of tries to lean over his opponent. If they're shorter than him, he sometimes wins, but if they jump he almost always loses out or only manages to scoop the ball up rather than out. That we paid the best part of £20m for him is nothing short of astounding.

He's spot on about all three. Ralph just doesn't have any other options as we are completely and utterly skint (apparently).

Vest absolute cack, but at least most are agreed on that. Long was neither a nuisance to anybody, nor a good foil for Ings. He had zero impact on the game, and that's what you usually get from him. Handing him a new contract would be a terrible sign of our level of ambition. As for the rest, unless Armstrong plays above himself, we've got no one in midfield who can pick as pass in the attacking third.

They've been giving those as penalties for years, and still do depending on who is playing.

Insane. At home for a top six club, VAR gives that every single time.

This is what you get when all you expect from one of your two main attackers is that he'll be a bit of a nuisance.

Are we going to spend the last twenty minutes swinging hopeful crosses in from the edge of the box against Burnley?

Long not having any impact on the game whatsoever.

Superb finish.

Vest is a complete f-ing liability on the deck or in the air. Absolute turd.

Ings must've gotten a shout, surely.

Ah right, yes, just went back and read it. Depressing as hell.

No chance. According to Forbes, there are 393 Chinese nationals with wealth of a billion dollars or more. Gao isn't on the list, which makes sense as the whole of Lander (which he doesn't even own any more) was only worth about £500m the last time I checked.

Really? It just looks like a bit of financial parasitism. The clubs are just electing to pay a fee in order to get their money up front from transfers and broadcasting. Some dodgy bank makes a good margin, but that's what dodgy banks do. It's all so specifically secured against guaranteed future incomes that it barely qualifies as debt.

I agree, he seemed to pop up on the wing a lot for Ajax in the CL last year, but didn't look like he quite had the speed or presence to operate there for one of the big clubs in the PL. That said, I might just be prejudiced against him for missing that absolute sitter in the first half that would've knocked Spurs out in the semi second leg.

Yup, Chelsea not exactly known for its selfless, one-for-all-and-all-for-one squads over the past decade or so.

Of course - anyone looking at Lander's value as a company could see that Gao had only ever been small time and was getting smaller, long before the sale went through. The implication being, though, that you can't actually trust anything the club tells you about our strategy or long-term direction.

He'll probably make me eat my words, but Ziyech has the look of a player who'll vanish at a club like Chelsea.