Holmes_and_Watson

Martin reckons that they could still win the league https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c39r4p1228po

Resource wise, we were in an excellent position to go back up this season. The parachute money alone is a massive advantage. So, I'd mind not going up because we realistically should be contenders for automatic places. To not go up, would mean that we've failed to take our best chance. Sadly, SR simply don't look competent to run our club. Hopefully, the one decision they do get right, is not to hand over our club to tyre kickers who don't even have decent intentions for the club. It's not the end of the world to not go up, and doesn't impact my support. But it would increase the chances of staying out of the PL for some time to come.

It's another of those where I distrust the use of them more than the supposed benefits mentioned for them being implemented. ID card schemes have been touted for as long as I can recall. Regardless of available technology or broad benefits cited, a scratch beneath the surface has always been about control. From using them to identify left wing activists in the 80s through to identifying activist groups or supporting environmental or political action now. Unless they are making ID cards a thousand feet big and surrounding our coasts with them, it's not going to stop a single boat. Suggestions that it will prevent access to work don's bear up to scrutiny. We already have laws in place, yet there's massive exploitation of immigrants paid cash in hand. Successive governments have failed to control legal migration, let alone smaller illegal migration. ID cards won't help at all there. Anyone can do a quick search to discover a very long list of data hacks, mishandling of data, leaks and general screw ups. Not to mention the appalling government records of handling IT projects and the behaviour and actions of third parties brought in to deliver them. Don't think for a second that this data will be secure. It's going to have a massive target on it. I know people without passports or driver's licences or smartphones. Contingencies have to be in place for them to still have full access to services. Which continues to provide all the points of exploitation currently in place. That's not to mention the slippery slope of what is done with your data. What starts being captured on the app, may well not be what then gets brought in later. Even the announcement of this, is more to do with trying to undercut Reform, than any serious attempt to resolve underlying issues. What can seem like a perfectly reasonable idea to combine easy service access into a single source, is quickly undone by the motives shown by governments across decades, who aren't to be trusted. If it doesn't stop illegal migration, doesn't control legal migration, doesn't stop exploitation, won't stop identity fraud or impersonation, and makes it tougher for the vulnerable to access services, what is it really for?

Band

Silly challenge takes Rangers down to 10. Genk the better side, but that does him no favours. Then Rangers concede a penalty that Butland saved. Loads of boos. But could be for any number of things.

Spors bows to pressure to get in experience, but being SR, gets in ex-Forest player Chris Woods in. Now 65, Woods still ends up as our top scorer for the season.

Hard to say if it's Downs that Poch hates, or us. 🙂

Yeah. I'm well under my xT (expected tolerance) for such people. 🙂

Pony

We set up solidly. Not looking to attack much, and ready to close down spaces. After a shaky first couple of mins, we got more of things than we expected as Liverpool gave up possession a few times. Archer never reached his header; Armstrong hit the bar and Scienza fluffed the follow up. Chiesa's pass for the winner was the moment of quality in the game. At the other end of the scale was McCarthy's blunder to pass to their player for their opener. With the way things go for us, I half expected our equaliser to be ruled out. It was nice to have a chance that late on. A mixed bunch of performances. Archer was poor, and Downs and AA got in each other's way. That said, having two capable through the middle made a difference, with even Downes looking to play forward. Quarshie asca physical defender helped ( and got an assist) while Wood did fine. Manning had lots of plusses, and a few minuses, but overall a good performance from him. It's another defeat, but we looked more of a unit tonight. Still can spend a day checking out the list of free agent keepers.

When things are tough, you've got to jettison superfluous activity, and focus on your core business. And that's player trading.

Sugar

Good to hear. I hope he has a really good season, and beyond.

The most recent lib dem representative I heard from was at the weekend, concerning wrapping yourself with a flag. Despite saying they weren't doing it for the attention, their preceding few sentences were all about making sure where the other parties stood, rather than standing for anything themselves. Then they admitted that it was important to be part of a news cycle, so it really was for the attention after all. Desperate.

These, with bells on. We are weaker than we were in our last promotion. SR's recruitment policies on players and staff have weakened us window after window. We went into that PL season with a weaker team than the one that got relegated, persevering with a system that was out of it's depth from the first game. We went down because we were incompetent, never mind the other teams.

Davey's lack of competence during his time as postal affairs minister should have got him punted as party leader, the moment it came to light. He was shown to be repeatedly useless, with a complete lack of curiosity or ability to absorb evidence, all of which he then blames on others. What a guy! Surely, the leader we need! Inkeeping with the indecisive spinelessness that epitomises his party, there he is, still in charge of it, with his marching band, desperately looking for clicks to pretend they're relevant.

Cortese in Private Eye's Me and my Spoon... Sure, all my spoons were bought with other people's money. But look at the quality! Sure, staff will be fired for looking at my spoons funny. They haven't my cutlery knowledge, and can't be trusted to even clean them. All spoon related damage to my desk or Benali's property was pre existing, and I accept no responsibility. I have been invited to curate the spoon collections of many top European spoon clubs.

If they play in red and white stripes, I'm switching...hey.... 🙂

Mine came in at 4.1/10 (very precise). Then I read Egg's post about the spine being light. I'd mentioned much the same, without giving it a weighting. With a very broad weighting, it takes my 4.1/10 down to a 2.6/10 rating against our last promotion side, where 5/10 would have been an equivalent side. That's losing your best central defender (Bednarek), not having a defensive midfielder, and losing both your best attacking midfielder and central forward, in Stu and Che. It should be noted that both sides have Baz, so not great there either. 4.6/10 in our last promotion season, would have got us 7th (72 points) 2.6/10 in our last promotion season is in the relegation places. (46 points) That 46 points should be the worst case. That's replacing your better players with players who don't step up. There's no reason why some/all of the new signings won't be able to show they are top championship players with us and ready for the PL. But it does give a broad indication, that when recruiting for championship level and moving on all of your better PL players, there's an increased risk of it not working out. You could end up pretty much anywhere. On the plus side, Charles, Edwards, Azaz and Fellowes all were standouts at their clubs last season. So, there's hope of a higher finish. Then there's Still's management supposedly getting us back to winning ways under a much less rigid approach. But we're 6 games in with 6 points, projected across the season would give us...46 points. So, that's right on the lowest end, matching that 2.6/10 window, exactly.

Chocolate

Just wanted to congratulate your model maker. Definite progress since Troy. Mind you, the sheep are small and who knows how far away...

A definite no. Further, it was a poor signing. As were Stewart, Archer, Downs, AA (for the PL and centrally), BBD. The common denominator is that SR's recruitment model is not only broken, but shows an utter lack of knowledge in what's required to build a successful squad.

Don't forget to tell them you're on your way. It gives them time to put down the beard oil and Guardians, and get ready to fake having actual businesses. 🙂

No, I don't think so. I think SR's recruitment strategy has never changed. They look for higher risk/ less proven managers to run in parallel with their player recruitment model. This is where that goes.

Voucher