Holmes_and_Watson

For all those who ask who can come in and improve us, and there's two right there. The tea lady and Mickey Mouse. 🙂

How he got voted in, after such a rubbish job repelling the Romans, I'll never know. But this.

More clearly defined boundaries, set up by an organisation/group that is a leader in establishing transparency and best practice in preventing even the suggestion of corruption would be nice. One that guts all the existing rules they hide behind. Better than fudging a few sections of the current rules, just adjusting the depth of troughing.

Hamlet:To pass, or not to pass. That is the question. Horatio: Well, it's to pass isn't it? Hamlet: Always. I know a hawk from a handsaw. Horatio: Sadly not a striker from a midfielder up front, m'lord.

Wow. Loving the literature version of the Circle of Trust. Moyes it is then. 🙂

From Beeb front page "Off air with Laura K Get Laura Kuenssberg's expert insight and insider stories every week, emailed directly to you." Off air indeed 🙂

He'll be the major shareholder, and decision maker. "Wealthy individual seeks new, innovative team to use riches to bring multi club success" might not bring in the right sort of person. Even with the best of intentions, SR have made a number of rubbish calls. I've no idea why he'd want to go through it more than once.

Today's news has brave Sir Keir pioneering a new scheme, because it was just so darned awkward to know what the right thing to do was. 'The prime minister said his government would bring forward new principles for donations "as until now politicians have used their best individual judgement to decide".' Considering every major company has a straightforward gifts and hospitality procedure, and MPs went through an expenses scandal, this is laughable. They all wanted to keep as many troughing entitlements as possible. They thought that simply registering them, avoiding the worst red flags, would be enough. After all, those were the new troughing rules. So, they must be fine. No contrition, no accountability. Starmer is very selective on what's being paid back. The quote is that he is "right" to pay it back, never that he was "wrong" to be claiming it in the first place. I saw Rayner's paid for Ibiza trip appearing again. That went quiet after Labour turned it into a class argument.

"And today on Newscast, Laura will be sharing the results of her latest deep dive into the political world. Laura, what are you...oh wait, we already know, thanks to you sending us it all last week." The BBC decided not to proceed, despite Boris saying he never read the notes, honest, cross his heart. A BBC spokesman said that, since the Conservatives are no longer in power, there was no underhand deal they could enter to let it go ahead in exchange for a favourable licence fee outcome.

Yeah. I feel a bit sorry he's the latest to lose lots of money, having been convinced by people scrabbling around with less of a clue than those their master plan was going to overtake. If he doesn't sell up this season, then we may get one more shot next season. It would be brave to try yet more SR revolutionary plans beyond that. Perhaps SR will look to develop smaller clubs, requiring smaller financial risks than trying to keep a side in the PL.

Love

Ramsdale Suga Bedders THB Taylor Downes Fernandes AA Aribo Cornet Archer Supersub: Dibling Fluky draw, with Ramsdale playing a blinder. Goal from Suga, with Dibling coming on and worrying their defence.

Sadly, the revolving door between government and industry means any number are already compromised, well before they leave office, and happen to end up in the companies who lobbied them.

Starmer paying back £6k of gifts, and Lord Ali being investigated. Disappointing to see them involved in this sort of thing. As disappointing for it to have to go on for so long, as they fail to see what the decent thing to do is.

Switch

And that's from reviving from a coma, waiting for a pass. 🙂

Your box of tissues may be returned safely to the drawer. 🙂

Pretty much agree it's not looking good, and also with "you can only coach what the recruitment team provide." To give as much credit as possible, the work Martin did to turn around the spirit of a battered squad last season, helped a lot. Of course, being a big fish in a small pond brings it's own confidence. It's also hard to state improvements considering the PL performances of the whole team. Agree on Downes and THB. Last year's standouts in Will, Aribo and AA have fallen away (well, Aribo probably doing much as expected). The pile of previous cast offs remains like that. Agreed that this is a big SR issue. Changing approaches, varied recruitment streams just leads to massive squads with no pathways or profits. I thought that, despite continuing flaws, Edozie's game was getting better. But both he and SAA away or not getting minutes. Meghoma I guess not considered good enough. Note that we've now been buying in players with lower league experience. SR approach to getting more out of limitations, applies to Martin. Will, AA and others looking better in a lower level when it works. But with limitations exposed doing it at a higher level. This season's breakthrough is Dibling, who wasn't getting the minutes last year.

Blue on blue action made that a lot more exciting sounding than listening to their sales pitches today. 🙂

Interesting post @Francis1947 Within the internet years, I've definitely been on the other side of that. I've argued that I would never want to see my side lose. Whatever the reason. But that's me missing the point really. None of us do. It's the wider picture of forcing an action compared to deeper damage from smaller, continuing defeats everyone can see coming. I want Martin to succeed. We're not adrift. But again, we all want him to succeed, and we'll be adrift soon enough if it doesn't click. In the end, I'm hoping that SR make the right decision for the club. Not just in the action, but in looking at how they've brought in successors.

Iran felt it had no option than to take that action (obviously there's always a don't fire option). But that was deliberately weighted and in the knowledge of Israel's defences. There was no expectation of mass carnage as a result of the attack. They have been seen to have acted in support of their allies, with further escalation now in Israel's hands, as intended.

SR's goal is to maximise profits, from a strong financial based, byselling on talent. Talent on a low an individual wages as possible, using their recruitment analysis to still bring in PL quality. Talent that might have some flaws, but works within a system. To help, they look to have coaching systems that also maximise that recruitment, may also have flaws, but looks to get the most from small margins. Their ideal world is a talented side on Championship+ base wages, slowly departing, for Lavia money, in successive windows and being replaced by equal skill levels. I mention this, because that's the twist option we've seen so far. Whatever that system is, and we've had a few, works to that end. That's why we have a pile of players (costing more than fewer players on higher wages) who aren't starting. It's why I've had some sympathy with all our managers. SR have to have a look at what they want. Because their plan has some issues beyond a spreadsheet. We could do a Norwich under Farke. Come up with a working system, get thumped and go down, repeat, get found out and sink a bit. We could do that with a Martin side, and work to a better outcome. But, like Farke at the time, there's nothing to show it would be any better second time round, should we get back up. Short of a record low points haul, perhaps SR are prepared to accept this, somehow convincing Dragan of longer returns over short, massive financial hits. I do think that our squad are contained by the system. That's partly that recruitment again, as well as the coaching. There's no guarantee that someone coming in will keep us up. But it would help if SR jettison some of their Rasmus thinking. That's why we're seeing the echoes of life under Ralph, Nate and Ruben. Any new manager should be selected on different criteria. Should someone new keep us up, they'll have to make further changes to keep us up.

Other than hoping Israel would over react, as Egg said, from either the act and/or some Iron Dome failure, that was Iran's response. That's twice they've done it, forced to move out from behind proxies to show support to groups it funds and as statements of defence. Both have been measured, couched in non escalation terms and at the lower end of their capabilities. Iran will look to continue their own defence, support Hezbollah, what's left of Hamas and support other groups/allies to gain influence and undermine Israel's attempts to reach agreements with other middle eastern nations. Israel are now involved in multi front conflicts, none of which offer easy long term resolutions, and dividing international support. It's not in Iran's interests to directly escalate, if they can divert through other fronts. Israel may find itself constantly caught in dealing with acts beyond some Lebanese buffer zone, whatever Palestinian resolution is in place, increased Iranian capabilities, and increased tension as they return to seeking middle eastern alliances. A recurring nightmare, but one that avoids escalation. At least for now. How Israel deal with the source of their issues, in Iran, will be key.

Trying everything to get our season cooking. 🙂