Gloucester Saint

Come on SW Norfolk, give us a Portillo moment on steroids. The whole country, and even most Tory MPs, bar the loony swivels in the membership, would take the roof off in celebration at Truss getting defeated https://thecritic.co.uk/going-on-a-truss-hunt/ Still not sure it will happen despite the recent MRP polls.

Obligatory You Tubes - been scouted by some big clubs. Has the pace of a full back but build of a CB. Had a bit of a shocker at SMS in Swansea’s 5-0 loss, including a horror mistake for our second. So concentration might be an issue to address. Widely described as a player with a ‘high ceiling’ but may need a move to unlock the potential.

As Boycott would say, more brains in a pork pie. No need for Foden to be offside there. Allegedly plays for the world’s wealthiest club but without KDB and Rodri propping him up, he’s mediocre like the rest of the useless dross.

They’re so hesitant, Walker should have crossed and bottled it, Saka should have done when he got to the line. Then Walker makes a terrible mess and Slovakia somehow don’t score. Slovakia should be 3-0 up already, they’re miles better than England so far, better more progressive footballers and a better team. They’ve certainly found where England’s weaknesses are and unlike the group teams are willing to exploit them. Now Bellingham’s booked, with Mainoo booked early, England will be down to 10 shortly. England players look similar to what Saints faced last season in the Championship last season, it shows you how much the overseas stars make them look half decent.

He could for £15m, but had one prolific season or so, and 29 soon. Not like say Rickie who was prolific at other levels, and more of a risk than AA was. Can’t see him as an SR buy. This is the fella we want https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/sheffield-united-facing-ben-brereton-diaz-blow-as-ipswich-town-southampton-keen-on-transfer/ but the club needs to be more nimble to fend off Ipswich. The manager seems to be more involved with the DoF gap so if he makes BBD a priority, there’s a chance. In terms of raising the bar, within FFP limits, the club will have to break its record a couple of times. Under Semmens and Reed before that we got stuck at the £12-15m level which worked so well in 2014-15 but quickly became left behind by peers.

The players coming in on frees seemingly - Taylor, Fraser, Ghoddos, DCR - are sensible, and a possible Downes-KWP exchange given the latter is in the last year of his contract makes sense. Sugawara seems a positive link at RWB. Liam Delap at £10m would be a good option as a second striker, we will need a first choice and Stewart as third striker getting 15-20 minutes and building his fitness up after nothing for the last 18 months. THB already done. The one very questionable area is goalkeeper, club has to be using the loan market for this season if they still don’t want to admit their fuck up on buying Bazanu. He won’t be fit this season anyway and on loan at Carlisle, Stockport, Exeter or somewhere at League 1/2 levels in 2025/26 to get fit again.

Neither do I. Fine with Alex staying but would have made more sense to release Lumley and accept that Baz isn’t playing next season and on loan in the lower leagues in 25/26 rebuilding his fitness and confidence. Gavin has shown nothing yet to suggest he can play above the third tier even with a strong side in front of him last year. The club are so determined not to admit their mistake that they’ve made another one here, which on top of Forster and then McCarthy’s obscene contract extensions is crass. Cortese can’t be the only person in the club’s recent history who can spot a decent experienced low cost/free keeper eg Boruc. Or maybe he is? Surely anyone with a football brain in the club will know that an experienced keeper needs to come in loan?

Last night was the dashboard flashing red and the engine management light coming on for the Democrats. They need to sort it out over the next seven days and have a candidate unveiled by this time next week. Trump’s core base are pretty much the Reform canvassers in Clacton on steroids, so whoever the Democrats replace Biden in the race with they’ll hate, whether it’s racism, homophobia etc. It’s about the Democrat core vote - that’s enough alone to win because for all the noise, Trump is some way off getting the Republican core - and any waverers. Harris is one of two obvious options, or Shapiro. Newsom is too liberal for outside of the west coast and NE seaboard https://www.ft.com/content/dc926ca5-ce06-4234-9caf-87236aa2ccf2 If they all want to put party before country and wait for 2028 - I have news for them. There might not be a 2028 election if Trump wins. Edit - change won’t to might for Hypo, as I agree that’s it not a foregone conclusion Trump won’t stop at 2 terms. AlexLaw76 - I’m at three posts until later - so here’s why I put that at the end. Look at 6 January attempted insurgency, the disputing the 2020 result which Biden clearly won, the attempts to intimidate state officials - and the list goes on, as well as the associated court cases

This is quite amusing though from Ed Davey (via Tim Montgomerie on X) https://x.com/montie/status/1806278644785873218?cxt=HBwWhIWwve-2mJEyAAAA&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email He’s like the Daily Star is Ed Davey - cheering us up amongst the dourness. You have my vote. In other news, the Economist backs Labour for the first time since 2005.

Reform aren’t racist, homophobic bigots and nothing remotely like the old National Front and BNP. Honest. And if you believe that after watching this appalling clip, you’ll believe anything https://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-undercover-inside-reforms-campaign-evidence-of-homophobia-and-canvassers-racism

Good summary on last night’s poor head to head - another 0-0 and when the incumbent shouts and interrupts every 30 seconds, that’s all it can ever be https://inews.co.uk/opinion/bbc-tv-debate-sunak-last-shot-fluffed-election-3134101 This article sums up why the Tories are where they are, it’s the equivalent over-60s Saints fans sitting at SMS and critiquing whatever Russell Martin and the last few managers have done because it’s not what Lawrie would have done. Lawrie was successful in his context 1970s and 1980s, Thatcher was successful in her 1980s context. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/27/rishi-sunak-tories-election-conservatives-david-cameron But contexts and the needs of different eras change and evolve, in the same way that Keynes wasn’t a permanent solution by the 1970s, so the free market and Monetarism isn't either. Reform UK is akin to creating another SFC in political terms to recreate that era, including a lot of the myths as well as the genuine history. Until the party settles the battles from the late 1980s, especially Europe, because Brexit clearly isn’t sufficient to do that, and finds the exit door for all the B String Australian and US Republican strategists killing their finances for ineffective ‘culture war wedge’ issues, then it has no chance of competing for power again with a fresh vision any time for the foreseeable. Which is not a good thing for democracy.

It still will be even if the Spurs-Saints game is moved, Millwall v the Skates has a long history of trouble eg Waterloo station when it kicked off between their fans late 90s/early 00s. IIRC the skates were in a pub next to the station called the Windmill. Just like the Thomas Crown Affair theme tune, the Millwall had the Windmill in their minds and getting at the skates in it. Quite a battle by all accounts and the pub was totalled - was Dec 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/programmes/2002/hooligans/diary/portsmouth.stm Edit - the poor old Windmill, more trouble 10 or so years on https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/pub-wrecked-as-football-fans-clash-6335058.html No wonder that fixture has been played behind closed doors at times!

The FA need to take action here. Instruct Southgate to take the handbrake off tactically or depart his post. Contract nearly up so less costly to pay off. Newspapers need to really back up the TV pundits. Palmer and Mainoo must start next game even if it’s done over the manager’s head which I’d fully support. Watkins for Kane as well. Pace. Pace. Pace. Southgate you boring prick. Don’t agree with booing the players this time, needs to be a full scale ‘Southgate out’ from the fans. Lucky to win the group, very lucky.

Palmer immediately takes people on and two Slovenian defenders are drawn out to create space for Rice’s shot. This isn’t difficult to work out. The players are going to have hold a meeting if they want to play more progressive stuff, be a bit more direct, and challenge the manager a bit tactically, especially if the bigger names break out. Shows you how bang average the English and Scotland players really are without the overseas players to prop them up.

Excellent article here from the FT summarising the journey from 2019 to now, and why London and the SE is deserting them. Essentially two reasons, firstly the anti-business, anti-universities and anti-London/SE rhetoric and policies and secondly Brexit and the continuing pursuit of retaining the Red Wall gains which flies in the face of the more educated, internationalist, London, South and SE. The 2019 coalition of voters was always a tough gig to keep intact as they want opposites in social, cultural and economic ideologies. Not an accident that the Lib Dem’s are also causing the Tories a lot of problems in these areas and in the SW where the Tories left the fishing industry high and dry, and didn’t follow through on replacements for Interreg in Cornwall. And Reform are eating significantly in the much older, less formally educated groups they’ve been targeting with culture war crap they learned parrot fashion from Trump and Bannon. Trouble is, Farage communicates that stuff far more effectively than Bad Enough, Braverman and Donelan, even if Reform makes Truss and Kwarteng look economically sound by comparison: https://www.ft.com/content/4c7594b9-22f3-4a31-8168-4b2622e2d685

It’s Dune in June

At £10-15m there would no point selling given the quality of player you lose but at £20-25m it starts creating FFP headroom to buy. I believe KWP’s buyback clause is £30m which Spurs were reluctant to pay last summer but somewhere between £20-25m is more doable and Ange likes him. The FFP workaround might be for Spurs to chip a little bit off Rodon’s fee, as we are clearly keen on him, and that overall envelope would probably cover the RWB from AZ. I agree though that FFP and especially PSR is idiotic and needs to go.

The gambling on the GE date in advance scandal keeps growing. Clearly it’s not the Nick Mason who played the drums for Pink Floyd! The Tories since 2019 have had a monumental self-destruct button - even if Saints had been bought by Milan Mandaric not Dragan, Harry returning and Westwood as Director of Football (shudder - and super strength air freshener for the exec corridor) could they have fucked up an organisation by design that severely. They were a disaster from 2016 really but Corbyn masked it for them. https://news.sky.com/story/top-conservative-official-takes-leave-of-absence-amid-new-election-betting-allegations-13157405

If you type Jack Clarke and Southampton there’s pages of it, saying for £15m and Wolves also interested, but the player would apparently prefer Saints. Clearly there’s been interest there from the club for a while. May be that Callum O’Hare, another player strongly-linked, is key here as out of contract, but more clubs in the equation both domestically (Villa, Wolves, Leeds, Burnley) and overseas (La Liga and Bundesliga). Saints rumoured to be front of the queue there as well, but can’t see us signing both unless I’m wrong. I like Alcaraz but the £30m swap deal with Rodon sounds too good to be true and it’s from Nixon. If it was, then the CB area could be ticked off, although Jan only has 12 months on his contract so maybe not, but he seems a lot happier. Swap deals were more of a 1990s/early 2000s thing, the ones for Saints which stick out are Bridge/Le Saux (which would have been OK if Lowe had bought a younger LB in 2004) and Davies/Beattie (the club did extremely well out of that one). Maybe with the FFP biting they are coming back but with the huge wage and complex packages these days they still seem unlikely. Ghoddos and the guy at Fulham seem sensible if they come off. KWP contract is vital - probably a low release (£20-25m) if he did sign another but a bit of protection if we went straight down. Edit - Gustavo Hamer at Sheff Utd, 27 tomorrow though and the Blades have their parachute payments. Straight out of a decent PL campaign, apparently their POTS, but would potentially cost more than Clarke and doesn’t suit the SR sell on model. O’Hare 26 but no fee. Clarke is younger than both (25?).

Agent talk - on big wages and Roma trying to shift him and Kumbulla https://romapress.net/roma-struggling-to-find-suitors-for-rick-karsdorp-marash-kumbulla/ 29, 12 months left on his deal. I wouldn’t, unless it was a free transfer with Roma paying 50% of the first year’s wages. Mourinho had a public go at him which escalated nastily after a poor performance https://www.givemesport.com/what-happened-to-as-romas-rick-karsdorp-after-jose-mourinho-bust-up/ Risky one, if true, would need to look into his injury record. Better going forward than defensively, might work if Martin plays a back five most games to offer width assuming the club don’t want KWP to walk away in 2025 on a free, or as competition.

It’s what I’ve been saying all along - VAR is not the issue whatsoever when used by professional people, I would halt the promotion of all English referees for the moment into the PL and Champ until we can cut the PGMOL tarnish out of the sport. Replace with overseas referees for the next few years to replace until we can get a non-PGMOL domestic cohort in the pipeline and pay a bit over the top to do it. PGMOL is rotten, I think there’s a lot more to come out about them. I didn’t pay as much attention to the PL last season but some of the decisions did seem to be very questionable and worthy of further investigation by the authorities. Now PGMOL and one of their puppets has been exposed on the global stage. No hiding place any longer. Overseas players has revolutionised the PL and Champ, time to open competition globally for officials to raise standards.

There wasn’t anywhere near as much knowledge about what the PO had covered up - the Second Sight report came out July 2013 and was smothered until 2014/15 https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/the-second-sight-interim-report/ Jo Swinson and Paul Scully on the other hand had full access to it and much more awareness. Not saying Davey couldn’t have probed further but a lot of the evidence wasn’t in plain sight in the same way.

Finally, Southgate takes off the poor man’s Yan Valery. Playing him in midfield was just fucking bizarre and the sort of shit Pellegrino did, and Burley on a bad day. Speaking of which, Saints under Pellegrino is exactly how England are playing. Saka will get a bollocking for running at opponents, and Foden fined for taking a good shot from range hitting the post. Get some more pace on - Eze and Cole Palmer - up with Kane. Go 433. Saka is the only one gambling. Or Watkins if he really wants 442. Gallagher booked. Shearer is right, Stones needs to break forward with the ball and push the midfield. So fucking deep. Edit: At last! Mix up the play a bit now to get Eze and Watkins in behind.

Going back to austerity, it was a political choice, although it backfired on Osborne, who had his political career terminated by May after it came back to clobber and terminate Cameron’s Premiership like a 🪃 through Brexit. If austerity hadn’t have disproportionately impacted the services used most of all by the bottom 20% of society and policies which hurt them e.g. bedroom tax, the referendum result, whilst not being a massive win for Remain, was likely to be different. So whilst austerity didn’t directly hurt this household, it did choke off growth but we had the economy to weather it in in the long-run. However, what it unleashed afterwards with the referendum and Brexit, a very hard one at that, has had a serious impact on our quality of life and polluted the country, in more ways than one. Losing 4-5% of our economy, and getting worse, HAS had a major and irreparable impact. Politically, it also ushered in a generation of morons such as Boris and Truss who really went to town on destroying the economy and country, the latter making 1975-9 look like a picnic by comparison. Sunak is miles out his depth but he’s not made the severance with that wing by expelling Truss et al and it’s made the damage terminal plus the campaign bloopers. BTW, we’ve got more of it come after July whoever wins, to go with the overall tax take still rising. Back to the election, liking this poll from a Lib Dem perspective. Duck will like it too with Reform predicted to take 5 seats including Richard Holden’s now in Essex. Given his behaviour in nabbing that candidacy, there’s a Reform victory I’ll certainly raise a glass to if it materialises in practice. Still hard to believe Sunak would be overturned in his own seat… https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-lose-tory-wipeout-poll-53-mps-b2565451.html

It’ll rise for a hefty % of the population whoever gets in, that’s a fact, even if Sunak pulled off a miracle or Farage the impossible because of fiscal drag over the last few years pulling more people into higher bands especially. And no government with the dreadful state the economy and public finances can afford to raise thresholds for the next 3-4 years at very best. The IFS have been saying this for months.