Gloucester Saint

Damion Downs is the worst call since Charles called Camilla for the squidgeygate tape.

The only way I can see it happening is for Ben Gvir to go missing and be found David Kelly style with an open coroners’ verdict. Not advocating for that by the way.

He wouldn’t get a start either at Cheltenham in L2 and Wotton wouldn’t want him at Conference South Torquay.

Part of the issue is that Fellows and AA as two proven performers at this level, play in a similar space. He’s dropped the undroppables and Rasmus darlings but Spors fucked him over royally on Downs - £73m of talent on the bench as Downs is a poor man’s Paul Moody. Another striker gamble from two years ago injured again today and Che still not replaced. That’s just negligence from SR. Player trading experts my arse. I’m as frustrated as anyone but can’t see how sacking Still will improve things.

The essence of a rhetorical question. We all know the answer… By contrast pretty clear Derby had watched Agyemang live. He’s also raw but much more what I’d have expected from Downs and cheaper than Downs so Damian ought to be better https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cwykgvxjwmko SR getting their naive, lazy pants pulled down again.

Gets more time for me as he’s had the guts to defy Ankerson and drop two of the SR ‘glory’ boys Bazunu and Stephens. Just needs to jettison Downs now in January as he won’t make a Championship centre forward anytime this century. If Stewart’s out for a while again he’s going to have to think about how to adapt the pattern of play for Archer, Robinson and Dipepa. AA through the middle isn’t an option.

You’d have to go some for another striker to be worse in the FM database at this level than him, and one or two levels below as well. I’ve seen Keith Cassels, Paul Moody, a totally past it and addiction-addled Kerry Dixon, a no-shit giving David Speedie, Ali Dia, Sekou Mara, and Guido Carrillo. Downs is worse, considerably, than any of those. The only one I never saw live was Stig Johansen. One can only assume the scouts never saw him play live.

Got a header on target, landed slightly awkwardly and then felt the back of his calf/hamstring.

The Sargeant at Charing Cross was arrested today.

Sadly they won’t, saw it with Pellegrino, Martin in the PL, the fanbase has lost the fire it had in the Branfoot and Lowe years. Nathan Jones there was a flicker and a superb P45 poster (which the stewards confiscated and threw the supporters out which sums up what an appalling club Southampton FC is these days).

Blackburn had 4000 to be fair.

Fixed it for you. This is why AI scouting by itself doesn’t work, you need to watch players properly several times live. And I mean the player not the actual game. The fans are going to make mincemeat of him if he doesn’t at least display some work ethic and compete in the air. As usual, we have to do the club’s work for them.

He’s easily the worst striker I’ve ever seen since my first season in 1983/84. Ability and work rate wise, quite possibly the worst outfield player. I would suggest relegating him to the u23s but I don’t want his attitude stinking that group out. Lord knows what the likes of Robinson and Dipepa who can actually play football think about being behind the useless oaf in the pecking order. Steve Cotterill wouldn’t consider him good enough for Cheltenham at the base of League 2 (great win on his return today) nor would Paul Wotton tolerate his lack of work rate (won 0-1 at Salisbury today) so at least my non-Saints teams I follow won.

Their US striker that their scouts actually watched play = handful Saints US striker sourced via AI = not trusted to replace the injured Stewart.

Inevitable with Stewart unfortunately- that’s why I said we should look for David Connolly type cameos. Fellows on.

McCarthy bailing them out time after time here. With Baz it would be 4-1 Derby. Centre backs keep on going for same long balls, communication required, and full backs just standing off lazily and allowing Derby to put crosses in from dangerous positions.

Those vows could Winalot of support.

Frustrating that the anti-Semitic rantings of the father were in plain sight online as well, no dark web mining or hacking knowledge required seemingly. The son carried out the attack but in future the offspring of extremists need to be monitored as well. Innocent of anything until proven guilty but there are times when brought up in a toxic environment of hate, the apple can fall close to the tree.

The stress of the job is a factor, not been a copper but did something enforcement related similar a long time ago which also had aspects of physical danger. You need a certain type of humour to cope with seeing murder scenes, people leaping onto third rails, violent demonstrations and sex offences which journalists and publics may not fully understand. I did feel that there was an element of entrapment with the officer who got pissed although stupid and very unpleasant comments not in keeping with the role. But he was off duty and I could empathise there. We all have biases, it’s how/whether you can challenge them in every day life.

Cheers MLG, still have Netflix so that will work then.

@Matthew Le God will there still be FM Mobile versions?

Their rugby teams were even worse.

Also, it shows what a time warp parts of the Met is. 25-30 years ago most offices and sectors had buffoons like that sergeant, who thought he was hilarious, but people actually avoided like the plague, along with alcohol in meetings, out-of-control socials and no doubt sexual harassment, and worse.

My missus is ex-Police and not surprised in the slightest. She worked with a lot of very decent and capable officers of all ranks, some of them household names since they retired (true crime shows) but the racist and/or corrupt element (eg the Bent Coppers real line of duty series and Daniel Morgan case covered by the documentary on ITV about News International thugs like Brooks and Coulson) has always been there especially so in the Met (I remember the training school undercover documentary and the KKK mask) and probably always will be tbh. These people are very clever in their own warped way and they can second guess criminals because they are very close to that line themselves. Due diligence won’t suss them out because it’s not like the loudmouths standing for Reform with their tweets about sinking migrant boats or their black neighbour. They infiltrate quietly for a long time before their true natures appear when their careers are established. The calls for Mark Rowley to resign are wrong-headed, he’s done more to root it out than any of his predecessors but the middle-senior ranks still don’t take it seriously and are often enablers for corrupt, extremist and violent rogues.

Overwhelming majority of Muslims in Rochdale and E Lancs generally are second/third/fourth generation from their grandparents who came over post-war to work in that region’s textile mills. If we’re actually discussing Rochdale’s deprivation then the textile mills losing competitiveness to the far east is rather important, allied to austerity slashing 30% off public services and then a series of shit politicians from the revolting Cyril Smith, to Simon Danczuk, and George Galloway. https://schoolofjournalism.shorthandstories.com/rochdale/ Yes, there have been the revolting grooming gangs whom I would personally castrate if I got the opportunity. And yes, the far right have been active there for more than 20 years. But extremists of all types use the shadow of extreme deprivation and very poor incomes, housing and social inequalities. No surprise Galloway appeared.