buctootim

Sure. A very good team in favourable circumstances.

PL top four points total. 2009/10 316 2010/11 290 2011/12 317 2012/13 315 2013/14 331 2014/15 311 2015/16 281 with up to 18 points for grabs.

Its ability plus luck. Smaller clubs often have good teams but lack squad depth and fall away as the season progresses. Leicester have an excellent team but they have also been lucky with injuries and reduced competition from the 'top clubs'. I imagine (i havent bothered to do it) that if you totaleld up the points accumulated by the top four clubs this year it would be less than in previous seasons.

Petts is I think. Saints are firmly in the CL spots.

I'd be happy with Howe, as long as we knew the reasons for his failing at Burnley and why it would be different here.

The land north of FP is their own car park. If they expand the stadium into that they'll still need to find somewhere else for all the players, staff and visitors cars. They're talking about compulsory purchase of the workshop and showroom units to the north of the carpark. To get a CP it needs to be essential and in the public interest - normally roads, utilties etc. Cant see the council agreeing to close down local employers for a building thats used 20 times a year (or winning an appeal in court). Spurs had exactly the same problem and ended up paying huge amounts to ransom strip holders. Pompey dont have that kind of money.

All options on the table. Pay day loans, credit cards, theft.

I havent had that problem. The updates Ive had have seemed to be automatic responses to problems. Are you sure you havent got malware?

The 'dodgy' amount of extra income in question is £11m, and the penalty for overspending would only have been a fine anyway. Its small beer compared with the Brighton owner paying for a £100m stadium and multi million training ground - or Pompey owners spending £120m on the team that they had stolen from elswhere.

I never liked the bloke and was glad when he left but you'd have to be blind to deny he's done well at Spurs (though a little lucky too)

lol. We're 7th in the PL, three points behind Man U and in contention for Europe. They're 5th in League 2 six points behind Accrington ffs and in contention for being overtaken by Eastleigh. Where did it all go wrong for us?

Its getting ready to house a family of Mexicans in hiding.

Yep. The headline is "Pompey can take inspiration from Leicester". A big whoosh as they totally miss the point about Leicester's success. The primary cause of Pompey's downfall was trying to buy success. They're still doing it now in Lg2 and still failing - failing miserably. They only reached the playoffs in their second year of the bottom tier, despite having spent many times the resources of most of their rivals. Leicester have been successful through buying cheaply and smartly and moulding them into a team who put in maximum effort for each other week in week out - the PL equivalent of Accrington or Northampton. Thats the opposite of Pompey - failing to turn up half the time when its raining / not glamorous enough / the crowd are on their back.

I remember seeing an interview with well known 'lefty' Harriet Harman - known in Private Eye as Harriet Harperson - about her attempts to bring up her son and daughter in a gender neutral environment. She tried to make sure the boy played with dolls and the girl played cowboys. She admitted she failed in that utterly and that her kids were predisposed / drawn to certain toys, even before they had a real concept of which gender they belonged to. Some things are hard wired I think. Im sure culture has the biggest impact more than the presence / absence of gun storage laws. The kind of people who are flaky enough to think they need the protection from a gun are going to keep them close at hand and easily accessible. Those who have them for sporting reasons are more likely to lock them away.

Everyday language isnt the same as a statisticians conference. People make statements to convey succinctly what they think. If you had to preface every statement with 20 minutes of riders, qualifications, disclaimers and a third party analysis of probability then human conversation / the human race would die out.

Exactly. Like it or not Hamas are the elected government of the Palestinian territory. Why did they get elected? Because Israeli and American policy to repeatedly humiliate and frustrate Fatah's attempts at a peaceful solution destroyed the influence of moderates.

Bit of a tangent - but did you notice from that list shootings by boys outnumbers that by girls at a rate of 8:1? Even at three years old or younger there is a gender element to shootings. Nature, not just nurture.

I think it does. A decade or so ago the German , Italian and Spanish leagues were as wealthy as the PL. Clubs like Saints were lower in the pecking order for players than not just Man U and Madrid but Valencia, Roma and Schalke. The money gap was so wide good scouting and coaching couldnt bridge it. Now, with skill, luck and a great setup its possible. Still unlikely, but possible.

Im pretty sure everyone understands this. I'm surprised you dont understand that. "It was never going to happen" is a rhetorical device - not an absolute declaration of probability. To all intents and purposes odds of 200-1 - once every two hundred years on average - means its never going to happen.

Gove is a touchstone. His track record is so bad that whatever side of an argument he is on the majority now assume the opposite must be true.

or without

Its okay. Britain we're like Albania.

I thought the EU was a big free for all scam where no-one was held accountable

Interesting, thanks. I'd never heard of it before. Two great examples (Thomas Cook and Merlin) of how to handle / not handle incidents. I think the problem with Hillsborough is that it was a case of range of factors coming together which lead to a diffusion of responsibility.

Quad biking. Make sure they have lots of mud though.