revolution saint

Yep, fucking loving it. Queue to get out last night was well easy. That was always the worst thing about going to games and boy did I complain about it to the club. Anyway, hats off - they've only gone and fucking sorted it.

Out of interest, when is the best time to judge?

Spot on. I feel completely to blame for what happened last night and take full responsibility. I didn't go to the Sunderland match but did get a bit frustrated and shouted at the TV so, again, sorry lads.

Not calling for his head yet but I expect him to start changing things pretty quickly. I've not seen the post match interviews - just the quotes on here but he should be taking full responsibility and definitely shouldn't be happy with either that performance or the number of goals we've let in over the season so far. He absolutely needs to fix that and that means none of this inverted fullback rubbish and none of this pathetic passing around the back to invite pressure until we're actually good enough to do it. We can still play a possession based game and I've no problem with that but it doesn't have to be with this structure and this formation. The squad we have is comfortably one of the best in the division. We shouldn't be conceding this number of goals and he needs to be pragmatic and deal with it. If he thinks this is just one big experiment to highlight how much he thinks out of the box then he can do one and manage a mythological club in a mythological division where results don't count.

How do you score goals out of order?

I reckon he'll play Holgate or THB alongside Bednarek if he's fit, but will drop Charles into the back if he isn't. I'd really like to see Charles and Downes in midfield if possible.

Yes, I agree but I would imagine Martin might be apprehensive of going into the game with a completely different partnership neither of which have played much this season, particularly after what happened against Sunderland. THB will probably only have had a few training sessions as well. Brave call if he does go with Holgate and THB.

What? 50 year old women on HRT? Good on 'em.

So what do we think about central defence then? If Bednarek is injured then I reckon Charles is nailed on to play at the back - bit of a shame as I'd like to see him and Downes in midfield for this one but I can't see us going for a Holgate and THB partnership just yet. Also think players the players that haven't gone away for the international break will be more likely to start as Martin will presumably have worked pretty closely with them. Should benefit players like Alcaraz, Fraser and Sulemana.

I've always been mostly in favour of VAR - as you say, it gets more decisions right than the alternative. However I've actually quite liked not having VAR and the delays that it causes so I'm caught in the middle a bit now. I suppose we haven't been on the end of a glaring injustice that's affected the outcome of a game yet so hasn't been quite as important.

Thing is that you can also apply that to arguments based on qualitative reasoning too. Often how people feel about a certain thing is at direct odds to the reality and politicians have exploited this since forever. Trump and Boris are prime examples but everyone does it so you need quantitative data to prove or disprove it. Ultimately it's up to the audience to be as informed as possible or independent fact checking services to be more prominent. Anyway, um, I'm looking forward to the Leicester game. When you think we've still got KWP, Smallbone, Alcaraz, Sulemana, Adams plus quality like Fraser, Charles, Downes then we've got a really strong squad. Oh and I hate international breaks.

The radio 4 programme and podcast "More or Less" is excellent if you have any kind of interest in statistics.

Possibly - I don't follow him and really don't care what he says but, even if that's true, it still doesn't make him mentally ill.

Oh come on, these things are opinions whether you like it or not. You can disagree with him all you like but it doesn't necessarily make him mentally ill. Reg Presley believed in aliens, Tom Cruise believes everyone can be an immortal being called a Thetan, hell, some people even believe the world was created in seven days and Father Christmas exists. They're all (depending on your point of view) nuts but it doesn't make them mentally ill. It does get quite scary when you've got to the point where you disagree with someone strongly enough to suggest they're mentally ill. Apparently there's help available though.

Nah, that's nonsense. He has a different opinion to you and you don't like it - it's absolutely not the same as gambling or alcoholism.

Apparently they use "models" that look at historic data rather than someone saying "I think that shot has a 20% chance of going in". So what happens is that the model will look at the shot in relation to where it's been taken, proximity to goal etc etc and come back and say I've found 1000 previous instances of shots in that position and 200 resulted in a goal. Problem is how complex the model is - does it also include the position of goalkeeper, other defenders, the quality of the league (there must be a huge variation between leagues and shots taken from exactly the same position). There's so many variables that it would be virtually impossible to find absolute exact replications of scoring opportunities. It's a guideline but I wouldn't place too much emphasis on it.

Yeah, of course being in the public eye means that things like this will probably lose him work but that's a bit different to forcing him to withdraw which was the point I was addressing. TBH there's people on here that do the same - I wouldn't advocate forcing them to withdraw and getting them to seek help though. They're just wrong (IMO). Just seems like quite a dangerous (and arrogant) path to go down if we start to suggest that people we profoundly disagree with should seek "help".

This seems weird to me. What sort of help do you think he needs and why should he withdraw from public life? As far as I'm aware people are allowed to have batshit mental opinions without needing "help". I'm not on Twitter or whatever it's called these days so can't say I've followed all that MLT has said but it does appear that his opinions are pretty strange. However as long as it's just his opinion then I don't see what the problem is. People are free to disagree with him and looks like the majority (rightly) do but being a conspiracy nut doesn't mean you need help - it just means you're probably wrong. I'm not even sure how you would go about getting help - should I go to the doctor if I think JFK was assassinated by a joint CIA and mafia operation?

Thanks, I like how in the third video he develops a ring of fire around him which I suspect makes him harder to tackle.

You may have quoted the wrong person Whitey - I didn't say anything about stats.

This is a complete non-sequitur.

That's because no one has actually said that - you've just made it up. Well done. All saintant said was that we need to play the ball a bit quicker, and not only is he right but Russell Martin agrees too.

You do realise you can play possession football and still move the ball round quickly? Possession football doesn't equal pedestrian football.

Yes, agree with all this and we definitely need to play with a higher tempo. I'm still giving Martin the benefit of the doubt - always thought that August and September would be tough months with the uncertainty around players, new players coming in and all whilst still getting to grips with a new style of playing. I'm actually surprised we've done as well as we have done. Fairly hopeful we'll start playing a few long balls to mix things up - looking at THB I'm not sure he's ever passed the ball less than 50 yards and if we've got the pace of Sulemana, Fraser and Arma then there will be opportunities to exploit that.

I’d be really surprised if not a single club in Belgium wanted Tall Paul and by their deadline you’d think we’ll be practically giving him away (on loan).