revolution saint

We don't need to replace them with anything. We already have a democratically elected leader (OK I know the prime minister doesn't technically need to be an elected MP). Thing is that even if we did decide to have an elected ceremonial figure as president - they wouldn't need to have any constitutional powers. They can just be a figurehead if that's what people really want. I don't see the need for it but the beauty is that we can replace them whenever we get tired of them. We wouldn't have a Donald Trump because they wouldn't have any power (and you can argue we got our Trump with Boris anyway).

Yep, they probably did and that's fair enough but it's an exception to the rule. At least as far as I know anyway. I guess you can argue that we're under valued when considering other prem clubs so perhaps there is a decent return to be made but I'm not sure there's the same room to increase our value in the same way picking up a league one club with a premier league stadium and fanbase was.

Genuine question, and this is about any owners of football clubs so not specifically our new lot, but what's in it for them? I can understand the vanity project where some mega rich person just wants a bit of fun and I can understand the old school doing it for the community reasons, but when it's a commercial operation then is there really that much money to be made out of football? There's the old adage that if you want to make a small fortune out of football, start with a large one. That seems to still hold true - has anyone made serious wedge out of owning a club? I reckon we could probably get to the stage where we could get Europa League football every other season and we'd need to invest a bit to get there but maybe not huge amounts. Thing is that to stay at that level we'd need to reinvest anything we made (and Europa league isn't that lucrative anyway). Same goes with transfers - obviously there's money to be made by picking up good young players, developing them and selling at a big price but you have to factor in that not all of those good young players will make it so at least some of that profit will go on relatively over priced youngsters that didn't fulfil their potential. So, yeah, some money to be made but probably not that much. I guess if you're a success then you can recoup or make some money when you sell the club but none of this is screaming get rich quick. Maybe some of you can enlighten me because I genuinely don't understand why people want to own football clubs to make money. If I had that much money then I think I would set myself up as a bank and lend clubs the money rather than owning them - that seems far more lucrative. Anyway, I'm not knocking the new guys - they seem decent enough.

You say that like it's a bad thing!

Yeah, can't see it being any kind of factor, sorry. We're not even owned by a Serbian (technically) and presumably if he felt that strongly he would be asking to end the loan agreement and toddle off to the Albanian Republic of Chelsea. Incidentally Albania doesn't much like Russia either and yet it hasn't stopped him being either a Chelsea player or fan despite Abramovich. Chances are that Broja will either never meet Drajan or if he does then rarely. If he sees that it's the best move for his career, we have the cash and Chelsea are happy to sell then he'll sign. I doubt we'll ever get to that stage for other reasons but the Serbia / Albania thing won't be why.

Personally can't see us making a "statement" signing but you never know. Certainly can't see Eriksen - good player but doesn't fit our style of play and too many risks + wages make it seem unlikely. If we do make a signing then I'd expect it to be another promising kid like Livramento. That seems like a good model to pursue and if we have a bit more in terms of funds then it'll strengthen our hands in negotiations. Broja would be superb although even now might be too expensive but I don't buy the Albania/Serbia thing - if the deal is right for both parties then it would happen. That Angers kid maybe? Seems like Dortmund (I think) is in negotiations but if we have the ability to go in and beat clubs like that to young talent then that's probably enough to call it a "statement".

My christmas wish is for you to find God, go on, let him in to your heart. You know you want to really.

I see New York City is now offering $100 dollars to anyone getting a booster shot. Not sure how I feel about that - it's basically rewarding bad behaviour. Surely it'll have a detrimental effect for any future vaccination drives - how many people are going to wait to get a jab until the money is right? I can see conspiracy theorists lapping it up as well.

It's interesting that our % of positive tests remains pretty low in comparison to many other countries. Up to 17th December we were knocking around 4.5% and Germany were nearly 20% so it's pretty clear that Germany have a lot of cases that don't go detected. South Africa is even worse at over 30% and makes comparisons really hard. I think Tim Spector estimates that we're probably getting around 200, 000 cases a day (including those that are reported) so those other countries are probably getting far more than that. I suspect this week will be particularly difficult to draw many conclusions from as people will drastically alter their behaviour to avoid spoiling Christmas + lots simply won't take a test to avoid isolating.

Anyone watched Dr. John Campbell on The YouTube? Stumbled across it a few days ago - seems to delve into the data a bit more than you get with most of the news programmes. As far as I can see he doesn't go in for all the conspiracy theories just a bit of useful detail.

Seems like the older you are the less side effects you get. I guess they figure old age will take care of you lot without any need for a push over the line.

I got mine on Thursday. The centre is a few mins walk from home so decided to just walk up and chance it. No problems at all getting the jab and all very efficient and quick. Arm seemed to hurt more than AZ jabs but nothing too bad and glad I’m doing what Boris said and protecting our way of life……

It's not really madness though, is it? It's potentially saving lives. Seems to me to be perfect sense to take some precautionary measures until we know whether this strain is as dangerous (or more) than delta. There isn't enough data yet to know whether it is or not but there is enough data to suggest it's more transmissible. Really depends on what restrictions they impose, for how long and what they hope to achieve by them. Hopefully it is mild, or less severe but we haven't had it around long enough to know yet - something like only 6% of South Africa is over 65 so you wouldn't necessarily expect to see much severe disease over there anyway because of their age profile.

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Pretty simple really - this variant has much more chance of escaping the protection of the vaccines and also be more transmissible. Doesn't mean it will be, just that it looks like there's more probability of it happening.

Absolutely but all it'll do is possibly delay the spread (if) Omicron is more infectious than Delta.

Yeah, hopefully this isn't as bad. To be honest, whilst I'm glad that we've reacted quite quickly, I'm not sure it's going to matter much. If it's already in Belgium than chances are it's already here and if it isn't then it soon will be.

Jeez, all you have to do is find an example of people criticising you simply because you said it was underwhelming. If it was that common place then it should be easy. Frankly unless you can come up with that then I'm out. Let's be honest you made the claim and I called you on it. If you can back it up then fine but you've had ample opportunity and have failed.

No, it wasn't. We could do this all day and if feeding a little persecution complex is your thing then crack on. Doesn't make it true.

I don't think that happened. You've got the opportunity to prove me wrong though.

Well that was a quick scrap. I normally win most fights by at least 50 metres. To be honest if you look at my posts I've never claimed that Lyanco is the second coming and I don't think anyone has. Some people did write him off and a few (me included) just said it needs a bit of time before making a judgement. I think saying underwhelming is fair enough - no problem with that. Only problem I have is creating a little persecution complex where people think they were criticised for that when they actually weren't.

All I'm doing is refuting a claim that people were criticised for simply saying they were underwhelmed. Never happened.

Unfortunately I can't quote back the post I made where I showed those comments that wrote him off. It was in the Summer transfer window thread on 21st August - have a look at the posts I quoted and come back after you've read them. Edit: And I've said before no one criticised anyone for saying they were simply underwhelmed. That didn't happen but you're welcome to prove me wrong.

You seem to be imagining something that simply hasn't happened. There were plenty of examples of people saying Lyanco was shit, useless etc etc - I listed them for you. That's writing a player off. Saying your underwhelmed - nah, no one said a thing. You can give me an example though to prove me wrong. I'm not sure what you're expecting a reaction to saying you're underwhelmed to be though? Did you expect fanfares and hordes of crowds bowing down to your self acknowledged lack of first hand experience? Bizarre.

I don’t think anyone says you can’t give an opinion, just that you look a bit of a tit if you write them off before even seeing them play. This is a forum though, bit odd to think anyone is saying you can’t have an opinion.