revolution saint

I wouldn't pay too much attention to pundits - most of the time they simply don't watch Saints enough to form any kind of decent judgement. They'll regurgitate the same old clichés whether they're accurate or not. With the caveat that this is almost certainly bollocks, I have to say I'm not that bothered if he goes and we get something like 50M which is all reinvested in the team. I'm not saying JWP is a bad player but I don't think he's that great either. In terms of open play I'd put him on the same kind of level as Matty Oakley although probably a bit more mobile. I'd be more worried if Salisu left than JWP right now. When you think of all the players we've sold in relatively recent times I think JWP is less of a loss than say, Mane, VVD, Pelle, Lallana or Ings and that's just off the top of my head. In fact if you offered me Schneiderlin (at his peak) I would take him over JWP. The only thing we can't replace is his free kicks - no getting away from it, they're good. Anyway, just an opinion - got no stats to back it up.

To be honest when I first saw him I thought he was a bit lightweight but before his injury he started putting himself about a bit and looked a lot better. He always seems to have good vision and was good with little flicks etc. Kind of player that’s worth giving a bit more of a chance to impress IMO

Pretty sure I remember reading that prior to the Victorians most workplace toilets were unisex (or gender neutral in todays language). Apparently they started to introduce single sex toilets in a bid to encourage women into the workhouses or something similar. Course back then there were far less women in the workforce so less of a problem. One of the sites I work at has three toilets - male, female and gender neutral. Doesn't cause any problems although no one uses the gender neutral one........

TBH I'm not particularly disagreeing with you but perfectly happy to start doing so.

Those would come down as the cases where we need to refer to their biological sex (depending on your point of view). I think it's inevitable that whatever decisions are made in those grey areas it'll be offensive to one group and something phobic to another - that's just a fact of life now. As long as decisions are made and justified then people will just have to deal with it.

Personally I just wish that people would be clear about the difference between sex and gender but it seems most people wilfully confuse the two when it suits them. There's quite a few cases (smear tests etc) where we need to refer to (biological) sex and in those cases it shouldn't be deemed to be transphobic to talk about biological male and female. Yes, it may be separate from what you identify as but it's done for a purpose and not just to antagonise. In all other cases we can use gender and it really doesn't make any difference what people identify as.

It's really difficult to find the data but could it be that France simply isn't testing as many people and we're picking up more mild and asymptomatic cases than France? I tried looking for hospitalisations data which would probably be a more reliable indicator than cases to see where we compare with France but couldn't find anything. I'd also like to see our hospitalisations and deaths broken down by age, co-morbidities and vaccination status.

I agree and well said. I think all our players are brilliant. Every single one of them. I also think the manager is awesome. In fact I'm staggered by why we're not top of the league given our brilliant players and awesome manager.

Where have I said other opinions are not welcome? Of course you're welcome to share an opinion but don't pretend anyone is all that bothered about what you have to say. All I'm doing is pointing out that saying Southampton is a shithole is a subjective opinion - it's neither right nor wrong just your opinion. Personally I couldn't care less what your opinion is but I do care if you're going to make a statement masquerading as fact when in fact it isn't - it's just what you happen to think. That's fine but don't make it true.

It's a subjective opinion. I hate to break it to you but it's only your opinion and no one cares about it.

There’s no way in hell your opinion is better than mine. Find a website to prove it. Seriously though this kind of reply gets my goat, it’s a subjective opinion. I disagree with you, so does the England manager and so do a fair amount of people on this thread. Doesn’t make us right or wrong, it’s just an opinion.

Yeah, I’d take Phillips over JWP but I’m worried that’s just my opinion. I tried to look for the website that tells me which players are definitively better than others, you know like FACT, but couldn’t find it. Anyone got a link?

That's really shit. All the best to you and your wife, hope you hear good news soon and a late winner.

Very sad news, was just listening to faded seaside glamour the other day. RIP Greg

Yeah, to be honest I didn’t actually see it and I do understand the sentiment. Just looks bad if you have someone attempting to silence someone else based on gender, ethnicity or whatever. I do think the left, for want of a better name, has a problem in that it’s perceived to be biased against your typical white male, or at least isn’t that interested in them. I’m not so sure anyone at a labour conference needs to be encouraged to speak either. Diane Abbot never seems to have any problems with shyness…..

So it sounds like you want to treat anyone who isn't a white male differently - that's sexist and racist. I understand your argument and I understand the intention behind it which are well meaning but it really doesn't help. In fact it's incredibly patronising (you've just compared people who aren't white and male to children). Equal rights are exactly that - they're applied equally to all people regardless of any protected characteristic. I'm no fan of the Tories but they've had two women PMs and countless minorities in their cabinets and they did that without giving them special dispensation or treatment. The left seems to think it's only possible by treating them differently. Women and non-whites are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves without having their own little protected space. Every single time this kind of thing goes on it distances the average voter who gets the impression that minorities are the only ones that matter. You want to know why people vote Brexit or for Trump? It's exactly this kind of thing perpetrated by people who give the impression they really couldn't care less about anyone who doesn't belong to a minority. The left chucks out accusations of racism and sexism like confetti at a wedding and then acts in ways that are obviously hypocritical. I know this all sounds very right wing and I'm really not but the "left" needs to get it's act together. We've had a pretty disastrous pandemic (vaccine aside), we've got Brexit problems, a buffoon of a PM, a united kingdom that looks more and more likely to split, shockingly incompetent ministers and instead of wiping the floor with them Labour are more interested in who has/hasn't got a cervix.

Tough call innit? Without Cameron there would have been no Brexit and without Brexit Boris wouldn't be prime minister. Therefore Cameron is the biggest fuckwit for creating the environment for Boris to be where he is.

That's pretty much my take on it as well. According to Ipsos Mori about one percent of people thought it was the most important issue in December 2015. Most people really weren't that bothered. It was weak of Cameron to agree to a referendum just to satisfy his own party but even worse was his incompetence when it came to framing the question - a straight forward YES/NO would always throw up more questions than it answered. When the Aussies had their referendum in '99 over keeping Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gothe as their head of state they didn't give the electorate a choice on getting rid of her. Instead if you wanted to remove her you had to agree to an almost equally undemocratic alternative (parliament appointed president). Effectively they fucked the republicans and got the result they were looking for. There were any number of ways Cameron could have achieved a similar result. It's all academic now but Cameron is going to go down as the biggest fuckwit of a prime minister we've ever had.

With regard to the 1975 referendum, it was to decide whether to remain in the EU after having joined it two and a half years previously. So the equivalent would have been to leave the EU in 2014 and then hold a referendum in 2016 on continuing to remain out of the EU. Point being that you were voting on a known entity to an extent. In 1975 they knew what being in the EU was like as they’d had a decent amount of time to assess it. In 2016 we were asked to vote on leaving without anyone knowing what that would entail beyond vague promises and predictions.

I pretty much agree with this but you have to wonder why Major and Cameron didn't tell it like it was and why Ken Clarke suffered for doing exactly that. It was at least partly because of the euro sceptic wing of the Tory party. As you've said - telling it like it is meant you didn't become leader of the (tory) party. I think you're right that stronger leadership would have meant a stronger remain argument during the referendum but lets not pretend that argument would have been easy, winnable or even possible on the Tory side at least. On a completely different note I've just seen Peter Lilley bemoan the fact that British firms have used cheap foreign labour and failed to train resident UK citizens resulting in a skills shortage (in this case HGV drivers). I agree with him but it's a bit galling coming from someone who actively participated in the privatisation of industries that used to train and provide apprenticeships to people because they realised they had a duty for the long term prosperity of the country and not just the bottom line. It's a bit rich to blame companies for following market forces and cutting skills training when you actively created the environment you now blame. None of this is directed at LDs post - it just annoyed me (and I also realise it doesn't count in the HGV case but it was just a general point).

I'm not sure why you keep insisting that Armstrong is better than Ings. Practically no one agrees with that.

A few years ago I was having a cup of tea in a cafe when this really loud and irritating voice started to distract me. It was Adam Blackmore and his "normal" voice is really bloody loud - wouldn't be surprised if the BBC were saving money on microphones whilst they're employing him. Anyway, I still like him as a commentator and DM is good in the same way Murray Walker was - not the best commentator but a bit of an institution. Only heard Tessem recently - it's an odd voice for radio but from the small bits I heard didn't drop into too many boring cliches. Hopefully he'll do well as he gets a bit more experience.

Worth remembering that it was only just over 2 years ago that Lyanco was named the second best player at the Toulon Tournament. For context England had the following players: Reece James, Marc Guehi, Trevor Chalobah, Eze, Joe Willock, Nketieh and Connor Gallagher. The UEFA bods reckoned he was better than all of them. Presumably this would have been where he caught the attention of Matt Crocker. Here's a quote from the match report against France, "There were times where Lyanco would win the ball and then launch into attack with an unpredictable, elusive dribble. On the ball, he was a maestro, breaking the lines with vertical passes into Pedro and Pedrinho, fizzing passes over the top into Emerson or Bruno Tabata, and avoiding France’s hapless press. With Lyanco acting as a sweeper between Murilo and Iago, he had license to drive forward on the ball and pick out the wingers on the touchline." So it's not like Lyanco has been plucked from obscurity and has never shown any potential whatsoever. You can argue that he might not make the grade (England also had Josh Sims in the squad), you can argue that he might not be suited to a more robust and fast "English" game. There's plenty of reasons why it might not be a great signing but equally there's enough to suggest he might be a decent player. Seems to me that technically he's a good player but is going to take time to adjust to the pace and power of the league. That's fine - he wasn't signed to make an immediate impression just as Salisu wasn't either. The club obviously feel that he could be the ball playing CB and would complement Salisu in the long term. Anyway, no idea if he'll go on to be the player we all hope he'll be but just wanted to address some of the reasons why we signed him. As for Vestergaard - I'm starting to think he was the ideal lockdown player - never looked as good when the crowds were in and looks like he's reverted to type with Leicester now that the fans are back.

I don't think anyone is being "overly optimistic" - they're just willing to give him a bit more time and not go over the top on what is essentially a player that's 4th choice CB. No one is saying he will be fantastic and no one is saying he's the new VVD. He may turn out to be a really good player, he may turn out to be awful or more realistically he'll be somewhere in between. What they're not doing is throwing a little paddy and stamping their feet as if this signing alone will relegate us. Let's be honest if the signing of a 4th choice CB is the biggest thing you have to moan about regarding the team then we really shouldn't have any problems this season. You made up your mind on him before we even signed him - it's not like you're really looking with an open mind is it? You're entitled to an opinion and that's fine but don't get too worked up if someone questions it. Oh and moaning about a "whiney fanbase"? You're coming across as being it's biggest representative at the moment.

Yeah, but this really does have an end of days type feeling miserableoldgit. I was a bit worried about COVID and I'm concerned about the climate and world poverty and shit like that but I don't think I've ever been as worried about any of that stuff as I am about a fourth choice centre back who wasn't brought in to be a quick fix being a bit rubbish in his first game. I think we're f*cked.