revolution saint

Of course he broke his own rules/guidelines - he even admitted it and apologised for it. Not sure why you're so desperate to think he hasn't.

Well by his own judgement he should go considering that he thought Professor Neil Ferguson did the right thing by resigning. To be honest I couldn't give a toss about him having an affair - breaking his own rules and the guidance everyone is meant to follow? If he had a shred of integrity then the man should resign. He's a proven liar, his own boss calls him "fucking hopeless", he appoints someone he's having an affair with to a senior position. It's hardly "man has affair with woman" is it?

Yeah, cheers, that works although still feels strange to have a third of deaths in fully vaccinated people.

I'm confused about the figures. Last week Public Health England announced that of the 42 people known to have died from the delta variant 12 were fully vaccinated and had their second jab more than two weeks prior to death. That's 29%. They're now saying that two jabs of AZ is 92% effective against serious disease (hospitalisation and death). Where did that come from then? Appreciate it's an estimate but I can't get my head around these two figures. Surely if two jabs was 92% effective then we should have seen something like 3-4 (or lower) deaths of vaccinated people out of 42?

Americans who insist they're of a different nationality such as (and in particular) Irish Americans and Italian Americans. No, you're fucking American. This can also extend to anyone who bangs on about being a quarter this or that. It's a cry for attention and a way to differentiate themselves from the crowd and it doesn't impress me. We've got a woman at work who has one great grandparent from Ireland - she went to Ireland for the first time ever in her 30's and pronounced it like "going home". Unbelievable.

I'll confess to not being the most avid of England fans but seems a bit churlish to decide not to support them just because JWP isn't in the squad. I'll be cheering them on anyway (not that I'm expecting them to win it). If I'm honest I don't really think JWP would have played even if he had made the squad - about the best thing he has going for him is dead ball delivery but he has to be on the pitch in order for that to make any difference and going on past team selections that was always going to be unlikely. Least this way his reputation will be enhanced should England have a shocker.

Yep, good read. This is the kind of thing I expect to see from the Athletic.

If we're looking at players that fit the "young, big wages at big club but needs to play" then I'd rather we went for Maitland-Niles than Loftus-Cheek. Would fit our system much better and would provide cover at left back. RLC is a decent player but he doesn't suit our style of play and has been treading water for too long now.

Did you bollocks. You said he was good enough as cover and there were other areas that needed more urgent attention. Stand up for yourself and your opinions instead of revising them. I questioned you on how much you had seen and you were pretty much unequivocal that having watched him at youth and U21 level that he was good enough as cover.

You thought Jankewitz was good enough as cover for the midfield position, make your mind up.

Yeah, funnily enough this cropped up at work a while ago. Once I'd figured it out, I wondered why they needed the term until I realised it was because otherwise you would refer to people who identify with the sex assigned at birth as "normal". Kind of makes sense although seems a tad unnecessary.

I would piss myself laughing if UEFA ban them all from European football next season 🤣🤣🤣

They’ve shot their load now. The only power they had was the threat of a breakaway league and now everyone knows they ain’t got the balls for it. Hopefully this is an opportunity to make sure things are in place to ensure it never happens again and also an opportunity for greater governance within the premier league. Another positive is that the other 14 clubs in the premier league will realise that together they can gang up on the big 6.

As I understand it all the US sports within a closed system also have mechanisms in place to ensure competition and prevent teams from becoming all powerful - things like the draft system. There's nothing being talked about like that (at least at the moment). This is just a pure unadulterated greed. Agree with your points although I'm loathe to criticise fans on this. It's not their fault and the vast majority oppose it. Sure, every fan wants a rich owner to pump money into their club and enable them to win things but they still want to win things within the current existing framework. OK that statement can be picked on and is a bit hypocritical but it's not the fans fault the owners are acting this way and it's not them calling for these changes. In a perfect world all fans would have solidarity and boycott this idea but it's hard to abandon your club and, as Beattie once said, the only loyalty in football is from the fans. It's one of the attractions of football that we don't act like customers. I guess we can call fans naïve and easily manipulated but I think it's a shame if we go down the road of blaming them. Similarly we can blame the premier league for allowing owners like this to take over clubs and there's a fair amount of blame to be laid at their door (things like leveraged buyouts should never have been allowed). The real targets need to be the owners though - whether the systems needed to be more robust, or the fans more critical and discerning about giving their support isn't irrelevant but is a distraction from stopping the super league from becoming a reality.

So here are my proposals for retaliation (possibly not legal though) 1. Clubs to be expelled from domestic leagues and competitions when current TV deals expire. 2. Clubs that are participating in super league and domestic leagues (because of current TV deal) to start each season with -30 points. 3. Players and managers to be excluded from international football unless contract was signed prior to 19/04/2021. Once a new contract is signed or extended after this date the players and managers are excluded from international football and continue to be excluded for a period of two years after they re-sign for clubs not in super league. 4. Broadcasters/Streaming companies that show either highlights or live super league games to be denied bidding rights to new domestic and European broadcasting rights. I suspect this would probably struggle to get through the courts but does keep current broadcasters on side and won't penalise players who already have contracts signed up. Eventually the super league would be entirely separate from all other football and they can piss off. In terms of the premier league I would also immediately revoke voting rights for the big six.

Yeah, if it's a separate subscription then it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Obviously the fans of the respective clubs will subscribe but I doubt many others will, meanwhile it leaves UEFA free to go back to the old European competition formats which I would certainly be more interested in. Champions League is boring beyond belief when compared to the old European Cup. As many have said I also doubt the premier league will have the balls to kick out the big six although I hope they do. My ideal scenario is for this to happen and the big six effectively kicked out of football and anyone participating in the new super league banned from international football. Let them rot in their super league wasteland and make it akin to playing in China - there's money for sure but it's the end of your career. Course this will never happen because these big clubs have us over a barrel financially but much like Kevin Keagan I'd love it if it did happen.

How bad would we need to be to play badly in your eyes? We were awful - no shots on target, no attacking threat whatsoever and no idea of what to to do with the ball. It's the FA Cup semi final and to go out with a gutless performance like that is criminal.

Good one, did you make that up yourself or did your mum help?

Youth team will be pretty quick though.

With Balogun signing a new contract that probably means Eddie Nketieh will be off. Not really seen enough of him to judge but another one that would meet the criteria.

Well, of course I don't expect anything substantive to come of it but if they do end up getting a lot of negative comments and complaints then perhaps in future they'll rethink their approach next time similar happens. Let's face it there's absolutely no need to effectively stop you watching anything else on BBC except coverage of Phillip - that's exactly why you have a rolling 24 hour dedicated news channel. Suspending BBC4 is an absolute joke - what's the justification for it? By all means provide people the opportunity to watch tributes to Phil if that's what they want to do but they shouldn't be denying other people at the same time.

Seems the BBC is getting quite a few complaints about too much coverage of Phil dying and they've set up a page for you to quickly register your annoyance. https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/death-duke-of-edinburgh-tv-coverage/#/Notification if anyone cares to join the club.

I remember looking it up a few years ago and it's something like 10-14 days of official mourning. The terrestrial channels will be full of it and don't expect anything like football (or anything else remotely fun) to carry on as normal. It'll be like when Diana died times ten. Couple of good points though - least he croaked before he got to 100 so at least we don't have to put up with all the rubbish they had planned for next year, and thank fuck for Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and the plethora of satellite channels that at least gives us a choice of watching something besides tributes. I don't understand how he's not getting a state funeral though. I mean, what is the point of any Royal if we don't at least get a day off work when they marry or die?

These predictions baffle me as well but playing devils advocate and a bit of guesswork: Last summer and autumn were not what you'd call "normal". We still had social distancing, mask wearing, working from home etc so maybe they're working on the assumption that won't be the case and the virus will rip through the population much easier than last year. The vaccines probably won't stop infection for most people but will mitigate against the most serious effects (for most) so by the end of the year it could be the case that the majority of us will have had it. Obviously most won't really notice it but it does leave the unvaccinated and unlucky vaccinated in a more vulnerable position. Clearly mutant strains that are more vaccine resistant will make the situation worse. Another reason I can think for the doom and gloom is to keep up the pressure on people to take the vaccine - if they think everything is all OK they might not be quite so bothered. I'd expect to see another wave of articles on long COVID and the effects on younger people to start up again soon. They don't expect the vaccinations to be as effective or to last that long. They expect the South African and similar strains to become the dominant strain. As I say, it does seem strange that we're still getting dire predictions of another equally serious wave and the above is an attempt to guess at why that would be - not necessarily saying I agree with any of the points.

It's not bizarre at all. Even if he is the best midfield prospect in the Academy it doesn't mean he's good enough to cover the first team. All you have to go on is a bit of hype from an over active agent and some U23 reports - have you ever seen him play aside from a few YouTube clips? Every year we get the same old guff about our academy prospects and how they will make it in the first team and it rarely happens. Couple of years ago I remember getting grief for suggesting Valery wasn't all that - now everyone agrees. Last year it was how Smallbone would replace Hoijberg and even though he got injured I don't think anyone would seriously consider him in central midfield anymore. My point is that Jankewitz could be a decent player (I haven't seen him enough to make a judgement) but equally and more likely is that he won't be good enough - you're the one making a judgement on how good and capable he is without having anything substantial to back that up. Add in the fact that RH clearly doesn't think he's ready either and your judgement looks dodgy as fuck.