revolution saint

I think there's a danger that this "national conversation" can be counter-productive and that it actually entrenches opinions and doesn't change them. Let's be honest, it's perfectly reasonable to object to taking the knee on the grounds that it's a gesture that might not actually achieve anything without being called a racist but all too often that seems either the case or the perception that that's what's happening. It's the same with Trump supporters, Brexit supporters and anyone with views deemed to be on the right - they've been called racist, sexist, thick, stupid and general all round nutters for so long and all it's done is make them go into a shell. It doesn't change their minds and, if anything, it actually reinforces their opinions. I've been guilty of it myself with Brexit and Trump and it's really easy to do, makes you feel a bit superior and is ultimately self defeating. Personally I don't have much of a problem with taking the knee. It's no skin off my nose but I can see why people object to it and I can see their frustrations when an objection is perceived to be an admission of, or condoning, racism. It isn't. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that recently we seem to be bombarded with all these accusations that we're all closet racists, that even unintentional things can be deemed racist (people of colour vs coloured people for an example). Naturally people are going to be a bit defensive when they sincerely believe that it isn't their intention to offend. Dunno what the solution is but getting a bit hysterical on either side of the debate isn't going to solve anything.

Phil Boyer was top scorer in the old division one in 79/80 - no one ever talks about him either. I'm too young to remember him but seems strange that a player who was the top scorer in the top division for a club like us isn't talked about much either.

All about context though innit? I doubt Tella has anywhere near enough games to have a comparable dataset, most of his appearances were as sub and from recollection not all of them were as a central striker. Sorloth played out wide in his last season for RB Leipzig so you should really only be using his season in the Turkish league as comparison. Armstrong plays for a struggling side in the championship, Tammy Abraham played for a Villa side in 18/19 that got promoted from the Championship so, again, there's mitigating factors.

Having seen the Greek fella on YouTube I didn’t think he looked that great. No guarantee of anything and it’s a subjective opinion but whilst we need to be careful how we spend money we shouldn’t be spending it on players just because they’re affordable. In any case it looks more to me like a club and/or agent trying to manufacture a move rather than any interest on our part. I reckon we’ll get Armstrong but at a price that’s more to our liking.

Don’t really have a problem with looking at players in the sub 20M category, there’s probably a few bargains around and I think the risk of failure is just as great as if you were spending 25-30M. Look at Timo Werner shocking value for what they paid but I bet no one really thought it a risk when he signed. I’m not even convinced Tammy Abraham would be that good (leaving aside the fact that it’ll never happen anyway). Basically I’m saying any signing is going to be a risk (obvious) but that risk in my opinion isn’t drastically reduced by spending what for us is a big fee.

5 goals in 34 appearances for RB Leipzig. Not sure how many of them were sub appearances though.

Isn’t the French league where all the bargains are to be had? Any football geek out there know of anyone realistic and decent?

To all those people saying Adam Armstrong is unproven in the premier league, that’s simply not true. He’s played 15 times and not scored. To be fair he was young and they were probably sub appearances. Have to say I’m not that convinced by Edouard either. Origi? Got my reservations about him but he’s got something if he can find a bit of consistency. All the names have a few question marks and will be a gamble but that’s the market we’re in. Club have had plenty of time to identify who they want so just got to hope they get it right.

Just asked a girl in our office about Armstrong as her boyfriend is a Blackburn fan and she’s seen him a fair bit. She rates him but thinks he might be a bit slow for the premier league. She wouldn’t swap him for Obafemi. Funnily enough I thought he looked fairly pacy on The YouTube but who knows? She had no stats to back up her opinion which is fairly pathetic in this day and age.

This is interesting - you mention the Man U game and all the difficulties we faced but would basic stats for players for that game echo those things? Probably not. You could be making judgements on those stats without taking into account those mitigating factors that you've mentioned and herein lies the problem with being overly reliant on statistics. Don't get me wrong - they're a decent tool but to make them relevant you need to build a model so complex that it would become very difficult for the layman to understand how to interpret and use it. You would hope that the professionals in the game do this but an average fan reading a book or taking things off a website is in danger of reading too much into them. There's also the question of where human interpretation enters into the model - who gets to decide what is a goal scoring opportunity, what is a pass under pressure, what is a successful pass (is it successful if it reaches the intended target but doesn't give the receiving player any time to do anything with the ball). The model needs to take into account the opposition and also the other players on your side - who gets to decide how tough the opposition is and how? All these systems do is try to replicate what a decent scout would tell you and try to automate how they come to these judgements and ensure there's some consistency but because there's so many variables it's virtually impossible to get that consistency. Anyway, these stats are great, they're interesting and can provide a bit more insight into players and performance but they're not sacrosanct and they're not infallible.

Well this really isn't in Roswell/Kennedy assassination/COVID vaccine/QANON level conspiracy theory is it? All people are doing is speculating that JWP could be off and that missing the last two games could be linked. No one really knows - could be a coincidence or there might be legs in it but I think calling it a conspiracy theory is a bit OTT. Let's be honest, when a player misses pre-season games after a bid has been made it does tend to lead to a departure at least some of the time. The fact the club have dismissed the bid doesn't really make much difference - they've dismissed bids before only to sell. Tell you what, give me a precedent where we've said a first team regular isn't for sale and haven't caved in and sold eventually. Only one I can think of in recent years is Schneiderlin and even then it was only on the promise he could go the next year. So yeah, I wouldn't be convinced whatever the club said until the end of the transfer window SLAMS shut because there's been plenty more examples of us saying a player ISN'T for sale and then selling him than ones where they've stayed.

I don't think JWP is worth 50M but then I don't think Ben White is worth that and I don't think Grealish is worth 100M either so given his length of contract, age, nationality, injury record (or lack of one) and the number of points he'll contribute via set pieces then it's probably fair to at least ask for something around the 50M mark. I'll probably take some stick but I wouldn't really be that fussed if he does go. Not saying he isn't a decent player but I've never been completely convinced by him - should really be scoring more goals from open play and has a tendency to get into a comfort zone where a lot of passes are backwards and sideways. Granted a lot of that is down to the manager and he's got better at being more progressive the last few seasons. Just my opinion - I'd rather not be bombarded with stats telling me otherwise. He is one of the best (probably the best) free kick takers around in the prem so I'll give him that. I really rate Maitland-Niles - get him in as a replacement and still have cash left over for other areas and it wouldn't be the worst bit of business we could do (IMO). Maitland-Niles could also do a very good job as cover in the full back positions if needed.

The North of England, or specifically Northerners. From their whinging, whining and generally irritating accents to the constant chip on their shoulder, I can't stand them. Always banging on about how good the North is when everyone knows it's a slum and the slagheap of England. I'll also chuck in their belief in the exceptionalism of their various regions such as Liverpool and Yorkshire. That famous scouse wit? Stan Boardman, Jimmy Tarbuck, Freddie Starr and John Bishop? Do me a favour. As for Yorkshire - another jumped up little wasteland populated by muppets who seem to think that everything they do is unique to them. "In Yorkshire when we say, that'll do we mean that'll more than do". Everyone does that you twat and. no, I don't want your filthy northern broadband. I used to think Andy Burnham was alright. Since his election to Manchester Mayor he's started to get right on my tits. Oh, and whilst I'm on the subject - anyone interviewed on TV who says people in that there London don't understand us. It's because you've only got three teeth and even fewer brain cells. Fuck 'em.

They did a bit on the "More or Less" podcast with a bloke asking the same question about Oxford. One of the reasons why is that students register with a Southampton GP and forget to tell them they've gone home. I would suspect that Southampton probably has a below average age demographic compared to the national average so you'd expect vaccination % to be lower on that count too. If you look at most cities they tend to be lagging behind the national average.

Problem with this argument is that masks primarily stop you infecting others. So wearing a mask yourself doesn’t directly help you if you’re hesitant and nervous about public transport. I’m not one of those people but simply saying you can still wear a mask doesn’t ease their fears.

Trouble is, off the top of my head, they've got Reiss Nelson, Joe Willock, Balogun, Eddie Nketieh (sp?) and even Smith-Rowe all playing that forward type role and all needing to be playing at this stage of their career. They've probably got a couple of others knocking on the first team door.

Well done, Greece and Portugal out of how many tournaments? My point is that being overly defensive isn’t generally going to get you any more success than being more attack minded. Sometimes it does but mostly it doesn’t.

What complete and utter pony. If being boring and defensive wins you tournaments then we would have won far more of them. This isn’t the first time we’ve been defensive. Germany didn’t win the World Cup in ‘90 by being defensive, Italy didn’t in’ ‘82, Brazil in ‘70, France in ‘98, Spain, etc etc. If you don’t create enough chances then you get beat by a team that does eventually. Sure you have to have a sound defensive base and a good balance but boring and defensive on it’s own isn’t enough.

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.