revolution saint

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.

Interesting to note you ducked the question about what makes you think Jankewitz is capable because at the moment he's not even fourth choice central midfielder - Armstrong is. Basically what you're saying is that we can only afford one injury or loss of form at any one time in those central midfield positions. Somebody mentioned the centre back positions and yet all four of the centre backs have played a decent amount this season (Stephens less so but still substantially more than Jankewitz). If you want to rely on the fitness and form of Romeu, JWP and Diallo for an entire season then fine but I'd rather not. Anyway, as I mentioned before, this about whether Jankewitz can be considered decent cover and so far there's no evidence to suggest he can - you may as well mention any midfielder in the academy.

Actually it's not. Jankewitz is unproven and the fact he hasn't had more than about two minutes in the first team doesn't suggest he is ready for anything more than the bench at the moment. If Diallo or JWP gets injured in the next game then RH is more likely to use Armstrong in the centre instead of Jankewitz. What makes you think he is capable?

Interesting article. At least part of the problem (the enablers in that article) are big corporations who just want to sell something but do it under the guise of selling you a lifestyle and set of values. They're trying to capture the zeitgeist, or at least appear as if that's what they're doing, when actually they just want you to buy shit. I just wish they'd stick to something more obvious instead of trying to convince everyone they're really caring, sharing, inclusive money grabbing multi-nationals.

I agree. I used to watch Channel 4 news - clearly a bit lefty but generally pretty reasonable and mostly balanced but a few years ago it seemed to forget all about being unbiased. Newsnight can be the same at times and CNN is as bad as FOX is. I quite like the report that's just been published if only because it challenges the perception of institutional racism and means that people can start debating it without being labelled racist. It's the kind of thing we need more of because without it we'll see a whole load of proper right wing populists gaining broad support.

I started feeling a bit rough around 12 hours after having the jab and that lasted for another 24 hours. Nothing really serious though - bit like a mild hangover and didn't stop me working. Anecdotally seems like women and younger people are more prone to side effects but it's still a bit of a lottery. From what I've read the side effects aren't thought to have any indication as to whether you would get COVID worse or on the protection you get from the vaccine.

Suspect they'll try and do some sort of thank you gesture for NHS frontline workers in the area.

Girl in our office has just booked in for Sunday - she turned 40 last August and knows a few other 40 year olds that are booked up as well. Would be interested to see the number of vaccinations by age group % because anecdotally it appears that the 40 - 49 age group will already have a lot of vaccinations by the end of the month. Surely all the 50+ people must be all done now (ones who are going to take it anyway).