Whitey Grandad

Yes, I was impressed by his analysis and professionalism. Get him in as manager?

Played yesterday like a schoolboy in his first ever game of football. Just let the ball float past him for Perez’s goal at the far post. Might just as well not have been on the pitch.

Yep, I’m with you all along the way. I decided to wait a while before giving my thoughts on it. I’ve just skimmed through the match recording to try to make some sense of it all and here are some random observations. Højbjerg is a lumbering carthorse who is playing in the wrong league for the wrong team. Too slow of movement or thought and too easily dispossessed. The weather was atrocious and Leicester did well to win the toss and choose ends. Both teams were making silly mistakes and poor passes but Leicester were just quicker to react and get moving again. For the first goal why the hell were we trying to pass the ball all the way back to our defence? It only put Bertrand under pressure. Ralph mentioned it in his post match interview. For the red card I think that TV mad it look worse than it actually was. At the time it just looked like an unfortunate collision in very bad playing conditions. Neither the referee nor the linesman even thought that it was a a foul and none of the players were bothered by it. After Bertrand went off we had no full backs. Valery was just overwhelmed by it all and just lost his composure and might as well not have been on the pitch. Both flanks were wide open. And why did Valery take that ball off Ings’s feet only to make a tame shot straight at their keeper? Yoshida has the worst game that I’ve seen him play, and I’ve seen him have a lot of bad ones. Bednarek tried to outdo him in bad positioning. Vardy is very good at winning fouls. Danso actually did ok when he came on. Gunn couldn’t have done a lot about the goals. The shots were flying at him from unmarked players only a few yards out. His save for the first goal would have been brilliant if he had only pushed the shot into safety instead of palming it out to Chilwell. Redmond escapes any criticism from me. He never stopped running or trying and looked our most dangerous player. We stayed right to the end but I don’t blame those who wanted to get away. There were empty seats around us from regulars who didn’t fancy braving that weather. The support from the diehards was heartwarming and seemed even louder in a half-empty stadium. I’ve just looked at the table and our position is nowhere near irretrievable but turning that shower of lightweights around is not going to be easy. Ralph, time to earn your money.

Fair to say that it was the best that I’ve heard for a long time at St Mary’s. I think the ranks of empty seats must have helped the singing resonate around the stadium. Even the old git sat next to me was singing along, as was I.

I read that getting out of one of these emergency laybys is no joke either. There is no distance to pick up speed before rejoining.

A stupid idea that’s being forced through because somebody has a theory. Three years of disruption whilst they convert each individual stretch during which time there are no emergency laybys and no overhead signals. One breakdown or shunt and the whole area reaches gridlock. At the very least they should build the new laybys first. If you stop on a normal hard shoulder and remain in the car your life expectancy is Reported as anywhere between ten and thirty minutes so why would it be any less if you stop in the running lane of a smart motorway? There’s only a Red Cross on an overhead sign to protect you. The hard shoulder is not a normal running surface with all sorts of lumps and bumps and needs to be dug up and replaced. In any case I don’t believe that they will help congestion which in most cases is cause by queues at the junctions where traffic joins and leaves. They will not solve our problems.

Clueless. We shall have to get used to calling you 'Clueless Wes'. There is nobody in the Civil Service who has ever negotiated a trade agreement. You were warned but you wouldn't listen. Are you sure you were competent to vote?

It was disallowed because it was offside.

And yet we beat Sheffield United on their own ground.

Agreed, and your point about the whistle is absolute. Once blown the game stops.

But if we left the EU this movement to Europe will turn into a flood.

The assistants have been instructed not to flag for offsides if the decision is marginal but to let the game continue and see what the outcome is. This is understandable but I don’t think it helps the flow of the game.

He was the manager’s choice and the club backed his ‘judgment’.

The Wolves one looked even worse to me. Hung his leg out and ran into Hójbjerg? Trying to win himself a penalty.

Yes, even under the old interpretations of it.

Never a foul. Original was touched but nowhere near enough to bring him down. He felt the contact and threw himself to the ground.

But for those concerned with workers' rights and the environment the EU provides a welcome safeguard against those who would exploit them.

Then we differ in our readings. 'Competition' and 'unfair advantages' could just as easily refer to artifically low wages or extreme working conditions or looser environmental restritions as to a different tariff regime. So I don't agree that it is 'pretty obvious what it means'. It could just as easily refer to government support for individual industrial sectors.

No trade deal can ever make you more or less competitive. All we are usually talking about is a few percentage points on a tariff anyway and these are more than offset by swings in the exchange rate. I read it as being more concerned with employment and product standards. The EU as a whole has far more clout than the UK anyway.

I was told that it couldn’t be there because it was reclaimed land. I never found out why this should be the case.

You've been reading 'Statistics for Dummies' again. These percentages are meaningless in isolation. Of the 11% who export to the Eu how much of their activity involves companies who don't? Of the 89% who don't, how much of their activity involves purchaes from the EU? And again, just quoting a percentage of companies doesn't reflect the size of those companies nor the number of people that they support, either dirctly or indirectly. What makes you think that any comnpany can become 'more competitive on the global stage' just because it is no longer operating within the ecosphere of the Single Market? What would they be able to do in the future that they can't do now?

May 2016, do you mean?

Good, glad we cleared that up Does it matter if it is front page or not? All that matters is getting the right result.

No, just getting out for the sake of it is the worst decision you could possibly make. Whatever your views we must agree a trading relationship with the EU eventually but in the meantime our country's livelihoods will be haemorrhaging away. Getting out of the EU will not be the end of Brexit, just the beginning.

(From 24th June 2016)