Sheaf Saint

One of the key prerequisites of good discourse is to ask probing questions to fully understand the arguments being put forward by the other side. Repeatedly refusing to answer those questions and posting idiotic memes tarring everyone who disagrees with you with the same brush and suggesting they are all just deliberately misunderstanding is infinitely more obstructive to that.

Because none of us were in possession of all the facts until after the EFL ruling. Once you read through their findings and the evidence submitted, and how the club had initially lied about it and tried to laugh it off, the inevitability of the expulsion became obvious. At least to me it did.

And yet Brexit happened because the cheerleaders for it successfully appealed to that sense of national pride among voters in 2016. I would argue that is a much greater factor in why Britain is where it is now.

And pride comes before a fall.

Fair comments. Often when this discussion has arisen in the past, my observation is that many of the people who express pride about the good bits of British history tend to wash their hands of the negative stuff and refute any connection. The way I see it, you can't have it both ways. I'm not dismissing history though, by any means. I fully acknowledge the labours and the sacrifices of so many, including my own ancestors. My great grandfather was killed in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942, and his brother was KIA somewhere in Belgium during WW1, when millions of young men were sent to their deaths in the name of 'national pride' (largely just to satisfy the egos of the ruling classes of the time). But I can't bring myself to feel pride about things that I have no control over or happened before I was born. Pride is something I reserve only for my own achievements or those of my daughter.

This is why the novelty of the show has completely worn off for me (along with the overly contrived hoops the contestants are forced to jump through and the overly dramatic music). Everyone seems utterly convinced that they know how to spot a liar, and are constantly mistaking odd mannerisms with suspicious behaviour, only to act completely gobsmacked when they are proven to have got it spectacularly wrong and the person they were so sure is faithful turns out to be a traitor. The celebrity version is even worse for this because they're all so far up each other's arses with that showbiz luvvieness. Last year Alan Carr might as well have been walking around with "I'M A TRAITOR" tattooed on his forehead, but they were all so unwilling to believe it that they couldn't see the wood for the trees. It was fucking ridiculous.

This is something I've heard many times over the years - that people should feel pride over the positive historical achievements of other people who just happened to be born within the same arbitrarily defined geographical area. You are entitled to feel that pride, of course. But by the same token, do you also feel embarrassment and shame over the many atrocities that have been carried out in the name of the King/Queen in the past?

Get your votes in for Welington... https://www.efl.com/news/2026/october/09/cast-your-vote-for-september-s-sky-bet-goal-of-the-month/

It's almost as if the need to pigeon-hole people into neatly defined nationalities is just a pointless absurdity that has been weaponised by bigoted, intolerant people to make a political point. I have a cousin whose father is German. He was born in England but was moved to Germany by my aunt and her husband when he was three, where he grew up and went to school before returning to the UK to go to university. So does that make him... a) English b) German c) Both d) Neither or e) IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

Glorious.

It's the "I'll live and die by the sword" comment that really sticks out for me. He's obviously not learned a single thing from his experience with us and Rangers, and is still utterly convinced by his own delusion that there is nothing wrong with his rigid philosophy. He'll be sacked before the year is out, having completely lost the plot and scapegoated the entire squad and fan base, get a huge payoff and take a long sabbatical where he will utterly fail to reflect on his own inadequacies, then rock up at another big fish in a small pond club next summer to rinse and repeat.

Well he's going to get plenty of game time for us if the injury Larin picked up in training with Canada is even remotely serious. So maybe a full 90 mins for England U21s will do him some good and help him gain some match sharpness.

But what makes you so certain MB isn't passing on what he's been told in good faith? Just because the info correlates with what has already been rumoured doesn't prove he's just making it up, so why do you have to be such a cunt to him about it? Why can't you just ignore him if you don't believe it's legit? It's no wonder many of the previous ITK posters don't bother anymore if they're just gonna get abused for it.

I don't think they can charge an entire club with that, just individuals. I could be wrong though.

Yep. The old 'chuck a grenade and run' tactic.