Sheaf Saint

Only Chelsea, City and Liverpool have conceded fewer than us in the PL this season. That's a quite astonishing turnaround from the calamity defending we saw at times last season.

Ok you've made your position clear and I get it. The question really is whether or not there should be minimum standards in place to which MPs should be held and either removed from office or prevented from standing again if they fail to meet those standards. You don't believe there should, and I do. So let's just agree to disagree and move on.

They are pretty much the same age so would have played together at various stages throughout their time at the academy. Mills was only promoted to the U23s towards the end of last season, by which time Tyler was already injured, but they both played in the 3-2 win against City U23s on Saturday. https://www.footballinsider247.com/he-lives-with-my-son-exclusive-mills-verdict-on-everton-starlet-thierry-small/

I'm not confusing my own argument, I'm just asking you a question which you have answered quite plainly. I think you and Ducky need to have a read of the Nolan principles... It's there in black and white on the government's own website. Being democratically elected does not exempt anyone from being held to these standards. And by my reckoning, Cox's actions are in breach of at least 4 of them.

OK point taken, but let me ask you this... Imagine a scenario where your MP gets elected and proceeds to absolutely take the piss, barely ever turn up to debates/votes, never shows his face in his constituency and generally does nothing to earn his MP's salary. Are you telling me you're happy that there is no system in place to stop that from happening 'because democracy'?

His subsequent post above would appear to have removed any doubt there 🙄

You might want to go and change your trousers then. He may be a frustrating player from an attacking perspective, but only a moron who doesn't understand the basics of football would try and argue that he doesn't work hard defensively.

Livramento might end up going for something near that if he continues to develop into the player we all think/hope he is. Salisu still needs to cut out the sloppiness in his game before he could be considered a target for a CL club. KWP is great for us but is not good enough (and prob never will be) to be first choice RB for a top 4 club. So while we may get good fees for them when they leave, they're still not in the same bracket as the kind of players we were selling to Liverpool and Man U in 2014.

Eventually, yes. But they are far from the finished article yet. The point is that we don't have a squad full of players that are coveted by bigger clubs, like we did in 2014-16.

I really don't think there is any fair comparison to be made between the two, for numerous reasons. 1. The club was in a much more stable financial position then, as this was before the Gao takeover. On top of that, we had all the money raised from the sales of Lallana, Shaw, Lovren, Lambert and Chambers. Koeman spent £86m in his first season alone. Ralph has never had anything like that kind of budget. 2. The squad Koeman inherited was much better than what Ralph had to work with when he arrived, and already included Fonte, Clyne, Schneiderlin and Wanyama, all of whom went on to be sold for big fees and/or play for CL clubs. He also had Bertrand at his peak and Steven Davis, both of whom were excellent for us during Koeman's tenure. He only needed a few additions to replace the leaving players. Thanks to some piss poor recruitment from Reed and Wilson in between, Ralph inherited a squad that included Carillo, Hoedt, Lemina, Boufal, Clasie and Austin, most of whom we couldn't even give away thus completely hindering our ability to bring in new players. The only really decent players in that squad when he arrived were Ings, Romeu, Hojbjerg, and an already declining Bertrand. Some though, like JWP, Stu and Stephens have gone on to show a big improvement under his management. The whole identity of the club now is nothing like what it was in 2014 when we signed Koeman. We don't realistically have any players (bar perhaps JWP) that we could sell to the likes of Liverpool for ridiculous fees. We operate on completely different budget constraints and we're only now beginning to see an improvement having finally undone the damage caused by the disastrous recruitment from 2016-2018. So while there may be a handful of managers out there who might be able to extract better from the group of players we have, it would be far too risky (an un-necessary) at this point to let him go and try and find one, lest we end up with another Pellegrino.

Indeed. Won't be long before we see Thierry Small in the match day squad I reckon. Looks like he's getting up to full fitness now. His run from deep for goal number 4 was a gut-buster.

He could just have this...

And I'm struggling with the lack of respect many MPs show to their constituents. I of course recognise people's rights to choose but there has to be some boundaries; some lines over which MPs should not be allowed to cross if they want to continue to serve, because they are public servants and if they're drawing a salary but not actually SERVing then that's surely a bigger problem with our democratic process. I work in the public sector, and if my bosses found out I was shirking my duties and spending a large chunk of my work time doing private contract work instead, I would, quite rightly, be sacked and prevented from re-applying for the role. Why should it be any different for MPs? If anything they should be held to an even higher standard than the rest of us, because as legislators and law makers they are responsible for shaping the moral values of the country they serve and should be leading by example.

And if they vote him back in, despite the publicity surrounding his aversion to doing any actual representing, they will be absolute mugs. Why would anyone in their right mind vote for someone who has shown he would rather be engaging in corporate lobbying for his own benefit than bothering to represent the plebs that returned him to parliament? The sad fact is, they probably will. And that's one of the serious flaws with our parliamentary system. If MPs consider their salary so low that they need to supplement their income that's fine, but there absolutely should be rules about minimum attendance and engagement with constituents to stop them taking the piss. I thought you of all people would be against public servants scamming the taxpayer by drawing a salary from the public purse but not doing the required level of work to earn it.

Do you think Geoffrey Cox told his constituents that he would be spending most of his time working as a lawyer during his election campaign then?

Or maybe the idea is just so laughable he doesn't feel the need to waste his time doing that.

Pretty obvious the idea is that, having shown themselves unfit to act as MP, they would be barred from standing in the by-election and their party would be forced to select another candidate.

The fact that the author of this article chooses to remain anonymous should tell you all you need to know about its credibility. It's a load of speculative, conspiracist horseshit that displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how Covid vaccines work. What on earth has any of this got to do with people getting a nasty cold? (clue... nothing).

Don't forget as well the move that led to the FK for Ché's header chance. Arma would have been clean through for a shot if he hadn't been cynically taken out because, let's face it, concrete boots Targett wasn't going to catch him.

I think he'll have to wait for his chance because the JB/MS partnership is doing the biz at the moment with 3 clean sheets in our last 4. With Lyanco showing his worth recently as well, isn't it great to have genuine competition for places at the back now.

Everything is for sale if the price is right. But we're probably the only PL club with an owner who is actively trying to sell up.

What did he say?

They might have been, but Brentford are dropping like a stone and had lost their last 3 games going into this one. Their defending for Norwich's first goal was pathetic, and I doubt even Bednarek would be stupid enough to attempt the tackle that led to the penalty for their second. Norwich may have got the first win monkey off their backs, and might have a new manager bounce going into our game in 2 weeks, but I've not seen anything from them that would suggest they are likely to trouble our defence or beat our press.

Unlikely...

I don't see how it can be anything other than that at this stage TBH. I find it extremely unlikely that any member of the Villa board would have already been gobbing off to the press about which other currently employed managers they might be interested in trying to tap up.