Sheaf Saint

The letter reads: “I write to you with urgency and with grave concern following today’s announcement from the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which concluded unequivocally that acts of genocide are being committed by Israel in Gaza. “This conclusion, grounded in international law and forensic evidence, finds that senior Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, have incited, directed, or facilitated genocidal acts. “The UK is a founding signatory of the Genocide Convention and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. These positions are not ceremonial. They come with binding legal and moral obligations. Your government must now act.” No mention of military action, let alone declaration of war. Like I said, a total non-story.

Fucking hell, you're tying yourself up in knots this morning. He literally said "Not sure the current deal works for Gaza".

Great. And at what point does it actually confirm what the headline says? Answer: it doesn't.

If you read the article, it's actually one of the most misleading headlines you'll ever see. It should read: "MP writes to foreign secretary to recommend some kind of action to prevent genocide in Gaza, and a few others support him". That's why we haven't heard anything more about it in the wider press, because it's a complete non-story. Unsurprising that Hypo would take the headline at face value though.

One of Aribo's great strengths has always been that he is hard to dispossess. If we're looking for someone to hold the ball up in the final third and bring others into play then JA is ideal for that role.

Looking likely that we will end up looking back at his time here and saying "Well, we'll always have Bramall Lane and that goal".

Wow. That's truly terrible. I already have my doubts about Still, but if he plays Downs in any capacity in the next game then he'll lose any credibility he might have IMO. This guy wouldn't get a game for any other Championship or even League One club.

There was one guy stood not far from me, and there's always a handful of these twats at every away game, who had obviously been on the marching powder and was trying to impress his mates he was stood with. He spent the last 15 mins of the game continuously shouting the most embarrassing shit aimed at Downs even when he was nowhere near the ball. It's just a good thing that he was so far back and up in the corner of the stand that there's no chance Downs himself could have heard it.

Apparently not. If only someone could have predicted this?

You have to wonder what Still sees in training to make him think it's a good idea to play him. I genuinely can't think of a more ineffective player I've ever seen in a Saints shirt. Today I saw him receive, control and pass the ball once. Once! Every other time the ball came near him he either missed it completely, got outmuscled, or just couldn't be bothered to run to get it. The one time I did see him try and sprint to get on the end of a throughball, he looked like he was wearing concrete boots. He's fucking hopeless.

Are you Dalek in disguise? 🤨

Meh. Not great. Obviously Stewart going off injured ruined our game plan, but that's no excuse. We started well, attacked at pace and scored a good goal, but then just backed off and barely got out of our own half for the next 20 mins. Manning is so brainless. Yes it was an incorrect call from the lino, but if he'd just focused on his actual job rather than pointlessly arguing about it then they don't score. Such an idiot. I really have my doubts about Still. Two months into the season and we still look like a disjointed mess. There's no discernible tactics or patterns of play, so we just resort to the same old aimless passing around the back or just stopping and checking back when we do get into forward positions. And I have to question the sanity of anyone who thinks it's a good idea to put Damion Downs on the pitch. I'm Honestly struggling to think of a worse player I've ever seen in a Saints shirt. He's just hopeless. Derby were poor. Very little quality about them at all and will be in a relegation scrap this season, so we should have beaten them comfortably with the squad we have. Very disappointing to drop points there today. But at least I'm drier than last time I was here, and didn't have to endure seeing hundreds of Derby fans run on to the pitch to goad us at the end, so that's a positive.

This is what I can't understand. We started really well, attacked at pace and scored a good goal, and then just sat back and invited them onto us. All very well trying to protect a lead, but not with 85 minutes still to play FFS. Now that Stewart has gone off, I just can't work out who's supposed to be playing where. There's no obvious shape, especially on the right where we've got Edwards sometimes at RCB and sometimes at RB, Wee man playing a sort of wing back role but not, and Fellows seemingly not knowing whether he's supposed to be playing as a winger or a striker.

No point dwelling on that. He got it wrong, but was never going to change his mind. If Manning was actually doing his fucking job rather than pointlessly arguing with the lino, we'd still be in the lead. It's not the first time he's just switched off today either. Just utterly brainless from him again. Stupid prick.

Three. Quarshie, Jander and Scienza

I put that down to the personnel rather than the formation itself. We've changed the CBs since then, but I'm not convinced any of our FB options are good enough defensively to play a four.

Only three of our summer signings starting. So much for having a complete refresh of the squad.

Very wet and windy up north today. Gonna be horrible conditions on the pitch. In previous times I would suggest that might work against us as it would hamper our passing game. But our passing has been generally awful this season anyway, so it might just even things up a bit.

I remember at the time someone on here described him as 'an odious little man', and it's stuck with me ever since.

Wasn't it just. I remember turning to my mate and saying we had no hope of scoring and rescuing the game, and then up popped Rasiak and absolute carnage broke loose in the stand. One of those very special moments that make following Saints totally worth all the pain.

Ok I take your point, but your original post was badly worded at best. It came across like someone who doesn't have even the slightest understanding of public finances expecting what they want money to be spent on take higher priority than anything else, and it surprised me because I know you're not that dim. The general point I made, and on which I think we are probably in agreement, is that some people are slipping through the security net because current resources don't allow for the level of monitoring that could have prevented yesterday's horrific event. The fact that this attacker was already on police bail and whose father has openly expressed some heinous views is surely testament to that.

Acknowledged. But the same can be said of literally every public service in the UK (or any other country, for that matter). Some people think the NHS should have more money to protect the lives of British citizens. Others argue that the armed forces need more to do the same. We simply can't afford it all, so it's a balancing act that weighs up the amount of investment against the overall benefit to the country. Your post said: "If we need more funding and resources concentrated on rooting out Islamist extremism which takes up the majority of existing resources then that should happen immediately". What's that if not an over simplistic demand for more funding?

Every provider of public services will tell you that they don't have enough funding and resources to do everything they want to do. And the police and security services are no exception. You seemed horrified at the idea that counter-terrorism policing isn't fully funded, and insist that it absolutely should be. Well of course, in an ideal world it should be, but we don't live in an ideal world and you know that full well. And even if it was fully funded, what implications would that have for our society? Would other services need to be cut or abolished completely to pay for it? Would it mean that we live in a totalitarian state where everybody's movements are recorded and monitored in minute detail? Like I said - just demanding that it be fully funded is a ridiculous over-simplification of what is in reality a very complex problem. That's what populists like Farage and Trump offer, because they know it's exactly what people of low intelligence want to hear, and because they also know they never actually have to be held to account for failing to follow through on such promises.

How much funding does it need? A million pounds a year? A billion? A trillion? What sort of manpower and infrastructure would it need? Whose budget would that come from? How would the funding be distributed spatially? What other services would you cut even further to make it affordable? You come across generally as an intelligent bloke, but on this you seem to be falling into the populist trap of expecting overly simplistic solutions to complex problems.