Sheaf Saint

This reminds me of the time Gazza got sacked as manager of Rushden and Diamonds but refused to accept it and vowed to turn up at work the following Monday anyway.

I've often wondered, if VAR refs can tell the on-field ref to award a penalty, then surely they should also be able to instruct refs to book players for diving as well.

Edit. Double post. Oh shite! Macca!

Better from us in the last few minutes. Have Arsenal burned themselves out early trying to play us at our own game?

Hang on... How did we not get a corner for that?

Commentator: ”Not sure that's really worth a yellow" Fuck off. That tackle was later than an important decision from Boris Johnson!

How about 4? 😔

They've shown more replays of Lacazette's miss than of our goal so far 🤨

Pompey down to 10 men at home to Lincoln.

I think we've got our wires crossed a bit here. You're referring to the symptoms of the virus, which can feel like a bad flu to most people that get it. In that sense you are absolutely correct. The point I was making was about the overall impact of the pandemic. Many people arguing against lockdowns etc. (and I'm using my own brother as a reference point here, who has fallen head first down the hoax/anti-vax/Bill Gates conspiracy theory rabbit hole and cannot be reasoned with) are focussed solely on the death rates, saying it is no worse than a bad flu season and they would prefer to take their chances because they will most likely survive with no long term effects. But this is incredibly selfish thinking, because it ignores the bigger issue which is the ten-fold increase in the number of hospitalisations and the immense strain this is putting on the NHS.

Agreed.

Total number of NHS hospital admissions with flu 2017/18 season: 46,215 Total number of NHS hospital admissions with flu 2018/19 season: 39,670 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7526100/ Total number of hospital admissions with Covid (cumulative) as of Monday 25th Jan: 371,089 (gov.uk). That's almost ten times the amount of hospital admissions since the start of the pandemic (less than a year ago) than in the entire 2018/19 flu season. And that is taking into account all of the lockdown and social distancing restrictions. Imagine how much worse it would be without them. It isn't, and never was, all about the death rate. It's about the number of hospitalisations and the excessive strain on the NHS. This is why it is completely idiotic to argue that it's no worse than a bad flu season.

Exactly, and that is why it's so hard to debate with the "sceptics" who are so fixated solely on the death rate and claiming it's no worse than a particularly bad winter flu. We're still learning about the long term effects, but some of the individual cases I have read about are horrendous. Many people who survive hospitalisation are left with permanent lung damage, chronic fatigue, and all sorts of other conditions which will have a devastating impact on their quality of life.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/18/almost-30-of-covid-patients-in-england-re-admitted-to-hospital-after-discharge-study FYI Edit: I say "published", but it's still actually at peer review stage. Nevertheless, it's very interesting and concerning.

This 'strategy' has turned out to be a monumental failure, given that we have suffered both the worst death rate in the world, and the biggest economic impact in Europe as well.

Taken out of context or not, it was still an outrageously stupid thing for him to be saying on national TV, as the "take it on the chin" option should never have been in the room, let alone on the table. In the same interview, he described cancelling public events and closing schools as "quite draconian". He was completely wrong about that as well, as they were obviously necessary measures that he didn't even want to consider taking at the time.

On the flip side of that though, some research was published last week which shows that nearly a third of people who are hospitalised with Covid and then released are re-admitted within 5 months, with over 12 percent of them subsequently dying. These people are not included in the statistics because they did not die within 28 days of a positive test.

And going on This Morning and saying he wanted to let it spread through the population naturally, and standing up in front of a business leaders' conference and proclaiming himself to be the "Superman of Capitalism" by refusing to implement the necessary restrictions. There may be multiple factors that have lead us to where we are, but having a criminally corrupt and incompetent government in Westminster is by far the single most critical one.

Wycombe doing quite well to hold Spurs so far, though been a bit lucky with the crossbar coming to their rescue a couple of times. Former Saints academy lad Jason McCarthy one of their stand out players.

I think it's more your assumption that it's the same people each time.

And yet only very recently you were cheerfully crowing that one of the best things about Brexit was pissing off the remainers.

Yes, but he's already played for England at U17 and U19, and he wants to wait and see what his future chances are before committing himself.

Absolutely mental seeing him on telly playing in the FA Cup. I bought him his first skills ball as a Xmas present when he was 7! Thought he did pretty well. Looked calm and composed, always made himself available to receive a pass, and put in a really good tackle towards the end. In case anyone is wondering, his mum is my sister-in-law, and his dad is from Kenya.