Sheaf Saint

I was never really a fan of most of the indie bands already mentioned in the 90s. I was a fully signed up member of the rave revolution in the early 90s and got into DJing, so pretty much all of my music budget in the 90s was spent on dance vinyl. When I did buy albums on CD it was from the likes of Orbital, Chemical Bros, Prodigy etc.. but I also liked the Bristol trip hop sound so got into Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Lamb etc... I liked the first couple of albums from Jamiroquai, but he disappeared up his own arse when he got really famous and everything after Space Cowboy was shite.

Went to a festival in Lisbon in 2012 and was extremely happy to discover Morcheeba had been drafted in as a last minute replacement for headliners Florence and the Machine, who had to pull out because Flo had a throat infection.

Out with a muscle injury.

How the hell was this nearly 3 years ago!!!??? 😳

If he takes it, I wonder if this will be the first time a manager's first game at a new club is against the same team that he only just got sacked from another club for losing to in his last game? And if they win, how pissed would you be as a Villa fan if he could beat us with Norwich but not with them!

Lampard has ruled himself out of the Norwich job then. Could he be on his way to Rangers to replace Stevie G?

Doesn't look like it, according to this hilariously biased article in the Liverpool Echo (the same publication that was spreading the false rumours about him refusing to train). https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/everton-southampton-thierry-small-transfer-21792529 They want £5m, we've offered £1.5m, and we seem happy to let it go to tribunal.

Worth noting that Small is already listed in the first team squad on the OS, rather than the B team. He'll be in the Matchday 20 sooner rather than later.

Jeff Johnson. The name you know.

It's not out of the question I guess, but it would have to be an eye-watering offer we couldn't refuse for us to sell after one year. Man U paid us £30m for Luke Shaw when he was about the same age, and IMO Tino is a more complete player already than Shaw was at that point.

Without checking, I'm guessing that's when Villa play Liverpool, yeah? Christ, I really don't want to listen to Carragher on Sky when that happens. Think I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon.

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.