Sheaf Saint

Well I'm gonna buck the trend here and say I think we will do alright and finish comfortably mid-table. I know it all went to shit from January onwards, but people seem to forget that our form over the calendar year in 2020 was top four. That's no blip. The PL is an unforgiving league so you can't fluke a run like that. IMO the reason it all went so horribly wrong is because Ralph's system requires high intensity, that we were just incapable of sustaining due to the horrendous injury crisis and the condensed season, meaning we couldn't rotate and what fit players we had were being forced to play for 90 minutes twice a week without a break. It's no wonder our second half performances dropped off so much. Yes we've lost Ings' goals, and that is a big miss of course. But Che has improved a lot from this time last year, and he and Arma already look like they are forming a decent partnership and between them I reckon they will easily score 20+ this year. Now that Salisu has settled he already looks better than JV ever was, with Lyanco taking his place from last season as the unproven backup CB. Perraud looks to be at least as good as Bertrand was in his last couple of seasons, if not better, and we have decent cover at FB now, where we had none last season at all. So our starting 11 looks only marginally weaker than the one that briefly topped the table last Autumn, and we have much better depth now to absorb any injuries we may suffer. With the season less condensed, and having our recovery facilities available to us again, injured players won't miss as many games as they did/would have done last season either. So, despite the obvious weaknesses we have, I'm actually fairly confident we'll do OK, and I'm going to predict we'll finish somewhere between 9th-12th. And, yes, if we end up really struggling then please feel free to stuff this post back down my throat any time you wish.

Oh goody. Yet another thread gets derailed by Turkish's crusade against wokeism. Woo-hoo!

But that's precisely my point. With the number of chances we concede due to our comedy defending, we need a better keeper behind them otherwise we are taking a massive risk. Signing one defender may or may not improve the overall defence and reduce the number of shots on target, but signing a better keeper would instantly reduce the number of goals we concede.

In which case, assuming that Macca and Forster will be good enough to ensure we stay up this season is a massive gamble.

So what are you suggesting - that because the players didn't hear it and no mics picked it up, it obviously didn't happen? In a noisy stadium filled with tens of thousands of people, when you're concentrating on the task at hand (to win an important qualifying match), can you honestly say you would be able to single out certain noises coming from a particular section of the crowd? And even if you could, do you genuinely not think the players will have been instructed, as part of their media training, to say they didn't hear it and not comment on it? Honestly - the lengths certain people here will go to in order to deny a problem exists is so depressing.

Remixed a few years ago by a friend of mine...

I've not bothered to un-mute Turkish to read his posts, but is he genuinely trying to argue that the Hungarian fans in that photo are just mis-understood? 😂😂😂

It's both hilarious and tragic that these morons consider themselves to be genetically superior to Sterling.

I've only just tuned into the game, but given the timing of this post, and the political status of Hungary, I think I can guess what you are alluding to.

Agreed. However, I don't think it qualifies as a car that has aged badly, because it was shite from the moment if first rolled off the production line.

The fact you remember that after 20 years just demonstrates the insidious power of advertising.

Yeah probably. Too good to be sacked, but not good enough to be poached. Interestingly, his PL win ratio is only bettered by Koeman, Pochettino, Hoddle and, bizarrely, Paul Sturrock (I had almost completely forgotten about him). He has a better win ratio than WGS, who the vast majority of fans look at as one of our most successful managers.

I can't see if this has already been posted or not, but some time last month Ralph surpassed Ian Branfoot to become our longest serving manager in the PL era, and 6th longest in the post-war era. If he's still here next summer, he'll become the first Saints manager to complete 3 full seasons since Chris Nicholl. He must be doing something right.

Yeah OK, perhaps "ridiculous" is a little extreme. The interiors though... I had one of these as a company car in about 2001/2002, and the dash was just an ill-thought out, cobbled together mess even back then. And the saloon version they made as an afterthought always looked terrible. The shape didn't work because the back end looked like it was just bolted on.

Back to the original point of this thread though... The Mark1 Ford Focus, that was released to replace the Escort at the end of the 90s, was a revolutionary design for a family hatchback at the time. I even remember Clarkson almost wetting his pants in excitement about it when it was launched. They just look a bit ridiculous now...

I'd imagine it would struggle to do 70 even going downhill In top gear (4th?) on a motorway!

There's a news article on the OS about it now.

I'm finding it refreshing, looking back at some of the random, light-hearted stuff that used to get posted, and remembering some of the long forgotten posters. But, sadly, it has also served to remind me why I rarely venture into the lounge anymore. There used to be a wide variety of topics discussed by an interesting mix of people. But these days it just seems to be the same small and polarised group of people having the same old circular arguments (and yes, before anyone cries "hypocrite", I'm aware that I have also been guilty of this, which is why I decided not to engage so much anymore).

Is that a mk2 Fiesta 2nd from the right? Have we really reached the stage where they are being displayed as classic cars? Wow. I must be getting really old because I learned to drive in one of them!

You have no idea what real debate means, because you're incapable of actually listening and absorbing anything that contradicts what you want to believe. Real debate means presenting evidence-based arguments and acknowledging when counter evidence negates your arguments. There is no further debate to be had about whether or not human emissions are causing climate change, because the evidence in favour of that argument is irrefutable. You've probably heard the 97% figure in relation to the consensus of climate studies supporting anthropogenic warming. Well a group of researchers tried to replicate the results of a selection of the 3% of studies that reject it, and guess what? Turns out that they were all flawed... https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-015-1597-5 We need to accept it as fact, in the same way we accept that the Earth is not flat, so that the whole world can get on with the real debate which is: what should we do about it? Whether it's investing in mitigation or adaptation measures, or a combination of both, that's where the real uncertainty lies.

That's because there doesn't need to be that debate anymore. The climate is warming, and human activity is overwhelmingly responsible. You need to accept that and move on. I've answered that question for you before Scally, and presented you with various links to explain it, but you have obviously just completely ignored that. Sydney-Saint - I have very much enjoyed reading your posts on this, but do yourself a big favour and give up. This guy is not worth wasting any more of your time on. No matter how much credible evidence you provide he will just never take it on board accept that his 'sources' could be wrong.

Good luck to him. Thanks for a very special goal against Chelsea.

Just seen that Everton's backup LB Niels Nkonkou has gone to Standard Liege on a season long loan, so Small might have got some first team chances there after all. Hopefully their loss is our gain.

Is it? I'm not so sure on that. JV had a purple patch at the start of last season but he's horribly limited and was badly at fault for quite a few goals last season. He has a total lack of pace and a strange inability to win aerial duels despite his height advantage. Stephens, isn't a great header of the ball either but is at least more mobile than JV will ever be. I don't think we are any weaker because Salisu wasn't ready for the first team last season, and only played a bit part towards then end of it. If he makes the step up to first choice starter and is an improvement on JV (which he already looks to be on the evidence so far), then even if Lyanco takes time to settle, as Salisu did last season, then we are no weaker than we were. If Lyanco turns out to be the player we all hope he is, and Salisu continues to impress, then we will be in a stronger position than we were for last season.

I am pretty confident, from what I have already seen this season, that Salisu will go on to be better than Vestergaard ever was for us. Stephens showed in the second half of 2016/17 and after the restart in 19/20 that if you give him a run of games he is capable of performing adequately for our level. He's not perfect, but at least he is a known quantity. He and Bednarek are much of a muchness, in that they have some strengths but will also make occasional costly mistakes. Lyanco is the unknown quantity here. He could turn out to be an absolute beast, or he could be a flop. Overall, I don't think we are significantly weaker at CB than we were last season. But then I don't think we are any stronger either.