Sheaf Saint

Yes, it's absolutely baffling why the manager chose not to select a player who we sold to Sampdoria a few weeks ago.

I do now you mention it. I grew up near there, but I had no idea who Chope was when I was at school. Was it on the train bridge near the Station? *Quote removed by mod*

If anyone is tempted to give this a go, don't bother. It looks great, but the writing and acting are truly dreadful and I gave up after about 5 episodes. None of the characters are in the least bit interesting or believable, and I don't care what happens to them.

All of which is completely irrelevant if Fraser himself has agreed to a reduced wage, which is what is being suggested by some people. But your suggestion that it would be illegal to reduce someone's wages just for being ill is just plain wrong. It all depends on the contract terms of course, and in most cases outside of the football bubble it is completely normal.

I know footballers exist in a bubble outside the normal rules of employment, but it's extremely irregular for anybody to get indefinite sick pay in any job. If I went off on long term sick from my job (for something mental health-related, for instance), I would get sick pay only for up to 6 months and then after that I would only get statutory sick pay, which is just a fraction of my actual salary. We just don't know what Fraser's contract contains, but I would expect there is something in there about making himself available to train and play provided he is physically fit enough to do so.

If he's had surgery and has been unable to train at all for 2-3 months, then he's not going to get back to the required level of fitness in just 3 weeks.

And you're ignoring the fact that he has always improved significantly following a sustained run in the team, and that he was just coming into really good form for us before going off to the Asian Cup. He is a far better option than JS at the moment.

Yes, you're right. We should have, and we tried to. And if we had done, then maybe we wouldn't have had to play JWP there on Saturday, but the RB situation is what it is, whether we like it or not. So I'll ask you again - who would you have had at CM instead of Slattery, given the players available for that position?

So with PEH and Lemina both injured, and JWP being used to fill in at RWB, who else would you have played in Slattery's place on Saturday? Should we have signed someone in the January window to cover in that position just on the off-chance we found ourselves with 3 senior players who can play there being unavailable? Ultimately, we will never know if Slattery will come good if we never give him the chance to. I saw enough promise from him to think he is a more than capable 4th choice CM for a team in our position.

You're over-simplifying the situation. You identify your targets early on and begin negotiations, on the understanding that a deal 'could' be reached if it is right for all parties. The selling clubs and the agents hold out til the very last minute in the hopes of getting the best possible deal; and so does the buying club, hoping that as the window draws to a close the seller will be desperate enough to sell that they will cave in and drop to your lower offer. In most cases, this doesn't happen and the deal doesn't go through. This is why you have multiple targets, in the hope that if one falls through, another can be completed. It's not exclusive to Saints by any means, and it doesn't prove that the board are incompetent. Look at how many rumours were flying around about other club's transfer targets, and compare that to how many of them actually materialised. There are only a handful of clubs in England who are either rich enough or stupid enough to pay the over-inflated valuations of players in January. Ours is not one of them. Whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you, but personally I am glad we're no longer in the business of throwing good money after bad, following Les Reed's disastrous transfer strategy over the last few years.

Without bothering to look at dates, I wouldn't know. But it wouldn't surprise me if his administration had some involvement.

I made no such claim, and I'm not going to try and claim that those regimes would have been completely successful without foreign interference either. But if you think the current situation in Venezuela is 100% the fault of the Maduro regime and absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the US cannot stand the fact there is an oil-rich country almost on its doorstep, operating under a socialist government, then you're living in a dreamworld.

You mean the fact they have all been subjected to crippling international economic sanctions designed to de-stabilise their governments?

I'm hoping it's just precautionary. He had only just come back from his hammy injury and played the full 90 in midweek against Palace. If it was feeling a little tight then it was probably wise to take him off when we did rather than risk doing any more damage.

Started watching Nightflyers on Netflix. Based on a novella by George RR Martin, apparently. Only on episode 3, and the concept is decent enough (some parallels with Event Horizon) but not too sure about the execution of it so far. The production is slick enough with some stunning visual effects and darkly atmospheric music and FX etc... but the script and acting are very cliched, and the main characters are just a little too bland/weak. Feels heavily edited in some parts too, which you wouldn't think is necessary for something produced exclusively for on-demand viewing. I'm gonna stick with it though. It's got me intrigued enough to want to see how the story pans out.

Yep, heard on the radio news that a privately funded search operation using sonar and a remote submersible has found it, mostly intact, at the bottom of the Channel. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47111632

Confidence has never been Shane's problem. A basic lack of ball control and shooting ability has. A few negative comments on an online fans forum are not going to have any influence on that.

That's because he never got to point E. The downward tug of the shirt from Crouch prevented him from even getting to point D. I admire your persistence, but sometimes you just have to hold your hands up () and admit you're wrong.

You're right Nick. Let's ban anybody from posting any criticism whatsoever and start new threads dedicated to how absolutely wonderful all of our players are. After all, that's what fan discussion boards are there for, right?

With Hoj and Yoshida, and hopefully Bertrand, back in the starting 11, then I would expect to see a much better performance all round than we saw over the last two games against Palace and Burnley. Up front though, I would be more inclined to play Gallagher than Long if Ings isn't fit (which seems likely). He couldn't possibly perform any worse than Long did yesterday.

So what are you suggesting then? That Stephens intended to handle the ball? I know he's not exactly a fans' favourite and takes some stick on here, perhaps justifiably. But he really isn't that stupid.

What is even the point of having him on the pitch anymore? He doesn't have the pace he used to, and that was his only positive attribute. Without it he is not even a L1 level player. He contributed literally nothing when he came on today. And the way he surrendered possession every time we managed to clear the ball up to him while under intense pressure towards the end was pathetic. I get that the objective for the January window was to clear some dead wood, but why is this fraud of a footballer still here?

I can't disagree with that, but that doesn't make him a c*nt (which is what I can only assume the poster was calling him).

This says a lot more about you than it does about Jack Stephens.

To all those of you slating Stephens - it's not like he deliberately handballed it. He jumped and was being climbed all over by Crouch, who then headed it back against his arm with nothing he could have done about it. No different to Yoshi's in the Asian cup final yesterday. Just a fluke ricochet against an arm. If you think it's fair game to slag him off for it then you're an idiot.