Sheaf Saint

But the police investigation hasn't yet finished, so nobody actually knows for certain yet do they. I accept that, in all probability, it was Russia that carried it out. But I would much rather our foreign policy was not conducted in such a gung-ho way as it has been. Have you seen Gavin Williamson's speech where he said Russia should "shut up and go away"? Jeez it's embarrassing. Especially given that he recently met with the wife of a former Russian minister in exchange for a large donation to the Tory party coffers. Seems to me like the Tories are trying to deflect attention from their own involvement with Russia by accusing Corbyn of exactly the same thing they themselves are guilty of, and getting their media attack dogs to run another pathetic, baseless smear campaign to protect them. What Corbyn has suggested is that we take a calm and measured approach, wait for conclusive evidence, and follow the rule of international law before making any decisions about our future foreign policy. And if/when this proves that Russia are responsible, then the action he is advocating is actually much stronger than May's half-hearted attempt to make it look like she is doing something by expelling a few diplomats.

As long as we don't let Tadic take one, we should be alright.

His latest stance? Are you referring to the fact that he wants to see some actual evidence before jumping to any conclusions that will have potentially very serious repercussions for world peace? Oh yes, shame on him indeed. I can see exactly why the tabloid press are once again using their front pages to try and portray him as a traitorous Russian sympathiser, while completely ignoring the recent revelations that the Tories have, between them, accepted over £3m of donations from Russia in recent years. Oh, and just a little history lesson for you - Russia haven't been "commies" for nearly 3 decades. But if it suits your agenda to continue to portray them in that way then you carry on.

Sky have announced Carragher's replacement for this weekend...

As a player, he was a winner. No doubt about that. FWIW, I don't really care if the players like him or not. It's not a popularity contest. Mourinho has a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way but, importantly, he gets results. By all accounts, not many players who played for SAF liked him very much either. I really don't think that is an issue. As for not being able to organise a defence, I think that's a little harsh. He managed to guide a limited Stoke side to successive top ten finishes by making them hard to beat, as we discovered each time we played them during that time. Don't get me wrong - I'm not exactly excited by the prospect of him being our manager. It seems an underwhelming appointment and one that we would only be making due to his immediate availability above anything else. But I think some of your criticism is a little unfair.

Still growing, apparently

I think this is a very valid point. It went wrong for him towards the end of his time at Stoke, but that doesn't make him a bad manager. Sometimes managers/players need to make a move elsewhere to rejuvenate themselves. Look at Carlos Carvalhal - took Sheff Weds to the brink of promotion two seasons running, then things went wrong at the club for reasons outside of his control. I doubt many Swansea fans were too excited about his appointment at the time, but he's turned things around massively there and will, most likely, keep them up after they looked dead and buried earlier in the season.

We were seemingly prepared to spend £30m on Quincy Promes in the hope he would keep us up. Seeing as we didn't, spending £5m to pay off one of the worst managers in PL history instead to help keep us up seems like a bargain.

We are so fooked now. Not a chance we're going to come back from this. It will take a miracle and/or some incredibly inept refereeing for us to get even a draw. The infuriating thing is that MP will point to that second goal as vindication for his insistence on not committing too many players forward.

I just can't fathom it. Every other attacking player has been rotated in and out of the first 11 at some point this season, regardless of their form. Yet despite being sh!te for the entire season, Tadic is seemingly undroppable. If MP insists on shoehorning him into the team, I wish he would at least recognise that his best position is on the left and play him there. But no, apparently that concept is too far out for our tactical genius manager.

I just can't fathom how MP hasn't worked out how much more effective Redmond is on the right. On saturday against Stoke, when Tadic went off and Redmond switched wings, within seconds he had made a brilliant run to the byline and put in a superb cross for Boufal who couldn't get his header on target. Then factor in how we all know that Tadic is more effective on the left, it beggars belief that MP keeps starting them on the opposite sides.

Yes, I do.

I guess mostly because the current opposition aren't doing a sufficient job of hammering their points home, and are not seen as a good enough alternative by a large amount of middle-ground voters. I've not doubted that for the duration of this thread. But I would also venture that it is also largely to do with the fact that these kind of things are generally not reported in the kind of media outlets that traditional Tory voters read.

Well I only watched the 2nd half and from what I saw we were very positive going forward and were quite clearly the better team. But Stoke do what they have done since they were promoted and defended in numbers, and they did it very well because we just couldn't find the space for any clear chances. Butland made 3 or 4 decent saves but none that you wouldn't expect a decent keeper to make. Our best chance was Boufal's header that went just wide. Ultimately, its not good enough. It's another great chance to take 3 points at home that we couldn't take. My gut feeling is that we will just about scrape enough points between now and May, and we will stay up on GD.

Do keep up https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?59446-Stoke-Build-Up&p=2601156#post2601156

You should find a way to be comfortable with it, because there is feck all we can do about it. The best players will always move to richer clubs for more money. There is genuinely no point getting worked up about it. Life is too short.

I remember coming away from the 0-0 at WBA in our relegation season (when Prutton missed that sitter) having watched the snow come down during the game and not being able to feel my feet for the entire 90 minutes or the walk back to the car.

Yes, I agree, in that context it does seem like a classic case of whataboutery. But I wasn't responding directly to your post when I made mine. In fairness though, this thread has long since moved on from being solely about JC, and has quite distinctly morphed into a general debate (if you can call it that) about British politics in general. Maybe it's time to re-name the thread appropriately, because the initial suggestion that the election of JC as leader would lead to the 'death' of the Labour party has proven to be completely false.

Should we start a separate thread for each party then?

I wasn't suggesting at all that it makes Corbyn any better. I was pointing out that they are equally as crap as each other and that we need an alternative. I was actually agreeing with one of your previous posts.

Meanwhile, over at Tory HQ... Ben Bradley's grovelling apology for his libelous tweet about Corbyn becomes the most re-tweeted item on Twitter so far this year Boris Johnson, in his capacity as Foreign Secretary, claims the post-Brexit border between NI and Eire will be no different than driving between two London boroughs. Jeremy Hunt is caught out as being jointly responsible for setting up the bogus awards ceremony where he received a humanitarian award. And it is revealed that they are being forced to pay people to pretend to support them on social media because their online popularity is so poor. It's all such a sorry state of affairs. Like Hypo said recently, the country desperately needs a credible alternative to the current options.

They did show it, but for some reason they only showed it from one angle that didn't really prove anything. Looked a close call but AM clearly released the ball when he realised he was going to carry it over the line, and the ref was perfectly in line to see f he did or not.

Bertrand can play CB if necessary.

Would still be getting on the same trains for most of the way though. I'm not 100% certain, but I expect for both journeys you would need to change at Manchester? If so then I seriously doubt the plod would be happy about that.

I'm glad you brought up the abortion opinions, because he is openly against all abortion laws (including in cases of rape) but then makes a tidy sum from sitting on the board of a company that makes contraceptives. He's happy to vote in favour of things like the bedroom tax, but then happily accepts £7m of public money to refurbish his wife's ancestral home. He believes the existence of food banks in the 6th richest country in the world is a wonderful thing. He strikes me as somebody who would happily take us back to Victorian times if he could, throwing the poor into workhouses. To me, he personifies the very worst kind of corrupt, self-serving, entitled, out-of-touch elitist in our society. A relic of a bygone age that refuse to die out.