saint1977

What a surprise, QAnon joins the thread. Whilst I don’t condone some of the more violent elements of BLM the looting etc if a succession of governments had dealt with State police forces so that a series of appalling and fatal mistreatments of suspects who were black stopped happening. Given that every other influencing mechanism had failed, it left few options. The George Floyd video sickened me to my core and it wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s pathetic that the leader of the Free World is promoting far right groups and setting up to not accept fair results of elections either. For the record, there are some aspects of BLM (again, it is a movement, not a party so it will have right if centre activists as well who believe in social justice) I disagree with and this idea of defunding any services from the far left or right is as moronic as saying the Coronavirus is a conspiracy on Facebook.

Encouraging an openly far right violent group to stand by - apparently he mis-spoke just like he did about injecting bleach - and mixing up Antifa as a political organisation when the FBI Director cites it as an ideology. Fuck me Trump is thick as mince. Biden has limitations but safe pair of hands for four years whilst America sorts its shit out and destroys the far right online. Would bring politics in this country to a better place as well.

I agree but where it will fall down is that it will be argued within the PL chairs that it should be sliding scale eg the CL clubs pay more and lowest turnover the least. Every club will have a narrative as to why they have already spent that money. Ultimately the medium sized clubs will have a majority.

Pinch of salt alert - this is from the Standard https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/arsenal-transfer-news-ibrahima-diallo-midfielder-new-ngolo-kante-a4444986.html

Don’t mind if they are loans with one perm deal as doesn’t land the club with more baggage if they don’t work out but may be able to buy with new owners eg KWP if they do, minus selling another player eg PEH to fund it. OK, loan fees etc and no resell but still far cheaper than getting relegated which will happen when any kind of injury kicks in with the Tesco Value toilet paper thinness of the current squad. Decent first XI but similar issue to Burnley, no depth once a couple of injuries eg Redmond and Barnes. Hopefully Salisu fit soon to add to the picture. If that keeps us going until new owners who realise sustainability does mean investment from time to time (I just don’t think Gao ever could) then fine.

Going by the book Mail Men BBC staff had better used to being called a cunt when they have to deal with Dacre. As for Moore, if he was any more up Boris’s arse he’d be eating his winnets. There’s client journalism but that’s another level of sycophancy. Yes, it trolls part of the electorate but that’s a culture war and not good governance, anymore than if Blair had appointed Gould back in the day. Good governance is appointing someone of independent thought which would also demonstrate some self confidence by this government. Wes re: Abbott, whether it’s a good hire isn’t so much contingent on Brexit per se, but it does reinforce that the Government is very into the Anglosphere idea. If Trump loses that its a bit of a spanner in the works

SFC hasn’t had its shit together for four years, ever since Ronald left and especially since the Fonte January window debacle. Squad needs major strengthening so loans it is. Not ideal but tides Ralph over until we can get rid of Gao and co for good

This one million percent.

Neither of them are match fit or sharp I think. The injury to Redmond exposed the stupidity of the last minute transfer activity. SFC Recruitment Team shut up about the black box and get some wide players and CMs in to help Ralph and freshen things up. Some competition will liven the place up and mean we don’t have to rush back key players like Armstrong. If they are worried about the takeover, they can use one PL loan and the European loan market rather than permanent. Stabilise and ensure new owners still have a PL club

Relieved to the win at a bogey ground, munter of a game. Vest very decent in countering Wood, Ings quality, Adams good assist, tidy from scraps although should have done better when spooning over. Romeu solid and his kind of game, Both clubs COOs need to pull their fingers out on recruitment, stupidly thin benches for the PL no wonder Dyche and Ralph are fed up. Worked in Saints favour tonight as Burnley’s injury list was longer. Saints need a busy few days in the window, need a couple of CMs, a wide right at the minimum. Watched Palace v Everton on Amazon earlier, CP unlucky and light years ahead of SFC on quality even if they lose Zaha.

Both the public and private sectors have been found wanting with some heroes/success stories mixed in. IMO we need to focus on helping parts of both sectors improve after the worst of this is over, railways are good place to evaluate whether the markets model works well everywhere. E Coast mainline is more profitable when it’s been in public hands and many of the state run railways I’ve used in mainland Europe have been much better. Some of the public contracts to the likes of Kier and Capita have been shocking value. Some other services are definitely performed better by the private sector eg dentistry with better defined NHS access points for those on low incomes. I’m happy with a mixed model and always worried when a political ideology thinks it knows best. Look at each service and provision on its own business plan. If it’s easier to turn a profit and delivers better value as a commercial entity, fine and good, state doesn’t need to do everything as it did postwar. If it doesn’t, taking parties out of it, let the state run it and make sure contacts and roles/duties/liabilities/penalties are clear at the outset.

Thanks MLG, been clear something is afoot. Hopefully not De Grosa but we will have to see what actually appears on the table. FAPP especially in the COVID era needs to be far stronger, Gao should clearly have been blocked from buying SFC. No funds and apparent question marks in China. The PL needs to get it right this time. Hard to get much worse than Gao but frankly SFC will find a way.

Which highlights what an excuse it all is. Those contacts are low now on years, we must have lost plenty more on Osvaldo and others pre-Gao. It’s a con to keep claiming that, and glad to see at some people aren’t falling for it any longer

Pity that we may be many points adrift at the bottom of the table by then. We’ve seen over many years how hard it is to attract fit and ready players who can come into lift the first XI of a badly struggling side. All you will get is expensive misfits and we have had plenty of those already e.g. Carrillo, Lemina I’ve never known an organisation of SFC’s size and international profile be so parochial, resistant to feedback/change and growth in its culture. You can see it in the ongoing myths around the black box, dire recruitment dressed up as success 2 years after the old git shuffled off to the FA by not buying at all. Just a culture of denial that never looks to evolve. Hopefully De Grosa was a smokescreen, someone decent buys it, clears out enmasse in staff and players, even if it means rebuilding in the Champ with fans let back in hopefully. Better than limping along every summer like this.

Yeah, it’s straight out of the Les Reed school of BS and misinformation except we can’t blame the old coot this time as we sacked him in 2018 (at least 2 years too late). It’s not as if the fans being there or not seems to make any difference to the club or not, no-one seems bothered at the club in the slightest by another abject humiliation, this time with 11 men, or 10 adults and one boy (Smallbone). We didn’t buy the throw the youth in and BS with Lowe so why this lot? I wouldn’t let Semmens and co run a bath, the LD Sports saga was a disaster. Just watched Leicester v Burnley and Dyche has it just as tough as Ralph but they never gave up tonight and made a very good side work for their win. So I’m glad Ralph is having a public go at a spineless board but at least make us hard to beat. You know the back 4 is shit, so defend deep. Dyche has consistently gotten the better of Ralph when we’ve played Burnley as well. They aren’t a long term model for us and we were miles better to watch March-July but show you can be competitive without hefty spending Do yourselves a favour and save the money you’d spend on the football when it returns until we have owners and management (excluding Ralph despite his poor start to the season) who believe in us.

Yeah, hopefully that plank that ‘owned’ Bordeaux doesnt takeover but someone else more capable urgently does. They need to make savings on posts at Exec and scouting levels, clearer decision-making lines. Keep the non-playing side leaner. People keep on praising Semmens but he’s overseen an appalling and complacent close season so he can go.

Yep, similar to me. There’s so many things I really want to do again when COVID is more manageable but I’m afraid going to back to pay £40 for more tripe isn’t one of them. Pellegrino season was the final straw, £125 at least to attend from the SW and far better and more enjoyable things I can be doing instead. The people that run and own the club couldn’t give a stuff about today’s result as long the club finishes 17th at the end of the season. Ralph clearly hurting but has to look at himself as he did v Leicester, plan for the tools you do have, shit as they mostly are. High line has to go.

Bar the post-lockdown games which were like watching Saints under Nigel, Poch and Koeman, I’ve been disillusioned and a bit disinterested since spring 2017. Went to the early Pellegrino games after catching up on sleep at the Claude the Bore’s final games and couldn’t believe the entertainment value got even worse. Kat misled the fans about Gao who is a smear on the history having not been able to pass FAPP properly. Hoped we had turned the corner but back with the exception of Ings, JWP and Berty to gutless and low energy displays. Les’s impact was worse than Lowe or Redknapp but the club can’t keep on hiding behind the errors of a pensioner for not taking positive action 2-3 years on. Reed didn’t bring LD Sports in. They let him waste all of that money. They have a good manager now - back him or sell up now. No more excuses. You promised investment - deliver or go. After having been a STH for many years, home and away at one point, I’ve not been to a game since Hudds at home under that petrified thing Reed hired. I can’t say I’m tempted even when we can return to go back as I want see genuine hard work and some attempt at enterprising football. With Saints, your expectation of results is more modest.

Batting was better in the T20 at Kent, Fuller again contributing well, but undone by one of the best young batsman I’ve ever seen, Zak Crawley. I was very taken with him even before the double hundred in the Test but looks a million dollars. Alsop, Weatherley etc need to look at his concentration. Has the shots to go with the technique, will go far.

The transfer activity or lack of is inexcusable and pathetic. I would get a former agent in as a consultant help with decisiveness in negotiations and work with Ralph to get deals over the line. Plenty of deals have shown you don’t need to spend megabucks. There’s a naivety about how the club is operating in a sharp industry. That said, there’s no excuse for some players reporting back unfit. The internationals are not an excuse, every club has lost a key or two from those. Fine the players concerned and Poch style double training until they are back in post lockdown shape. A bit of throwing up will do them some good. Unprofessional from top to bottom, especially after the lazy start to last season as well. RH has to take some of the responsibility although at least unlike the weak Puel and Pellegrino he has put some public pressure on the board to pull their fingers out in public.

This is needed - you could smell the complacency from last season’s finish after they looked so fit and hungry. No point taking out a big loan and going down, need to use some of it for a couple of first team ready faces at least. Salisu will in as well as soon as up to speed, Stephens has regressed back to 2018.

It’s like Pellegrino is in charge again, slow negative football and stupid goals conceded from set pieces. Come on Ralph, kick them up the arse. And stop using this high line, we ain’t good enough at the back. Going out tonight might shake off the complacency. Need to get a couple more new players in CM and wide areas.

Sigh....it wasn’t just one bomb was it? Two jumbo jets freshly loaded with millions of gallons of aviation fuel. The designers and builders did overestimate the amount of resistance offered by the external steel grid by a plane collision but that was not a glancing blow it was flown straight at at the buildings. WTC wasn’t the only skyscraper in the 70s to have issues, the Citicorp in midtown needed secret substantial re-inforcing work following a hurricane warning and some seeming damper miscalculations. You mentioned WTC7 - no demolition crew there either, more construction and design issues from the same period and flammable internal materials which shouldn’t have been permitted https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/design/a3524/4278874/ All just (very costly) design and construction flaws. Which need to be addressed through better regulation. Hence Brexit a bit of a problem there as those pushing for it want Singapore on Thames. So we have more Grenfell-style retrofits and UK/Australia (eg Mascot Towers) buildings lethal to live in with worsening resident protections. No conspiracies, just greedy wastes of space.

Yep, and people think it’s just the Democrats on the NE Seaboard. It really isn’t, some of the Republicans as well do not like Brits and they like the Trump populist wannabes on the Tory right even less. What Boris and co are aiming for is a Anglosphere - a TTIP on steroids between English speaking nations. This dream is held and cherished by a minority in the hard right of the Republicans and Tories, the Think Tanks e.g. Heritage and IEA, UK tabloids e.g. DT, Sun, Mail, and Fox when they can be bothered or it’s a quieter week. Tony Abbott has been a big driver in the idea, hence his appointment in the one thing Boris and Cummings haven’t done a U turn on. Biden is about to chuck a huge spanner in the works and it’s why the new Tories are desperate for Trump to hold on.

They do lie sometimes - of all ideological persuasions - but not always. It’s why we have blue chip research at arms length from the government to help determine some grains of truth although there is always individual bias to overcome. Each incident has to be looked at an on a case by case basis. Take two 1980s football disasters which have conspiracy theories surrounding them over the years. Hillsborough - yes, clear that there was a conspiracy to protect the Police with the media’s active help. Hard to believe the government didn’t have some awareness and they owed the police some good favours. With Bradford, whilst the Poppelford Enquiry was mighty fast but does appear from all the evidence available at the time and since to have been fairly accurate. it isn’t just politicians - look at the Yorkshire Ripper and Byford. Maggie was furious with WYP and the crimes spanned Labour and Tory governments but she was only 18 months in when Sutcliffe was caught. She had no reason to cover up but the police did added to attitudes and biases towards some of the victims shared by some senior judiciary. Hence why the enquiry was very critical of WYP, not critical enough, but the judicial system stood by the ‘voices’ narrative so the police’s full ineptitude wasn’t exposed. It also means lots of women have had their crimes almost certainly committed in the Ripper series unsolved and not received justice.