hypochondriac

We needed to sign a CB that would improve us, not a backup to Stephens. Stephens is not an improvement on Vestergaard therefore our central defensive positions are overall weaker than last year. The signing of Lyanco is of pivotal importance to our season and assuming we don't sign anyone for defensive midfield it's probably our most vital area of the pitch that may be the difference between survival and relegation.

No links then...

That's really stupid if true. Stephens first choice all season is not the answer.

Personally I found it interesting that the only person who has publicly announced themselves as gay on this thread actually thought the whole rainbow shirt thing was incredibly cringe. I'm also interested to know how you can ascertain someone's skin colour by what they post on a forum. That seems pretty racist to me.

Surely if you oppose something woke then it would make sense to question the motives of a supposedly woke campaign?

Odd comment. Surely it's fun for fans to get an unexpected signing on deadline day although that shouldn't be the motivation for the club to do a deal?

That's a bit harsh. He can't really help having a succession of injuries. You're right though, he should jump at the chance of Wigan.

Isn't there a LGBT month? Any reason the march isn't planned for that period? Seems a bit inefficient otherwise.

I haven't seen many people expressing surprise, more frustration. I think most people hold out hope for a change of heart, particularly if the poor performances continue.

Continuing to play crap performing players week in week out regardless of performance is incredibly bizarre. Announcing Mccarthy as first choice based in the fact that he was happy to sign a new contract and be second choice no doubt next year is just weird.

I wouldn't call that team selection very strange. I personally wouldn't play Stephens but he played well last week so probably deserves to keep his place. Other tha are that Theo replaced and trying to fit in kwp and Livramento to the same team (something a few people wanted) and I think it's a pretty good team selection considering Armstrong is injured.

Because he's crap.

I think that had we got in some experience at the back to marshall the defence that many of the concerns would disappear. If Lyanco isn't the answer then I'm very concerned that we are even weaker in central defence than we were last year and we were already very poor there last season. I think to a large degree the success or otherwise of our season will hinge on the success of Lyanco and how adaptable Ralph is. The latter showed some good signs last week and the former is yet to be seen.

We can add David Baddiel (not that he's an expert) to a growing list of people who agree with the Washington Posts analysis above judging by his twitter feed.

Are you suggesting that the manner of our leaving was the only possible outcome and that this should have been known two decades earlier and in the fearful climate immediately post 9/11? Read the article. It cites numerous sources debunking your claim that nation building was the initial aim. In fact it specifically refutes the claim and uses wide-ranging accounts to do so. Your "refusal to accept" citing nothing isn't much of a counterpoint is it.

Everything about weapons and warplanes left behind after the event has nothing to do with the original invasion. Making a disaster of a withdrawal doesn't change the feeling of necessity to defeat Al Qaeda at the time. You're still ignoring the consensus of opinion and the climate immediately after 9/11. The article I posted and other similar ones is my evidence that what I'm saying is correct (along with my recollections of what happened over that period.) What can you point to that suggests that American motivations were substantially different to what I've already outlined? And no it's not naive as you tried to claim, it's an accurate retelling of events.

You're just ignoring the facts. You've clearly forgotten what happened at the time and are using hindsight to lecture people on a fictional version of events. Read the article: A collective failure today to recall what the world looked like to Americans after 9/11 has certainly clouded our understanding of the consequential decisions taken in those first years. Today, one reads that Americans went to war “almost gleefully”; that in launching the intervention, President George W. Bush was filled with “optimism” based on the belief that “democracy would flourish when given the opportunity”; that “imperial hubris” led Americans to believe “that we could shape the world in our image using our guns and our money.” Today, we read that even as “the twin towers and the Pentagon were still smoldering, there was a sense among America’s warrior and diplomatic class that history was starting anew for the people of Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world.” This is a myth, or to use the term preferred by The Post’s extensive report on Afghanistan, a “lie.” For better or for worse, it was fear that drove the United States into Afghanistan — fear of another attack by al-Qaeda, which was then firmly ensconced in the Taliban-controlled country; fear of possible attacks by other groups using chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons; fear of other sleeper cells already hiding in the United States. Experts warned that it was just a matter of time before the next big attack. And these fears persisted.

So you're in America in 2002, have a public clamouring for revenge and shaken to your core. Al Qaeda and those who harbour them have to be destroyed and your solution is to not destroy them but engage in some appraisals from afar through bombing? It's ideological nonsense and it wouldn't have destroyed Al Qaeda which was the whole point. The fact that Bush changed things in 2006 to an occupying force seeking to force ideological change as I said doesn't change the fact that that isn't why America went into Afghanistan. Read the article I posted.

Again you're just ignore the climate of post 9/11 America and pretending that they should have either done nothing or carpet bombed Afghanistan. No one has denied that enforcing societal change and now leaving in the way we have done is shameful and a cluster fuck. It simply wasn't an option to not take forceful action against those who perpetrated 9/11. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/26/robert-kagan-afghanistan-americans-forget/ We live history forward, in the chaos of onrushing events, without a clear guide. But we judge history backward, smugly armed with the knowledge of what did happen and uninterested in what might have happened. This partly explains the oscillation of U.S. foreign policy over the decades between periods of high involvement overseas and periods of withdrawal and retrenchment.

Agree with all of that. Good post.

They did defeat Al qaeda. That's pretty unarguable. So your solution would have been to carpet bomb swathes of Afghanistan? How is that preferable to an invasion?

Nah. It's all ridiculous to be honest. I'd like to see Ronaldo and Messi in the same team.

We did it much better than America TBF.

Nope I remember the speech Bush gave in 2006 where he said something along the lines of "loss of freedom anywhere in the world is a threat to America." He used the word freedom countless times and it was remarked on at the time as a marked shift from retaliation for 9/11 to team America style foreign policy trying to dictate to Afghanistan how to behave. You didn't answer the question though, what should post 9/11 America have done to destroy Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that didn't involve invasion?

It was only in about 2006 that Bush started talking about saving women etc. Prior to that it was about removing Al qaeda and making them pay. How else could you have reacted to Al Qaeda? Afghanistan was harbouring these people and they wouldn't have been able to get them out without an invasion. Enforcing societal change came later.