derry

Above is the reason we are winning so few games at SMS. It's the whole season we are talking about. The worst set of statistics of any team at home in the Premier League and you are trying to justify it. Ralph is talking about us playing too slow at home The conditions on Thursday are an excuse set against the previous seven months of dire performances with the same slow pattern time after time. Thursday was no different. The attacking players are making the same runs home and away. At home the defence is ignoring them, away the ball is moved quickly forward and the midfield links with the front. We were better in the second half but the damage was done. We should be looking to get the ball quickly to Redmond, Armstrong, Ings and Long supported by a full back and at least one central midfielder. The defence and midfield two seem to think slow one dimensional sideways and backwards often ending with McCarthy hitting a poor clearance under increasing pressure is copying the top possession teams which is nothing like it and nonsense. As for Liverpool they probably play more long balls cross field to runners and up to the strikers none of whom are tall. They use the balls manoeuvering at the back to set up for the long pass or open up a couple of runners wide from deep. All the defence does at home is pass it sideways and backwards aimlessly, eventually getting into trouble or making desperate clearances to nobody, either putting the ball out of play or giving possession away anyway. I'd prefer us to play high tempo passing and movement, I don't want to see us playing Kamikaze passing at the back. If that's all that is on offer I'll take the big up and under out of our defence any day of the week which won't end up with Valery, McCarthy etc giving away stupid goals. The total passes are the possession statistics. We get some of our best results with possession in the forties or lower. against Arsenal we had 52%. Most of our poorer results have higher possession figures. For me the amount of wasted passing around at the back inflating the possession percentage.

Firstly the players have to recognise their limitations. McCarthy isn't a competent passing keeper. His control is ponderous and it is better not to expose him. Far better he belts it long than gets caught like last night. He also had a close call against Norwich. We are aimless with our possession at the back unlike top sides who are moving and manoeuvering the opposition. We on the other hand just get into trouble as the opposition know this and close us down.. Away we are a different team altogether. At home our tempo is too slow as we try and keep possession. we are just not good enough. Secondly I didn't advocate lumping the ball except to clear dangerous situations, I want to see the ball passed forward quickly to the forwards with high tempo movement. Until we stop playing the way we do at SMS we are not going to start winning regularly at home. The dire results speak for themselves.

That was self inflicted. It's been obvious all season what has been wrong at home. The opposition back off goal side, the midfield and defence play five yard slow tippy tappy, get closed down and McCarthy thinks he's a footballer. The solution play early balls forward, don't pass back to McCarthy. If he does get the ball just smash it downfield. Bednarek and Hojbjerg were just as much at fault for the first goal. Hojbjerg dropped Stephens in it with his rediculous ball and got him sent off which then led to the second. Hojbjerg is just deluded if he thinks he can play for a top team. He is not a good footballer, a poor reader of the game together with poor judgement and poor passing isn't really the answer for us let alone a top team. I was surprised Valery played since he was the worst player on the field against Norwich. I thought Long should have started. KWP wasn't too bad when he came on and we looked better with Long. We have to stop the poor man's impression of Man City at home which has led to the worst home record in the division. We have to force the pace at home, we have decent forwards so get the ball up to them quickly. Saints reminded me tonight why it's not worth paying to watch at SMS until they change the way they play.

I found it interesting, especially as all the ex players had very successful careers, mostly with big clubs and were internationals. Nearly all of them were probably obese in BMI terms. Not all footballers are like that. I knew, Ian White and Ron Davies well, Hughie Fisher quite well and had a passing acquaintance with George O'Brien and Brian O'Neill amongst others. They were all fit for their ages and probably weighed pretty much the same as their playing days. The one horriffic thing for me was Neil Ruddock's total inability to grasp his predicament and show any willingness to address it. I seem to remember he was hopeless in that respect in the last series.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, Cambridge University statistician, mentioned some interesting statistics this morning. Of 10m under 15s only 2 have died of Covid 19. Of 17m under 25s 26 have died of Covid 19. Elsewhere I see that for under 40s less than 1 per cent of the total registered deaths from Covid 19. That really loads the death total onto the retired population especially with one or more additional underlying ilnesses and the BAME population due to unknown at the moment reasons for their vulnerability. The above with social distancing and a common sense approach from everybody regarding symptoms would seem a good reason to get the country back to work as soon as possible. Obviously more and better testing is essential together with being able to track and trace any hot spots and close them down quickly in isolation rather than one size fits all England lock down.

Jenrick on Marr's show, a problem in it looks like PHE labs.

Which facts don't you like, 18.1m passengers between Jan 1st and Mar 23rd. Of those only 273 were quarantined. From Wuhan rescue flights, Jan 31st 83, Feb 2nd 11, Feb 9th 147, a further 32 came in from Tokyo. The Swedish modeling was widely reported. 40000 by May 1st in fact 2941 by May 6th, with 100000 by June. The next model was median mortality 96000 ie between 52000 and 183000 by the end of June, We'll see what the result is then. The testing only increased significantly after PHE built additional labs, brought in private and university testing facilities and employed the army manning mobile and fixed testing. As for Lallana he addressed all the criticisms I was making starting with for the first time good tracking back against Norwich that season. He then improved immensely after that. His talent was obvious but his application and work ethic was lacking in defensive duties previously. He turned into a fine player.

Ferguson's model forecast 40000 deaths in Sweden BY May 1st in fact less than 3000 at the end of the first week in May. Patently the modelling was faulty there. The next check point is 96000 by the end of June. Probably allowing 18m people into the UK by air in the first three months of the year, with a high proportion coming from countries hit by the virus had a major effect and with no health checks or quarantine had a major impact on the spreading. As for the testing, Public Health England trying to maintain exclusive testing in their own laboratories, without calling in outside help and insisting on using one type of machine caused the low numbers tested. It was only when outside Laboratories were brought in that the testing improved. The Germans used outside testing from day one.

Plus 18m coming through the airports Jan to Mar. Bloody mad. At the most it should have only been returning UK citizens not 120000 Chinese students etc.

The Swedish scientist adviser rubbished the UK response. Apparently the Swedish character has helped with social distancing without trashing the economy. As we didn't continue the social distancing we'll never know but I feel it wouldn't be much different if the social distancing was strictly enforced. Londoners filling pubs that weekend didn't help.

Professor Neil Ferguson. Historically how accurate during various scenarios. 2001 As stated in a previous post 6.5m cattle slaughtered. Years later admitted he was wrong but that's not all. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh called Ferguson's models not fit for purpose. 2002 claimed that vCJD the human form of mad cow disease could kill between 50 and 50000, useless for policy makers. Additionally if it spread to sheep the death toll could rise to 150000. the total death toll to date from vJCD is just 178 2005 warning of bird flu - around 40m people died in 1918 Spanish flu outbreak. there are six times more people on the planet so you could scale it up to around 200m probably. To date WHO H5N1 avian flu has killed just 455 people. 2009 Ferguson claimed that the mortality rate from swine flu was in the range 0.3 per cent to 1.5 per cent but was most likely to be 0.4 per cent. Based on this the Government's reasonable worst case scenario suggested that Britain would suffer 65000 deaths. By the end of the year the mortality rate had been just 0.026 per cent. The UK death toll at the time was 283. In early April Swedish scientists ran Ferguson's model to try and calculate the death toll if the government avoided a lock down. By May 1st the model forecast 40000 Swedes would die. Rising to 96000 by the end of June. Sweden ignored them. Up to yesterday, no lockdown 2941 deaths. Ferguson's prediction on March 16th for UK this year 500000 would die if nothing done to curb it. About 250000 would die if the government maintained it's social distancing without a lockdown.That day Boris told us to keep out of pubs etc and other crowded places and a week later ordered the lockdown. How on earth with his record of predicting could the government even contemplate using Ferguson never mind doing what he advised.

The 100+ goal seasons of the sixties with great forwards and attacking football trumps the rest of time for me.

At the time the week before I was due to fly overnight on NYE so I was concerned listening to the doom mongers. I decided to see if there was a problem with my aeroplanes. I changed the date on the computer to January when I was setting it up preflight, surprise, surprise no problem everything worked. I just changed the date back. On the overnight flight no problems. I did the same with my desktop. It was a non event.

I was an airline captain at the time. I remember well flying in from the Channel Islands and was met at the aircraft door by the BA manager who was a season ticket holder telling me Keegan had just arrived from Germany and was off to the Potters Heron for a news conference, he had spoken to him. There were several Saints supporters amongst the ground crew there was a terriffic sense of disbelief and excitement. It was a great feeling to know at that time we were among the very few that knew that this bombshell news hadn't yet broken. There was no press or TV at the airport it really was a well kept secret. We were signing the current European footballer of the year. It couldn't happen now unless we were handed a bottomless pit of money.

Thanks Duncan, an absolutely brillant labour of love.

Just for information. All 92 clubs in all four leagues were already being televised by PL and EFL. I was able to watch any of them I fancied on Saintsplayer. Which with it's associated apps is now a really high class site. It does everything from trials, 24 hours to a year for £70 which includes thousands of films and TV series on demand. It has it's own VPN. Have a look on www.saintsplayer.com

There might be an upside if football restarts from a purely football point, players might not be so keen to use their hands and arms to hold on to opponents and revert to how the game was intended to be played before all the cheating was allowed to prevail.

I certainly will be careful and manage where, how and what I do but no bloody government is going to dictate what I can and can't do. I bet there will be millions that feel the same way. As soon as the golf courses are open I'll be back playing but I will be social distancing and avoiding crowds. With our displays over the last few years I don't even think I'll miss ditching my season ticket.

A really good history of George on the Dunfermline Athletic official website and on Newsnow

Danish supermarkets apparently have cracked the panic buying. First item say £2, second item say £100 in the bar code computer. Stopped it dead according to reports.

We're just shopping normally, Morrisons yesterday no milk and very little fresh veg, same at local co op this morning. We've got enough to cover us but it's obvious there are a lot of pillocks around. My daughter has a weekly online slot so we can get her to get us anything we need.

I'm one of the over seventies social distancing. Primarily I stay at least a couple of yards away from other people. This is happening when I pick the paper up or get petrol etc. I play golf at 0630 most mornings, just the three of us and greenkeepers on a three hundred acre course, good exercise. The golf club is being pro active, social golf only. Further more and I think it is now a general practice recommended by the EGU I think, No rakes in bunkers, No hand shakes etc, keep well apart and the clever bit, the cups now protrude a couple of inches above the surface and hitting the cup counts as in the hole so no need to handle the flag. Mobile phones allowed to phone in to the clubhouse for tea, food etc either brought out onto the terrace where the tables are miles apart or as this morning three of us in an empty clubhouse, checked when I phoned after finishing. Loads of sanitisers, normal washing, the surfaces washed down after every use. Everybody I saw are being sensible. Most of the rest of the time I'm at home. I find that this works well for me as far as social distancing goes. Yesterday Dr Rosemary Leonard in her article was recommending exercising and specifically recommended golf.

George was unique in football. Most altercations end up in handbags but in 1959/60 we were playing Newport County at the Dell Harry Harris a big fellow who went to Portsmouth and played most of his football at centre half clattered George, in the blink of an eye George who wasn't that big but gutsy hit Harris with an uppercut sweet as you like and knocked him out. Harris was carried off, George was sent off. Again in the third round of the FA Cup 1959/60 we went to First Division Manchester City, won 5-1 away against the City's best team, Paine was unplayable, Reeves 4, O'Brien. A special train was laid on to take the supporters to Manchester. The team travelled on the train, when we stopped at Southampton as he was getting off George shouted, "Where's the ****** brass band". Paine and O'Brien had perfected a crossover move ond often did it, they ran fast at each other and as they crossed over whoever had the ball transferred it to the other. It worked time after time and was impossible to counter. George was a supreme goalscorer and I remember him with pleasure. I used to bump into him first at Stoneham then later at my present club. George was a very good single figure golfer.

David Bull has done a really good tribute to George on the Official site. It didn't say when he died. He was a great player, one of my favourites. RIP George.

Everybody self isolating because of symptoms should be tested otherwise the figures are meaningless. Vallance saying over 50000 cases currently in his opinion but not checked.