Jimmy_D

Aside from being a little untidy in possession at times, we’ve had a pretty good grip on the game, limiting Stoke to very little. If we can clean that up we’ll hopefully be able to make the second half pretty comfortable. Stoke complaining about the ref picking up fouls that they normally get away with is amusing What a free kick that was!

Perfect!

Farke was complaining about the officials? After today? What?

First half was the best half of football we’ve put together for quite some time, which is just as well because the ref was up there with the worst we’ve seen at St Mary’s. Top quality finishing today! Brilliant result, there aren’t many teams I enjoy beating more than Leeds 😇

It’d be the easiest thing in the world if he was still alive for Russia to score a huge propaganda victory by having him speak and reference the attack he supposedly died in, casting huge doubt on Ukranian/Western intelligence. A Zoom meeting feed of unknown time/origin appearing in a video of a meeting, itself with apparent evidence of being spliced, doesn’t do that nearly so well.

The video he apparently appears in? Feels more like Russia trying to fabricate proof of life than proof of life to me at the moment. Nothing confirming he’s dead yet, but Russia trying that leans more towards him actually being dead for me than if they’d remained silent.

Among many others suspected. Seems Ukrainian intelligence got wind of an extremely high level meeting. This may well have been an extensive decapitation attack, possibly an unbelievably successful one.

Losing four before Christmas would have been disappointing, let alone four on the bounce.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-66888101 With Ukraine targeting AA systems in Crimea the last few weeks, it looks like the whole of Western Crimea is under Ukrainian fire control as a result. If Ukraine can hit the most important dry dock in Sevastapol and the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet without being intercepted, they can hit anything.

Ipswich were utterly ****, offered absolutely nothing apart from what we gifted them. That has to be the worst performance I’ve ever seen Saints manage to lose to.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/22/us-coronavirus-covid-unvaccinated-hospital-rates-vaccines

The shipyard in Sevastapol was hit, likely by Storm Shadows/Scalp missiles. At least one ship and one submarine damaged, likely beyond repair. Seems probable that Russia’s ability to defend Sevastapol has been compromised by losing control of the oil rigs in the Black Sea, which were used as a base for advanced radar and AA capabilities. If Ukraine can force the Black Sea fleet to use a different home base, it’d be extremely difficult for Russia to continue supplying the missile cruisers that have been targeting civilians at anywhere near the same rate.

Well that was a bit grim. Might have been a very different day had the stonewall penalty not been missed by the ref, but definitely a day to dig Adkins’ pen out and draw a line under.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66682503 Wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out they’ve managed to turn some former Wagner fighters.

It’s getting more and more difficult for Russian propaganda to put any sort of positive spin on anything at all.

Gerrin! Looked a bit uncertain for a while there but the 2nd half subs really made a difference. The team is really starting to make a habit of responding well to setbacks this season.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/08/25/milley-ukrainian-troops-break-through-russian-defense-line-on-southern-front/ US Military seem to be confirming some sort of breakthrough for Ukraine. Once Tokmak is in conventional artillery range, Russia’s logistics options between the West and East of the Southern front are extremely limited.

Nothing absolutely conclusive, but it’s been claimed by Ukraine, and Russia are claiming it was prevented rather than that it didn’t happen. Also a separate operation reportedly took out a S-400 AA system in Crimea.

Unconfirmed reports tonight from Russian sources of an extremely rapid Ukrainian advance/Russian retreat in the Tokmak direction on the southern front. No guarantees of course, but if it’s accurate, might be that Ukraine have something of a breakthrough into an area behind a defensive line that’s far less defended. Between Ukraine’s hitting of logistics lines in Crimea that have massively stretched Russian resources so that they can’t defend in depth, and the reserves Ukraine still haven’t had to commit, might be a very interesting 24-48 hours ahead.

Looks like it was at least six of the top leadership of Wagner on that plane. Relatively little collateral damage by Putin’s standards. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombings It’s extremely unlikely, but after the recent repeated drone attacks on Moscow, there’s a chance this was actually accidental friendly fire by a trigger happy air defence operator, with absolutely no chance of anyone believing that’s what happened. Shows you just how far Russia have fallen though, that bringing down a private plane is unsurprising to the extent it was practically expected that something like this would happen.

At the very least, it looks like some elements of Wagner are going to be hostile to Putin for the foreseeable.

The only real surprise is that it took this long really. Appears that Utkin, the other co-founder, was on board too. What happens with Wagner now and the soldiers more loyal to Prigozhin than to Russia is anyone’s guess.

Russian propaganda these days seems to be ‘we could nuke everyone and win, and no-one will retaliate because we have more nukes than everyone.’ Incidentally, Ukraine has a defence agreement with China in the event that Ukraine is attacked with nuclear weapons. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/28/putins-war-tests-chinas-nuclear-pact-ukraine/ Whether that would hold up in the event it was triggered is one thing, but China really wouldn’t want to be seen to break a treaty, which is likely why a lot of the nuclear threats being implied by Russian officials dried up after the meetings with China happened a fair while back. For what it’s worth, the UK MOD think the hit on the Tu-22M is highly likely genuine.

The real risk the club might be worried about is keeping Che, missing out on promotion (for whatever reason, injuries to players being one reason that could happen), and then being stuck with no Che, no Che money, and another season in the Championship, with the unknown of whether any replacement strikers would be available at the right price. Personally I’d be inclined to keep him and gamble with his record in the Championship, but I can understand the club wanting to reduce the risk around striker options for next season, even if that potentially makes it less likely we go up this season. What we don’t know is how far advanced any potential replacements are this window that would influence the club’s decision on that.