Jimmy_D

GERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNN!

A win! Cracking finish to score the winning goal by Bree.

At least we kept ourselves in the game. Always a chance of nicking something in a game when you keep it close, which is more than I expected against City.

If we ever see Taylor refereeing us again it’ll be too soon.

That was fun to watch!

Damn. Gave it a bloody good go today.

Cheated out of that by a bunch of worthless cheating ****s and a woeful ref.

A weapons store only built in 2018, supposedly to a standard that could withstand nuclear weapons, one of the biggest they had. Russia are now claiming that it wasn’t enough to protect the stored munitions (including ballistic missiles) from debris from shot down drones(!) Unconfirmed, but reports suggesting that Russia were using it to store and refurbish expired missiles, and that correct storage protocols weren’t being followed. In any case, it sounds counterintuitive, but weapon stores are generally extremely difficult to cause to completely go up like that (assuming they’ve been correctly designed, built, and used.) It wouldn’t be a surprise though, if corners have been cut and corruption has affected every stage of that.

Gerrin!

By far the better team the first half until the missed penalty and then conceding from the set piece, that just killed us. Man Utd are a bunch of worthless cheating ****s.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gigabit-broadband-voucher-scheme-information/gigabit-broadband-voucher-scheme-information This might be worth looking into. Not sure if it’s available where you are though (or if there are any similar available schemes possibly.)

Whether it’ll ultimately be enough remains to be seen, the Premier League is nuts these days, but difficult to see how we could have done much better this window. Now to make use of those players!

Well that was fun to watch! They were having a Goal of the Season competition out there! Really good for the new players to get off the mark.

being this disappointed with a 1-0 loss away at Newcastle is probably a decent sign for the rest of the season, decent performance at a ground where we have one of our worst records.

Another possible aspect is that overnight, this caused all the calls from Russian shills for the conflict to be frozen according to ‘the reality on the ground’ to dry up completely. Reports seem to suggest Ukraine has met minimal resistance so far, mostly untrained conscripts that have surrendered en masse, which if nothing else should allow Ukraine to exchange to get some PoWs back.

One aspect that’s becoming clearer, Ukraine being able to go this far and this quick into Russian territory, and Russia’s continuing lack of ability to effectively respond to that, suggests Russia’s resources are stretched even thinner than anyone thought. They’ve obviously been throwing thousands of troops onto Ukraine’s defences for minimal gain in Ukraine, but it appears they’ve been completely compromising Russia’s own security to do so, throwing absolutely everything they have at it. Even if Russia believed that Ukraine invading was completely impossible, a country with the supposed military resources of Russia leaving a border with a country they’re at war with without any form of adequate defence defies belief.

That was out of date when it was written, let alone now.

What’s happened in the Black Sea has a very real effect on Russia’s ability to take Ukraine. Two years ago the threat of an amphibious assault to attempt to take Odessa was a worry as it would have cut Ukraine off from all sea trade, and is an example that Russia’s ability to wage war has already been degraded. Kherson is probably the best example on the ground. Eventually they calculated that they didn’t have the resources to defend and withdrew. Russia are already starting to have problems replacing troops. They’ve cannibalized a huge portion of their regular economy to fuel their war economy. On paper that makes certain aspects of their economy look great, unemployment is low, production is high, but it also means that Russia isn’t producing everything Russia needs, with sanctions increasing that problem. As reserves start to run down, scarcity of some products is increasing, and inflation is starting to run away, making it more expensive to hire soldiers. On the battlefield, similarly, they’ve been delving into reserves of Soviet equipment to maintain their forces. While those are deep, they’re not replaceable at anywhere near the rate they’ve been using them, and the best quality is used first. There’s a reason we’re seeing equipment that’s 60 or 70 years old appearing from Russia, and motorised troops being equipped with nothing more than motorbikes. This is being exploited by Ukraine by using drones that Russia’s remaining materiel is more and more vulnerable to, with Ukraine now having the advantage in drone production, and also Western IFVs provided to Ukraine being able to compete with Russian tanks. Air defence is a particular problem for Russia, with coverage already having to be prioritised by Russia, and Ukraine in possession of weapons that can take out Russian air defence systems, which is about to be exploited by the introduction of F16 by Ukraine. Another aspect that’s starting to become an issue for Russia is artillery. They currently have enough shells, albeit of less than ideal quality, thanks to North Korea, but the barrels to fire them (and the ability to replace those barrels) is another matter. Huge swathes of Soviet equipment have been cannibalized just for the barrels. Russia has already started to have to ration barrel usage.

One battlefield has already been settled by Ukraine. The Black Sea has no Russian navy any more. What makes you think that it’s different for their army in Ukraine that means Russia can just indefinitely sustain more losses than they can replace?

So Russia still have access to the same level of resources they did two years ago then?

Russia would love everyone to believe they have effectively unlimited resources, but they really don’t. They’re gutting their own economy to keep the war going, and it’s starting to hit the tipping point where that’s going to start having very real effects on their ability to wage war.

Someone providing anecdotal evidence that Russian disinformation and propaganda works on ethnic Russians isn’t actually disinformation itself. (Or particularly surprising, unfortunately.) It doesn’t particularly surprise me that you’re either too dim or too disingenuous to recognise the difference, though.

Certainly not the worst we’ve ever done to start a preseason!

Very few international teams face more than one or two top teams on the way to winning a trophy, and none of them go into those games thinking they’re guaranteed to win. Even fewer fully deserved to win every game along the way. Southgate earned those easier draws to a certain extent by being far more consistent in qualifying and group stages than any other recent England manager. Remember how often we’ve heard ‘group of death’ attached to England because we weren’t in the top seeds and ended up missing out on finishing top of the group stage as a result, or even going out in the group stage. Part of the reason for avoiding that, and one of Southgate’s biggest accomplishments with England compared with those managers, is that we’re sat here talking about whether the football was good enough to win a tournament and not about whether the preparation or the environment around the players was to blame for yet another early exit.

Thought it was going to go our way for a few minutes after we scored! It very nearly did… and can’t help but wonder how it might have gone if it’d gone to extra time with the close offside or that late header cleared off the line, but at the same time it was similar late goals in our favour that even got us there. At least we don’t have to sit and watch any more games in the tournament without England still in it… straight back to Saints’ football.