Jimmy_D

Gambling on NATO breaking a treaty and sacrificing member countries is a very different prospect for Putin than invading a country that’s been denied entry to NATO so far, at least partly because of the risk of conflict with Russia. I think Putin has gone too quickly in Ukraine as well. He doesn’t even have the fig leaf of being in conflict in the separatist regions before launching a full scale invasion. The unity shown against that may well be greater than Putin expected, and far more costly than he was counting on, not to mention being far more difficult to justify to the Russian people, even with State Media.

Like I said, boots would be on the ground before an invasion. The danger would be Putin thinking that’s a bluff, but NATO isn’t going to sacrifice a member country in hope that that’s enough for Putin to be satisfied.

So Putin gets to invade whoever he wants because he might just be MAD enough to be the first to use a nuke? The line would have to be drawn somewhere.

No? Neither does the USA by the look of it. He’s stated that he wants to restore the Russian Empire. He’ll carry on doing that unless the cost is too high.

The USA has already deployed the 82nd Airbourne to NATO’s borders.

I think if there were any indication of an imminent invasion of a NATO member, boots would be on the ground before it happened.

It wouldn’t be defending Lithuania or Estonia, it’d be defending NATO itself. Like I said, the bigger risk is that Putin doesn’t believe that. The risk to NATO of Putin thinking any part of NATO would be left undefended would be far too big a risk to ignore.

If any NATO country faced invasion, I firmly believe that there would be a full scale NATO response. The biggest risk is that Putin doesn’t believe that. As it is, I think Putin may have underestimated how big the response will be to invading Ukraine.

Seems unlikely. Can’t see them all staying up either though. Burnley remind me of Saints in the 90’s and none of those three have teams or crowds ready for a relegation battle. On top of that Everton in particular have horrendous form and a scary looking run-in.

Everton fans going into a run of fixtures where they’ll be more hopeful of other teams doing them a favour than helping themselves.

It’s happened in 14/24 games. We’re not manufacturing stoppages to make this happen, we’re just taking advantage of genuine stoppages that happen in that time. It’s a good time to take on fuel and fluids as they’ll kick in for the last few minutes of the game. It’s ridiculous that this is even a story.

He tried making the same point on Twitter, seems to be getting absolutely rinsed from all corners in the replies.

To be fair, Long's not in the side for his goals any more. He's bought on to disrupt the opposition and help hold on to leads usually now, and he's still got that in him for a few minutes at the end of games.

Southampton dominate in comfortable win! | Southampton 2-0 Everton | Premier League Highlights - YouTube

Really was a fantastic team performance today!

MotM for me was Stuart Armstrong. Terrorised them with his forward runs and it was a great finish for his goal.

What a game that was! At the other end of the table... I can't see it happening but imagine a bottom three at the end of the season of Leeds, Everton, and Newcastle?

Southampton 2 - 0 Everton (February 19 2022) | EPL | 2021/2022 | xG | Understat.com

Everton pressed really high and really intense for the first 10-15 minutes, but they were completely spent after that. Clearly not ready for those tactics just yet, after that we dominated the game and restricted Everton to very few chances on the break. Barring those first few minutes, Everton in the discussion for worst team seen at St Mary's this season. Only slightly disappointing aspect was not finishing more of our chances, but that's far outweighed by a fantastic performance, Shane Long scoring, a clean sheet, and three points

Everyone knows it's unlikely we win the cup, but claiming it's 100% impossible is classic gambler's fallacy.

So what odds you offering on that? Only I can only get 25-1 on Saints winning it by the end of this year, and if you're absolutely certain it won't happen...

Well, handing Klopp his only ever Semi-Final defeat was a particularly sweet one, especially over two legs. We don’t need it to happen every time we get a chance, only once. Smaller teams than Saints have won the FA Cup since 76, claiming it could never happen for Saints is demonstrably ridiculous.

Everton have been utter toilet for most of the season, including most of their win against us. Anything less than three points would be disappointing, especially with the form we’re in and Everton’s record at St Mary’s.

In the league cup final we fell short because it was the season before VAR came in. Always lose? Yeah, it completely impossible for a team like Saints to get results against teams like Man Utd or Man City or Spurs or Liverpool… completely unheard of It’s even worse sometimes because those teams don’t even use their usual players in cup games and then we have no idea how to play against them…

It’s not like we’ll be pushing players out the door to bigger clubs. I’m sure we’ll still be trying to keep our best players as long as possible. With a bit of luck and progression, hopefully we’ll get better players wanting to stay here longer and see where they and Saints can take each other.