Jimmy_D

That’s not a good sign for Ukraine, but it in no way indicates that NATO wouldn’t respond to an invasion of a NATO country.

I don’t think they want to stop at Ukraine. I do think that a united response against Russia over Ukraine is likely to make Putin calculate it’ll cost too much to go up against NATO.

Waiting isn’t going to make NATO any smaller or move its borders though. Invading, and perhaps more importantly, holding Ukraine, will have significant cost as well.

The cost of (possibly) losing some approval ratings with the USA electorate would be far less than every USA ally questioning the worth of any treaty the USA is party to.

Because they don’t want to break a treaty that obliges them to? I’m really not sure why you think it’d be such a small thing to do that.

Putin could probably have occupied the separatist regions in the same way he has Crimea. A full scale invasion of the whole of Ukraine has rapidly put everyone opposing him on the same page.

Obviously very early at the moment, but a long drawn out guerrilla war in Ukraine with Ukraine forces quietly bolstered by Special Forces for the foreseeable future. If Putin still has support after that I think he’ll calculate the risk of invading NATO too high.

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