Jimmy_D

Hopefully you're right, but some of the numbers on infections seen so far suggest it might be evading the vaccine. Vaccinated numbers in South Africa mean we can't tell for certain yet, so it remains to be seen how it behaves in a more vaccinated population, but if it evades the vaccine enough that it can also cause serious illness in vaccinated people, the current measures in place will seem to have been woefully inadequate. My gut feeling is that it's not the worst case scenario, but it's now more likely than with Delta that unvaccinated people will come into contact with it, mostly through vaccinated people with relatively mild or no symptoms, and they're the ones most at risk in the UK, but we really don't have enough data yet.

What do you think that actually shows? There are literally thousands of variants, the vast majority of them end up harmless and probably were never even seen, eventually some of them end up dangerous through luck, basically like long ball football. It was ages ago that they started using the Greek alphabet to designate some of the potentially more dangerous ones. That picture as far as I can see just shows an underestimate of how many designated variants we expected to see by now.

Unfortunately this one, Omicron, has the potential to be bad. We’re at a stage where strong measures against it aren’t going to be accepted by the public until a significant effect is seen from it, at which point a far bigger response is needed. Looks like it’s going to be similar to when Delta started taking hold, this time our relatively highly vaccinated population is likely to help us a lot in avoiding serious disease, but it’s likely anyone unvaccinated is going to end up coming into contact with this one. Remains to be seen how dangerous that will be but it’s likely to be similar to other variants. It’s been a good idea to take regular Covid tests, keep social distancing, and wear masks in public settings all through the pandemic, but for anyone that’s either stopped or never started, now it could potentially make a huge difference. I’d especially say to anyone that’s either not vaccinated, or anyone that could potentially come into contact with anyone that’s not vaccinated, these are especially important, both to try and reduce spreading it yourself, and to try and protect others too.

That’s three points dropped.

One of those games where you’re wondering how you’re not 2 or 3 up.

Higher expectations, worse squad at Villa, plus here Hasenhuttl has a club and a fanbase that’s stuck by him through some low times, and a squad that’s settled with his tactics. At Villa it’d probably turn a bit toxic at the first sniff of trouble on account of him not being Dean Smith. It’s possible he goes if Villa chuck a ridiculous amount of money at it like they did with Ings, but even that might not be enough. Very unlikely he goes I reckon. Watching the betting odds is worse than useless with next manager market.

Start of the second half we were getting overrun because their wing backs were pushing forward far more aggressively. Switching to three at the back allowed us to counter that by pushing our own wing backs more aggressively and forcing them to defend more. We looked far more stable against them after making that change.

So, Ing’s replacement scores a cracking goal against Villa, and we go on to keep a clean sheet? Even if we should have made it easier ourselves, and the bellend of a ref should have sent their cheating **** off? That’ll do

Not sure what the rules are regarding it having been seen on VAR already, but surely that forearm smash needs to be upgraded to a red? Wouldn’t be surprised to see the red that was given overturned though.

Aaaaaaand breathe…. Gerrin

Awwww dammit. Gave it a bloody good go but that’s cup football.

Yep. Due to our mistakes rather than anything Burnley did.

Bossed the game, dropped two points due to a combination of being sloppy twice at the back, missed chances, an utter bellend of a ref, and Burnley’s patented 10-0-0 formation. Burnley offered absolutely nothing and were time wasting after 20 minutes. Would be amazed if they’re not toast this season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wSlvAcNHEI

One of the most dominant wins we’ve had in a long time, despite the narrow scoreline. Leeds were poor and we took full advantage to limit them to almost nothing, while we finally managed to find just enough of a cutting edge ourselves, had enough chances that it could easily have been a far more comfortable score. Redmond MotM for me, albeit only just ahead of Salisu. We did miss JWP, although maybe the players on the pitch subconsciously were putting in a little bit more effort without him there?

Bossed most of the game, got caught by one break. For once it was decent keeping/blocks rather than lack of chances that stopped us scoring.

Well done Saints. Excellent performance, well worth the point, feels like we’ve been robbed of two points but at least we didn’t get robbed of all three.

Yeah, had a chance to see the replay now, think it was more flinching than actively ducking out the way, but he’ll probably be disappointed not to have got something on it.

Ah, sloppy defending there, unusual for England these days.

It was Linetty it went just past wasn’t it? Thought Bednarek’s had a decent game actually.

It’s not going to be fixed in our lifetime, not even close. All we can do is speak out against racism, as constantly as racism occurs, and make it as socially unacceptable as possible, by making the normal response to racism to be to speak out against it instead of ignore it. People aren’t going to change their views because of a slogan or a gesture, but friends and family confronting them might shift them slightly, or at least make them less likely to spread their views. If the gestures against racism were to be stopped tomorrow, the most likely response as far as I can see would be that those that hold racist views would see it as vindication that they’re not in the wrong. For this reason alone there’s still a need for them. We can at least leave the fight against it in a better state than we started it with.

Mike Dean maintaining his usual standards of refereeing today I see.

Not so much the first half of last season! Or the second half of the season before. Getting the draws against Man Utd and Newcastle shows we might be getting a bit more grit to keep hold of results as well. Stuart Armstrong coming back into midfield will probably help a bit in terms of keeping control of midfield as well, once he recovers from injury.

Not from a single match. Over time you can judge a player, for example Ings consistently scored above XG for us.

I like it. https://understat.com/league/EPL is the site I use for an at a glance look at how the day's games have gone behind the scoreline.