Jimmy_D

Looks fantastic

The reason the lockdown was put in place was because the projections for imposing self isolation on just the most vulnerable was that 250000 would die, with the NHS overwhelmed and unable to treat everyone. We're still nowhere near herd immunity, so going back to that strategy, those projections would still apply. The reason so many countries were taken by surprise by this is the combination of it being highly infectious, and it being transmissible by people with no symptoms. It only takes one person who doesn't know they have it, and without social distancing reducing how infectious it is, it will quickly get to everyone. The costs of that would vastly outweigh the benefit of opening up the economy again. Would you want to be one of the NHS staff who decides who gets treatment and who gets left to die? I know that the lockdown is tough. Really tough. We'll be paying for the effects of that and the effects for the virus for a long time. But it really is the least worst option.

I don't think 'project restart' is about actually restarting the league personally. Anyone can see that's extremely unlikely. I think it's more about liability, the Premier League being able to say they did everything they could to restart and it was taken out of their hands eventually.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52418048 Dutch league abandoned and left as it is. No promotions, relegations, or titles, and current placings used for European qualification. I'm sure there will be legal challenges, but it seems, on the surface at least, to sidestep UEFA's stipulations that voiding the league would forfeit places, and possibly broadcast revenue for games already played is protected too, as they still happened in effect. I can see that being widely replicated myself.

If re-signings count, Kevin Davies

Oof, that brings back a bad football memory.

Kelvin Davis has to be up there. Given the Team Captaincy when Liebherr took over in League One, turning down a move to West Ham in the Premier League in the process. First season we won at Wembley in the JPT. Second season we were promoted from League One. Third season we were promoted from Championship (and finished above West Ham). After that he became Club Captain, and all the way through he was reportedly a massive influence in the changing room.

Sorry to hear that, wishing you and your mum all the best.

It'd probably have been even shorter lived if Wright had had some decent trainers on lol

Ultimately it doesn't really matter as they're deferred - they'll be paid eventually. As long as it's enough to keep the club going until we have an income again, ensure all the rest of the staff are paid, and means the club can avoid using the furlough scheme, it's an excellent move by the club.

Freedom of speech just means he wouldn't be arrested for it, and even that isn't without restriction. It doesn't stop other people lowering their opinion of him because of it.

I take it you didn't watch to the end of that video then

We do have a written constitution, or at least a valid equivalent, it's just that it's written in centuries of precedent. Let's put it this way, I wouldn't fancy compiling it all into a single document. Especially as any existing precedent that contradicted it would presumably take priority over it anyway. If the precedent exists as to what should be done we'll follow it, and if it doesn't we'll do what we've always done and create the precedent that will be followed. If precedent needs to be changed because it's not what the people want or times have changed we can change it for that reason too. It's not a perfect system, but over time it tends to reflect the will of the people it applies to.

47/48, although I'm not sure how many of those were cup games. The one he missed was a league game though. There are bound to be a few players on a smaller number of penalties with 100% I'd imagine, but Le Tissier's record was so far above what he'd have been expected to get on average, it was silly.

Lambert is the only England player to have scored with his very first touch for England, achieved while he was a Saint. First LED floodlit stadium. Only team to have caused an opponent to change shirt colours at half time. We're the only team to have won by four or more goals in the South Coast Derby. Most likely team for Mark Lawrenson to get his prediction wrong on (probably!) Does anyone have a better top flight penalty record than Le Tissier?

That goes back around to whether they think that Liverpool winning the league would cause the public to gather in Liverpool and how much strain the spike from that would put on the NHS.

If it's safe, sure, but that's very unlikely. Government estimates (assuming a fair few unknowns) put us at about three to six months before we might be back to normal, which would be the end of June at the earliest. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52084517 I guess football could be one of the earlier things to come back, but like I said, preventing crowds forming is going to be paramount for a long time.

You don't have to actually officially void the league to avoid restarting it too soon. Whichever actions prevent crowds forming are the correct ones at the moment, and will continue to be for the foreseeable.

To be fair, the messaging from the press has been consistent on how important the measures put in place are.

It's not the footballers that will be the problem, it'll be the response of the public that'll be the concern. Can you really see Liverpool fans sitting at home and staying isolated when they win their first title for three decades? In Italy they're literally taking ventilators away from older patients to save younger ones that are more likely to survive. It's a horrible, horrible situation, from people's absolute worst nightmares, made real, and the only reason it's happening is because it's the least horrible option. People are dying not because of the tragedy of not being able to overcome the virus, but because there's no treatment available because too many people are sick. Here we might just about have done enough to avoid that. Maybe. And it'll all have been for nothing if we let up too soon and end up with a second peak that pushes us above capacity to treat it. This goes so far beyond football... it's not something we can treat lightly in any way, shape or form.

The best outcome, purely from a footballing point of view, is for the season to finish before contracts run out. For obvious reasons that's extremely unlikely to happen. Personally I think the season will eventually end up voided due to the issue of contracts ending at the end of June preventing the season from ending fairly. It's possible they'll decide that finishing the season later is preferable to voiding it, whenever that happens to be, but imagine one of the teams in the relegation mix goes out and buys a load of players and escapes. If you prevent any players signing until the season finishes, you still can't force players to carry on that are out of contract, or finishing loans, which also distorts the finish. Purely from a competition point of view, the only option I can see to finish fairly is to cancel it, otherwise you have to change the rules and/or players that teams started the season with outside of what was agreed at the start. As far as I can see, it's only the money in the game posing an existential threat to leagues and clubs, that's pushing people towards wanting to compromise on the sporting integrity. To be able to finish the season and apply qualification and promotion/relegation etc. All of this is completely separate from next season, which we can go into with full knowledge of the existence of COVID-19 and adjust the rules to be able to cope with possible delays etc. Obviously Liverpool are the biggest losers in that scenario, and it's difficult to think of a team that would have been treated more harshly than them missing out like this, but literally every aspect of our life has been knocked sideways by a global pandemic, and there's no way to keep everyone happy with the outcome here. Obviously it's not time to say that the season should be voided now, as long as there's still a small possibility the season can be ended fairly, but as time carries on I think it'll become more and more likely. Starting to look more unlikely the Scottish League will finish, for what it's worth; https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52092857

That really was an awesome day for us

Aye, we were starting the process of dismantling the Empire anyway, but it was WWII that probably finished it off. http://www.wikipedia.org/British_Empire_in_World_War_II Our economy still feels the effect of WWII even now.

Still doesn’t work due to relegated teams. For example, an unplayed match against Norwich is a very different prospect to an unplayed match against Leeds under Bielsa.

Watching football