egg

I think that's about right. We're in a tough position for sure. We need points quickly after the restart to avoid being cut adrift.

Call me a cynic, but the media message has been that russia are doing badly and ukraine oh so well. We now have a row back on the EU numbers. Isn't it possible that the EU were in fact correct?

Hmm...not the sort of mistake you'd expect them to make.

Forward

Cheers. I couldn't make out the number. Whatever they are, tragic and needless all round.

Yep. Gotta question what they have left, number and fitness for purpose.

What's that personnel number? The Ukraine number is horrific.

Surely it's relative to the amount that each side had. What we don't know is what they each available to use going forward.

Solvent

Heckler

Yep, groups of 3 will ruin it. The group stages at the moment are decent, and nearly always something to play for on each group going into the last games. Won't get that with a 3. None of the knockout games will be outside the US, but even then, bit of a schlep from way New York to LA, and possibly back again for the next match.

I read something suggesting it'll likely be 12 groups of 4 with 32 going through, rather than the proposed 16 groups of 3. Groups of 3 has all sorts of risk of collusion.

Years ago when fantasy football became a thing. Calling her a bird, but complaining about the term footy though...

In actual world cup news, not sure what dropping Saka and Trippier is about. Like that Foden is in though.

Laughter

Taking the positives, our scouts unearthed a good player...

I'd say Gakpo himself is a reasonable source!

Yep. A 5ft 8 teenage left back and a couple of forwards who may be proper players one day, do not make up for Gakpo.

It hasn't. There's been rumour only, and the suggestion has been that he was coming here but that Semmens cocked it up. I doubt that he's coming here now though.

It's a pointless discussion. The main area where they're struggling is to claim land, almost everything else you mention are inevitable consequences of war. However you cut it, in the actual war, Russia have gained some land, and have inflicted a hell of a lot more agony on the Ukrainian people, it's infrastructure, and the west, than they themselves have suffered. Your view is that they haven't achieved as much as you believe they should have achieved without focusing on what's actually happened to them in comparison to others.

Blimey, you're convinced by the success of the Ukrainians aren't you! How about the success of Western economies...we've got milk and honey! There's never any winners in war, but it's a fallacy to suggest that Ukraine are winning, and that only Russia are suffering from the fall out of their ridiculous actions.

The Ukrainian people can have all the resolve in the world, but that doesn't help much when they're without heat, electricity, water in the winter and being shelled relentlessly.

Not so far, but the Russian pull back from Kherson leaves the residents as sitting ducks.

Fair point @Weston Super Saint, but I suspect very few Ukrainians will be delighted about it. My point is that it's easy to judge the Russian "success" on the one area they're struggling when they're plainly making gains of other sorts...why dig in and fight when you smash the infrastructure and resolve from a distance.

@Jimmy_D We can all focus on Russia not having made massive gains, but if you're a Ukrainian without heat/electricity and facing shells and missiles, you're not going to think things are going well. Kherson. I don't pretend to be a war expert, but isn't it possible that Russia have retreated so they can smash the shit out of it, starve it of energy, then go back?