Rasiak-9-

Sorry I'll try to expand on what I mean a little bit more. What I'm saying is neither pejorative, right-wing nor meant as an insult. I'm simply saying that concepts of fairness and justice are subjective as they rely on the presence of a subject to hold any meaning. Concepts of something 'working' or not are objective based on the purpose for which something is designed to do. A pair of scissors works or doesn't work depending on them fulfilling their designed purpose of cutting paper, whereas the question "are these a pair of 'fair' or 'just' scissors" can't be answered with either yes or no. Its a meaningless statement in the same way as "Saintbletch is identical" is a meaningless statement, its not right or wrong it just cannot by definition mean anything. So when we talk about fairness' and 'justice', we know that we're going to be dealing with people's varying opinions of how those concepts are both defined and implicated relevant to the respective society we're talking about. That doesn't mean that we should dismiss justice or morality as non-existent! It just means that we need to realise that we're going to be dealing with some fairly murky political philosophy before we can draw workable conclusions. The classic rhetorical question from Thomas Sowell: "People always say they're entitled to their fair share; tell me, what is your fair share of someone else's money?" As I say thats obviously a rhetorical question and might seem like a bit of a straw-man in terms of arguing against things like taxation, but it does highlight the problem; there are a million and one different concepts of what a fair share of someone else's money or economic productivity might be. No matter how well-researched, well-argued and backed up by evidence/political science/economic theory a certain argument might be, it will eventually have to rely on a subjective, moral concept of what actually is fair. Your last sentence is the main problem with a lot of socialist rhetoric and indeed what a lot of people on the left think of people who are more libertarian than conservative and actually share a great many of their views in terms of personal freedom and social liberalism; you assume that they don't have compassion. When you define socialism as compassion you're attacking everything else as 'not compassion' by proxy. The reality of it is that most people, the vast majority of people, want a fair, compassionate society full of happy people. There are exceptions of course, but the vast majority of people want freedom, happiness and justice and simply differ in their views of what those things actually are, as well as how to get them. You, Russell Brand and many other socialists are I'm sure, very nice people who I certainly take my hat off to in terms of your passion for a happier, more fair and equitable society. The problem is though, without a serious argument about how those can be implicated, all Russell Brand really said in his interview amounted to "Why can't the world be a nicer place?"

We lost the game in the midfield. Schneiderlin had a poor game as did Lallana and especially Rodriguez, who apart from his goal gave the ball away every single time. JWP was simply outmuscled and Wanyama (who's been inconsistent but had a superb game today) was the only one holding our midfield together. Ironically, I wouldn't blame our defence too much despite conceding three. They came under so much pressure throughout the game and as I say, we just could hold on to the ball in midfield let alone get it to stick upfront. A lot of people are losing patience with Osvaldo and understandably, yet Chelsea away when your midfield is more-or-less all having a poor game is not an easy fixture for a striker; of course had he had a decent run out at home to the likes of Hull and Fulham he might well have a few more goals to his name and be more of a threat. Finally, Rodriguez, despite being our top scorer, simply cannot play on the wing; he gave the ball away every single time, is never keen on cutting inside and running at players, and doesn't have the ability to skin his full-back and cross with his left foot. ...Having said all of that, I think he'd make a very decent centre-forward and possibly, would merit the dropping of not just Osvaldo but Lambert as well. We need a proper attacking midfielder in the tough-but-clever-and-skillful 'Zidane' kind of mould, and a proper winger with real pace.

This is a perfect example of exactly what I've said; a generic, wishy-washy definition that doesn't actually mean anything. Mises and Bastiat and in later times, Friedman, Rothbard and Sowell have all examined the various possible meanings of "public ownership of the means of production" and deconstructed precisely why none of them are remotely feasible and indeed how and why that very phrase relies purely on an appeal to emotion and subjectivity . Nevertheless, it is quite telling that rather than a counter-point clarifying the definition of socialism, I get two sarcastic and sulky posts telling me that I don't understand what socialism is, which is what I accused socialism of being guilty of in the first place! I'm afraid that if either of you want to be taken seriously in terms of politics and economics, you might want to extend your reading beyond that of the Guardian and an encyclopedia definition

Socialism thrives by avoiding any real definition. Beyond the 'public ownership of the means of production', what definition does socialism have? It avoids putting down roots. It does not strike an economic cord of numbers, mathematics and political science - no, it relies on rhetoric, the inspiring principles of social and economic justice, on the subjective idea of what is 'fair' rather than what works. ...and, whenever it is pinned down and shown NOT to work, the advocates of socialism return to their shallow banner-phrases, their propaganda, and haughtily declare that their detractors have failed to even grasp the idea at the outset, dismissing it altogether.

It really mystified me how Brand could be taken seriously, especially as he seems to honestly think that his ideas haven't been thought of by anyone before, and haven't been critiqued and discussed by people infinitely more intelligent than he is, backed up with numbers, facts, economics and serious political theory.

Perfect analogy. Rhodes for 10million would be a hideous waste of money.

Red Army sounds plastic as ****, but at least NC has done the sensible thing and saved us from ourselves by making us play in all red to fit with those who insist on singing it. When we played in red and white and sang "RED ARMY" we sounded very foolish indeed.

I think the simple fact has always been that its him or Lambert and in all honesty, I think Osvaldo looks better than Lambert in most every technical aspect of his game. Lambert though has been decent recently to be fair and I'm usually his harshest critic. Definitely worth persevering with Osvaldo IMO because he hasn't done an awful lot wrong in my eyes, just hasn't had the extended run necessary and has missed games like Fulham and Hull at home where I'm fairly certain he'd have helped himself to one or two which would have made his goalscoring record look a lot better than it is.

As bad as he was today and as much as I'm furious at his error. There is one problem; he's un-dropable. Fine him, punish him, shout at him, but whatever you do DO NOT put Kelvin in.

There is a big, big difference between an innocent mistake like say...Gazzaniga conceding the soft FK vs Norwich last season and this. This wasn't an innocent mistake, it was a "HEY-EVERYONE-LOOK-AT-ME-LOOK-WHAT-I-CAN-DO" attention-seeking, selfish, all-about-me moment of (even if he pulled it off) pointlessness. He's done it in several games this season as well as last and got away with it; its just utterly, utterly, stupid and as I say, attention-seeking and selfish.

Did we ever figure out precisely what actually happened with Forren? I mean we didn't even give him a go in the first team when we knew we were staying up. Was it literally that the manager just made his mind up that he was never going to be good enough more-or-less straight away? and as such saw no point in giving him a go? It just seems strange as a lot of people did report back as seeing him play very well in matches in Norway and in their national team.

He'll be 30 in December so he's hardly what I'd call 'ageing' (for a centre-back that is). Still, its surprising how quickly he has improved, especially considering he seemed to struggle at times even in the c/ship. I'd keep him around as the partnership with Lovren is working well and I don't really see how we'd be able to sell him for much more than £4 million or so.

The reverse problem with diving is when players are very obviously fouled/tripped but stumble and regain their footing or even in the case of Seamus Coleman against Tottenham a few weeks back (I don't know if anyone else remembers this?) actually fall over but manage to get back up and into their stride in one fairly quick/fluid movement thanks to their momentum/centre of gravity, but were nevertheless obviously, obviously, obviously tripped and fouled. Anyway, the above example was one of the worst incidences of refereeing cowardice I've seen in recent times. Coleman and Everton were literally punished for their honesty and as such, if I were Pochettino I'd note down who that referee was (Kevin Friend) and when he refs a Saints game, simply tell my players to go to ground whenever possible as he's a ref who doesn't have the courage or presence of mind to give a penalty unless you do. Its like in cricket where its technically not a wicket if every player on the fielding team were to stand there in silence. Falling to ground is now part of the appeal for a penalty. The day the refs start giving penalties for shirt tugs and trips that don't necessitate a player hitting the deck, will be the day that there is a moral highground for condemning diving. Until then its just a part of the game like tactical fouls.

This is the only one that we could realistically get going!

Garth Crooks defended Wanyama and blamed Boruc for passing him the ball in that position. ...I won't say what I'm thinking....

Sing if you like. Don't sing if you don't like. I'd err on the side of singing though. Decent-ish chant for a decent-ish player

We were discussing him earlier actually during the game. Aside from being a gentleman, he's a very good manager, and has done brilliantly well getting Hull this far. Certainly the sort of sensible and stable manager you'd trust with your club, even though he might not be the most glamourous.

Meh. Focus on the league. Once the draw was made for the 1/4 finals we knew that our run of Chelsea, and then two out of United/City/Spurs wasn't realistic. Points on the game: - Kelvin should have got his positioning right for the first goal, the ball was obviously going to be headed back across goal and once it had been he wasn't in a position to leap and claim it. Its quite rare you can make a direct comparison between two players in football but you can be 100% certain Boruc would have read the header, got himself on his 6-yard line and been able to leap up and claim it. - Lee, god bless him just won't ever be a Premiership player and its useless trying to get whatever we're trying to get out of him. Like him as a person though as he seems like a genuine 'tryer' and the club should make a decent effort to find him a new club and keep his career on track. Sayonara, thank you and good luck. - Ramirez clearly has ability but just doesn't fit into the high-pressing/high-intensity style of the team. Some people on here really do have an extremely bizzare vendetta against him though it must be said. - Buying new centre-backs even as reserves is perfectly justifiable. Hooiveld/Yoshida aren't ever going to be good enough. - The ball just doesn't stick up front without Lambert or Osvaldo to hold it up. Our system doesn't necessarily entail a monster of a man to head the ball but it does rely on some type of a target man and until then, Rodriguez (despite his improvement) will always be a bit of a square peg in a round hole. - Good effort from Reed, who I thought had an impressive debut. JWP changed the game when he came on as well and looks like he's maturing, so well done there.

Psh. Can't legislate for that at all. I mean yeah it was a mistake and perhaps he was a bit casual as we were just 12 seconds in, but what the hell, **** happens.

I despise political correctness, race-baiting, exaggeration and playing the race-card as much as anyone and am very quick to call it out whenever it takes place. HOWEVER, when it really is genuine, out-and-out, racist nastiness such as this, I'm all for UEFA coming down on them like a tonne of bricks, even though it will never happen.

Italian name. ch = k (Bruschetta = Brooscketta), I really am just being pedantic...

Agreed. Plus its Pocker-teeno rather than Potcher-teeno. But yeah, it just sounds ridiculous, is shamelessly copied from another club and it shows.

He comes across like a genuinely well meaning chap. However... At 4.58 you get to the crux of what he and every other socialist under the sun has had to eventually put forward. "A centralised administrative system in government etc.etc." The problem with this has always been that in doing so, you only set up a new 'upper class' of bureaucratic elites with a monopoly on all the power, capital and resources they plan to redistribute. Precisely the kind of exclusive, unaccountable and irremovable political class that he seeks to rally people against. What he's saying is nothing remotely new. The level of popularity the video has obtained is simply down to the fact that for a lot of (I'm sorry to say) fairly ignorant people this is the first they've heard of completely flawed, but ultimately very standard Marxist/Socialist theory. Simply because a pop culture icon is spouting it.

Well said.

Well said sir. Our players have fought with passion and pride this season and I for one am more than happy to show my appreciation. One thing I'd add is that as I'm only 23, for myself and a lot of our generation of fans, this is the best Saints team we've ever seen! and as such, we're mystified as to why the support isn't better! You older folks might well be forgetting that!