benjii

US and EU have done a deal promoting alignment and regulatory recognition and allowing US banks to clear Euro transactions, thereby removing the need to do this in London. Over time, London will lose much of its current importance in the financial markets as New York appears likely to be become a direct competitor in a European context. All hail Brexit! Jobs and specialisms will leave London in the FS sector and supporting sectors. As the City contributes around 10% of HMRC tax revenue this is likely to result in increases in other taxes to plug the gap. Still, we should probably give it 40 or 50 years before drawing any conclusions.

Why do people want to play Diallo all over the place? Fucking stupid. He's a central midfielder. If we need a makeshift right back then JWP would be a better option anyway, but we should stick with Valery if KWP isn't available. And why the hell would you play Diallo as "number 10" instead of Redmond, Walcott or Armstrong? Walcott has been gash lately but Diallo hasn't scored a goal in his career. Ralph showed yesterday the folly of weakening numerous positions at once by playing people out of posiiton. I'd bring Redmond in for Walcott and Long (yeah, I know!) in for Adams. Obviously if Vestergaard is fit then he comes in for Stephens. If Romeu is fit then I'd probably bring him back for Diallo; not that Diallo hasn't been very good but might as well keep things as fresh as possible.

This should absolutely be a priority, and let's hope this whole situation leads to some proper measures to support localism and sensible stewardship of resources. There are countries who won't want to go down that route (China, for one) and we should be having a sensible and thoughtful national conversation about how we go about decoupling ourselves from those regimes. It is massively in our long-term interests not to be reliant on cheap Asian imports, without even mentioning the global consequences of deforestation, excess carbon etc. that result from unchecked industrial exploitation to feed global supply chains, but it will take a shift in mindset to get there and will need action to support people on lower incomes who don't necessarily have the luxury of choice. Look at another coronavirus, MERS. A zoonotic disease contracted from camels with a death rate of something like 30%. If something like that starts doing the rounds you're looking at catastrophe on a completely different scale. I think Covid 19 will be impacting travel and other activity for at least another 24 months - current vaccines do not seem to supress transmission and no one knows how effective they really are yet; with further mutations inevitable there is every reason for cautious countries to continue to restrict movement of people; it will take a long time to vaccinate billions of people in any event - so let's hope this side of the debate can gain some traction. Countries and economies should be open to foreigners and to other cultures but should not be reliant on them to sustain their economies and lifestyles. When it is a regime as poisonous and destructive as the Chinese regime, even more reason not to be tied-in.

Here are my ratings: Ralph Hasenhuttl: 3. Prepared the team well but in match decision making was a complete mess. The Redmond sub and moving Diallo and Armstrong simultaneously made us weaker at left back, left mid and centre mid. Absolute brain fart of a sub/shuffle and also quite unfair on Diallo. Redmond should have come on as a straight swap for Walcott, who was terrible. Throwing the towel in when they scored the third was pretty lame. If JWP had put away that free-kick it would have looked negligent (by the way, thanks Kevin for that free-kick, you were typically awful). McCarthy: 3. Only really had one save to make, which he did in the first minute, but ultimately contributed largely to the defeat with his keeping for the second goal. Valery: 6. Grew into it quite well and looked good on the ball without making a telling contribution. People will probably say he was out of position for the first goal but that's only because Bednarek gave it away cheaply. Valery was doing what he was supposed to be doing and taking up a position further forward. Bednarek: 4. Generally did ok but messed up for the first goal. No attacking threat in the opposition box. Struggles with direct runners and movement. Stephens: 5. As above. Vokins: 6. Reminded me of Targett. Neat and tidy and played some good passes but probably lacks the dynamism to excel in the PL. Would get roasted by some of the top players but I'd still rather he covers for Bertrand than forcing someone else to play out of position. Diallo: 7. Very good again in midfield. I hope Ralph doesn't view him as a jack-of-all trades as that's unfair on him. After the first 20 minutes or so, we started to get a foothold. JWP: 7. As above. It's a shame he couldn't put that free kick away. Probably should have gone over the wall as Leno was way across to the left of the goal. Armstrong: 7.5. Our best player on the night. Tireless, picked up the ball lots and glides past players. Great goal - it was lovely to see a bit of innovation on corners, as we have very limited aerial threat without Vestergaard. Walcott: 3. Great at finding pockets of space and tracking back. Terrible at dribbling, passing and shooting. Adams: 6. Battled gamely and played a couple of lovely passes and touches. Ings: 5. Not in the game. Not necessarily his fault but can't really justify a higher rating.

Quite. If he won’t sign a new contract pronto at the end of this season then clearly we will sell him.

Salisu? 🤪

One thing he certainly adds is recovery pace. None of Stephens, Bednarek, Vestergaard, JWP or Romeu is quick and a few of them are positively slow in pro footballer terms. This means that when a team breaks our defensive midfield line they usually end up with a pretty decent chance of doing some damage because we can’t recover. Having said that, Romeu probably wins a lot more headers, which is important against teams where you’re fighting for the second ball. Good to have options. Also, we have been lucky that JWP seems to have superhuman endurance and resilience but surely he is going to miss some matches at some point and we will probably need both Romeu and Diallo to play together. As long as we don’t sell JWP we look well set in midfield for the next couple of seasons.

I'd be tempted to make a few changes. We looked tired in the second half today. Not just physically but also a bit tired mentally. Obviously Vokins will come in (and presumably McCarthy). I'd be tempted to start Romeu for JWP if he's fit. It's asking too much for JWP to play 90 minutes of every match. He seems to be a machine now but sooner or later it will catch up with him. I'd also bring in Valery on the right of midfield and give Armstrong or Walcott a rest (whichever we think is more tired). Long in for Adams. McCarthy KWP Bednarek Stephens Vokins Romeu Diallo Valery Walcott/Armstrong Ings Long Subs: Forster, Tchaepchet, Ramsey, JWP, Walcott/Armstrong, Adams, Nlundulu

We made very hard work of that. Half the team looks knackered. We need to get the injured guys back ASAP. I thought Diallo was MOM. Shout out to Forster too, who has done well since coming back in. On the basis of Nlundulu's first touch in that match, I'd actually start Long with Ings on Tuesday and give Adams a rest.

Rule 1? Or her name, at least.

That old peacenick, Don..... https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/5/8/18619206/under-donald-trump-drone-strikes-far-exceed-obama-s-numbers https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47480207

I run all of the accounts mentioned so far.

Even if Biden is senile, Trump clearly has frontotemporal dementia so it would be a question of "who is more senile?", given the choice of two people. Trump sways, jerks involuntarily, has a protruding tongue which he can't control, can't walk in a straight line, can't read a script and needs to wear a back brace to stand up for any length of time. That's without the fact that he has the vocabulary of an 8 year old. A really small vocabulary. Really small, tremendously small. They say it's really..... small.... what we're doing. Maybe the smallest. Very small. Biden might not complete his term but Trump can't even complete his shoelaces. Seen Trump jogging or riding a bike recently? There are, and will be, legitimate criticisms of Biden, no doubt. I think Harris will be nauseating and will spew all manner of shite, viz. vacuous Tweets already about America "being united in spirit". Clearly it isn't. 75m people were psychotic enough to vote for Trump and if you just pretend they aren't there and ignore the issues driving them to do such a stupid thing then you will only make the problem worse. Nevertheless, this sort of infantile nonsense from Guided Weapon just reflects badly on him. I have to say, I'm surprised because he has always come across as a well-rounded and level-minded individual.

I thought that was a very professional performance in wet and windy conditions. We controlled the entire 90 minutes and were never under any sustained periods of pressure. I remember matches against lower league opponents in the past where we looked like the underdogs, so I thought it was an assured and sound display. We didn't carve them open at will, but our front four were inexperienced or Shane Long and they played with a deep back 5 when we had the ball so it wasn't going to be easy to create lots of clear chances. Diallo very good again and Valery and Vokins looked quite assured. I liked the look of Watts. Seems to be very composed and quite two-footed and to have a bit of flair but without arrogance / extravagance. I think Nlundulu needs to look after the ball better before starting regularly at PL level but he's clearly a goal threat and has a lot of potential.

"Play Champions League", or, "join a Champions League club", is meaningless. The only club who can more or less guarantee that year-on-year is Man City. Maybe Man U will be like that again. (He would actually be a good signing for Man City IMO). Even Liverpool could slip down a few places. Join Spurs, Chelsea or Arsenal and you can easily end up spending your Thursday evening in Yerevan. So if this is what his guys are leaking, it's just about money. Which is fair enough. We haven't got any and he's our best player, so hardly a surprise. As has been said, there is no way for us to sustain success or make headway with the current ownership. Anyone who excels - including coaches - will typically be here for 2 or 3 years max unless they have a burning desire to play for SFC above all else. That's our reality.

Yeah, but he gave GM a lazy lob-on with his #ballsofsteel so suck it up, libtard.

Anecdotal, I know, but I’m aware of friends of friends who have had both doses of the Pfizer or the Sinopharm vaccine and are still contracting the virus and testing positive afterwards. No bad symptoms though. Again, only anecdotal, but suggests at least one of those two vaccines isn’t stopping transmission, even if it does manage symptoms. This is not in the UK, by the way. I guess this means more chance of mutations over time, if the anecdotes are true etc..., as the virus will still be circulating in large number, just not causing serious symptoms.

People slag off Carillo, but he did get an assist at WBA.

I wonder if Bertrand could play centre back. Seems a shame not to give Vokins a match and also it seems potentially foolish not to include a senior player who can't play in the next match. As others have said, a team comprised largely of youth and reserve players could well slip up, considering we don't currently have many fit senior reserve players, so I think it makes sense to include Bertrand. I guess he could even play in a more advanced position and they could both play.

We've scored one goal in our last 5 league games. Without Ings over any stretch of games we will struggle to get wins. We have been outperforming this season, largely due to set pieces, and without Vestergaard as well, we are not much of a threat from those (aside from direct free kicks). The match last night summed up our situation very concisely. Lots of good play, controlled the match for long periods, promising work by Smallbone and Nlundulu but, ultimately, it never looked like we would win. We did play pretty well and, but for a piece of very weak defending, we would probably have held on for a 0-0.

I'm not sure if it's as bad as it seems. A big chunk of the loss is deferred broadcasting revenue, which will appear in the next accounts due to the delayed season end. Another big chunk appears to be a £10m write-off of player contracts because it is deemed unlikely they will ever play for the first team. I presume that's Carillo. Match day income was only down £3m. I'm not sure why we needed such a big loan. Perhaps we have outstanding transfer payments due soon before we are due to receive any. The interest rate does seem rather high. I don't see a huge cause for concern. The main concern long-term will be if there is transfer fee deflation due to Covid and general economic malaise because we seem to be banking on a couple of decent sales to cover our longer term liabilities.

I live in Tanzania and Matt Oakley is one of the lead pundits here. On Friday night we have "Oaksy and Doddsy" where he goes through the main PL stories of the week with Jason Dodd and previews the weekend fixtures. Most people are out on the mega piss on Friday nights though. Just don't drink anything offered out of a Jerry can!

Traitor! Get behind the Brexit FFS!

A pathetic attempted coup attempted by socially inadequate, thick as mince, losers is still an attempted coup, and when it is backed by a President it's quite disingenuous to pretend otherwise.