shurlock

Tonight Matthew i'm going to be...

Jesus wept. Its safe to say you have zero idea how the polling and market research industry works. But since you want to play that little game, I'll remind you that of the two founders of YouGov, one (Nadhim Zahawi) is now a Tory MP and the other and the current CEO of YouGov (Stephan Shakespeare) i.e. the person who calls the shots, has been associated with the Conservative Party for decades (former owner of ConservativeHome, Conservative candidate for Colchester, Jeffrey Archer's Campaign Manager for London Mayor etc).

I see you're now disingenuously and petulantly eliding 'being wrong' with 'unbalanced'. Let's be clear: YouGov, like virtually every other pollster, overstated Labour's share of the vote. Indeed nearly 60% of polls suggested Labour leads going into the 2015 election. This has nothing to do with breathless conspiratorial undertones that YouGov "spun things". The most authoritative postmortem to date -rather than the clapped out soundings of a bitterite- attributes failures to a lack of imagination and proactiveness by pollsters to reach out to -and where this was infeasible- give additional weight to the types of respondents (the over-70s, busy voters etc.) that likely voted Conservative but pollsters failed to survey in adequate numbers. Hardly tinfoil hat stuff. If one wants to go down the rabbit hole and look for real or perceived conspiracies, there are many things wrong with the polling industry -not least herd effects, reflecting the mantra it's better to fail conventionally than succeed unconventionally. That is, pollsters sometimes adjust samples in order to ensure that estimates do not go out on a limb and break away from peers. That said, there are stronger financial and reputational incentives for pollsters to be accurate -hence the soul-searching and bloodletting in the wake of the general election. Their job is not to analyse, though they increasingly do that, informed by the data -let alone entertain, preach to the choir or aspire to set the agenda, as is the case in varying degrees with the media. In this respect, your reference to Kellner is shoddy and jejune. The one finding that does come with a high confidence level and is free from bias, though, is that you don't like hearing things that directly contradict you. You can bank on that, Herbal.

Eh? Include it then, pal. It doesn't make you look any less silly. The point stands: the UK is fractionally behind Finland on the economy but ahead of every other country -never mind that ~2.3x as many Brits think the media is too right wing on the economy as too left wing. On the remaining issues, the UK media leads by some distance.

Not quite correct. The graph presents the net scores I.e. the difference between those who believe that the media is too right wing vs. those who believe it's too left wing. However, if you look only in absolute terms at the number of people who believe the media is too right wing, then across the five categories (with the exception of the economy), the UK leaves the other countries trailing. https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/n2brop7n28/Eurotrack_January_MediaRepresentation_Website.pdf As usual, Johnny is playing an absolute blinder.

Wanyama played very well - Payet hardly got a sniff, though he didn't that much more after the sending off. The challenge was the proverbial "forward's tackle" - sloppy and ungainly perhaps but not violent and reckless.

Watch the replays - see how Valencia initially plants his foot sideways into Yoshida before he gets clipped. Both Gary Monk and Jamie Redknapp pointed this out and said it should have counted against Valencia - never mind the rights and wrongs of the clip. But hey, anything to salvage something from your dip**** sweepstake, right?

I think Herbal is more than a little red-eyed.

Bolted on pen? Both Gary Monk and Jamie Redknapp in the Sky studio said it was never a pen. And as they pointed out with the benefit of the replays, Valencia initially planted his left foot into Yoshida that unbalanced him and caused the subsequent trip. Was there a shout for a pen? Perhaps. But that's a million miles from saying it was bolted on... But hey why listen to a couple of dispassionate ex-pros when we've got a complete numptie with a hard-on for a player offering his opinion?

Which pen did the ref bottle? Yoshida also made some important blocks and clearances which you'll never acknowledge because you're a biased numptie. Of course, if you had your way, you'd also have Stek ahead of Forster and Long in the no.10 creative role

Do I win the sweepstake?

I didn't say it was undeserved and we were always dangerous on the break, save for a bit of composure with the final ball. However, it was a much more frantic, bodies-on-the-line defensive display than you imply -even against Arsenal (thought this is now the 3rd consecutive league game in which they've fired blanks). Being compact is forcing teams to play in front of you and keeping chances to a minimum, even if it means conceding plenty of possession, not letting sides get in behind and through you, as Arsenal did numerous times. Not just once or twice. If you don't believe me, ask Koeman: "'Normally it is more difficult for opponents to create those kind of chances against us. We didn't play well, but we fight unbelievable, we had an unbelievable spirit today".

Great battling point but you're talking utter c**p . The idea we were controlled and compact, limiting Arsenal to nonthreatening areas is nonsense. They had us against the ropes at times and had more than enough chances in the second half to win the game comfortably. It was much more frantic than you imply. Even Koeman admitted we were poor in protecting Forster -and the performance was out of step with our usual defensive displays.

Cute how this little thread has made a splash – I guess when you’re winning the numbers game, you’re going to attract a fair bit of envy. Like anything based on volume, this place has its dry and lame spells, though paradoxically I find it refreshing. On one level, it just means there are disproportionately fewer weirdoes who are over-invested in their online personas. I don’t mind Pap and his merry pranksters –and that includes unbelievable jeff. Indeed I think Pap’s living in a purgatory of sorts, though, of course, he’d vigorously deny it. You can tell he wants to have a proper argument but that's made impossible by Sotonian’s bland, irreverent consensus. To put it in the lingua franca of sotonians, it’s like he’s playing an offline FPS with infinite lives and autosaves against a forgiving and primitive AI. The closest Pap comes to a full-on multiplayer is when he turns on the well-meaning coxford lou, though given her views are like a weathervane –not surprising for someone who still hasn’t decided whether they should p*ss sitting down or standing up- that must have its limits. It’s a far cry from Pap’s days on here when he could take aim at some proper c**ts and every kill was hard-earned and satisfyingly unpredictable. Its like some cruel m**gboard god exiled him at the very same time that domestic and international politics got interesting again -and he's powerless. Deep down, the poor lad is lost. The UI remains an endless source of knuckle-dragging mirth. Its like the opening scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, though before the bit where the apes discover how to make tools and break rocks.And yet TSW is duller without some of its more bizarro ‘characters’. RomseyStu, the piefaced try-hard, is still flying the flag with impunity. He seems to have reinvented himself as the Louis Walsh of social media marketing, grooming teenage boys with youtube channels and calling it 'business'. Oh for a PM…

Quite right, jonneh, wind your neck in. You've had a mare.

A bit unfair on Manning who turns 40 in March. If you've only followed his recent progress, that's a poor sample size and ignores his mid-noughties body of work. Even last season's meltdown can be partly attributed to a freak injury rather than his age-ridden noodle arm given how he exploded out of the blocks. True he's always been a postseason bottler, even in his transcendent years, though that doesnt mean his reputation is overrated. As far as analogies go, Gerrard seems more fitting than Rooney. Anyway, here's hoping the Panthers smash the Broncos.

Are we talking about our very own jamie?

And let's not forget, johnneh, Corbyn hates Jews too.

With overstating the foreign/english distinction, there's something quite different about signing a player who's proven they can cope with the intensity, physicality and pace of the lower leagues. The Juanmi analogy doesn't work. Whether they're technically good enough is another matter.

Clyne and Jrod were nearly 4 years ago FFS. If there is a disappointing aspect to our transfer business, it's that we no longer take a chance on that sort of player, despite the pretensions on here. Next you and others will be spinning some horse**** that we no longer do it because it blocks the pathway of our own youngsters to the first team. Nice one.

#noplanb

Getting smashed 6-1 wasn't.

Yep Long or Davis, possibly Davis just shaving it, given Long's brace against Arsenal came in December.

Probably nothing to do with the wristband - being a dopey **** is giveaway enough.