shurlock

Were you sitting behind one of the pillars, by any chance?

You mean the Cedric who was murdered by Stoke, part of a calamitous right-hand side against Liverpool, nearly gifted Villa a second goal, completely against the run of play? You mean that Cedric? You're having a mare today.

Eh? What are you on about? Im saying quite the opposite. You point to the match stats to suggest we were unlucky given our supposed superiority in a number of categories -possession being one example. I'm saying there are perfectly sound reasons why palace had less of the ball. Just in the same way you cannot infer much from the number of shots we had when most were half-chances. Pretty basic stuff to understand....

Did you watch the game? They had clearer-cut chances than us and were happy to play on the counter after going one up. We did very little. Our chances -apart from Long's- were scrappy, contested chances, often moving away from goal. Davis header which was the only other chance which drew a proper save was fine. Fill your boots and carry on deluding yourself if you think it's just about the finishing.

No. You were ridiculed because you're an ITK fantasist.

When Shane Long scores, we're no longer guaranteed to win. FACT. Shane Long plays a mean "no woman, no cry". FACT.

What does that even mean, pal?

Nonsense. Leaving aside Gaston whose salary is shrouded in mystery, Long is supposedly the club's highest earner. Doesnt play or produce anything like it.

#familyclub

Shhh. Don't tell Marine....

Grub's better

Easy. How many halal breakfasts have you cooked?

That £12m on Long reminds me of using data roaming abroad -seemingly necessary at the time; but in retrospect, makes me shudder. #moneyball

Not completely. Chelsea's defense is also ageing and each year that goes by, the chances of it finally catching up with them only increases.

What do you mean by improve? Clearly it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible to improve on our position each season; but that's somewhat missing the point. The issue is whether the team and squad have improved; and, if not, whether they've improved as much as they could within our constraints. That gives us the best chance to improve in terms of outcome, full well knowing that might not happen for some of the reasons you suggest (though to reduce things to form alone is simplistic) and that's perfectly fine.

Fluid? You mean a fullback overlap? On the whole, Ive found our football pretty boring to watch under Koeman. Said as much last season, even when we battered a few teams. However, I am happy to put up with it as long as it's effective, winning football and it has been for the most part.

He was sacked or forced to resign in a fair few of those posts.

IDS? Does it have Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" on it? Seems all those hash-fueled Sufi nights have gone to your head, my media luvvie friend. Stick to your Judith Chalmers does a poor man's Steve Coll routine -Channel 4 laps up that c**p, so I understand.

Clearly what? Because I happen to disagree with Verbal and by extension you on this specific issue -never mind I have happened to show you up in the past. Don't take it so personally. Let's be clear: I agree with some of Verbal's comments -and acknowledge that religion matters, all other things being equal- though ultimately Verbal's worldview is so obvious (it's relevance here less so) it's not that much more difficult to situate than Pap's - one reason they make curiously natural bedfellows. Go read Roy's work on Islamic radicalism; Jones on the relationship between culture and economic development (Landes doesn't count); Cohen and Inglehart on modernisation and globalisation- I could go on and on. Then we can begin to have a proper grown up discussion instead of trading anecdotes or travelogue vignettes for Vice. But this is a chatboard -and I come here for a laugh. I charge for all other advice

You're still not actually saying anything of substance, sharia mash. The lols don't count. I'll take it that you can't respond, won't respond -or as is practice on here, you're way out of your depth. Keep going, though.

My point stands, as illustrated by your complete inability to respond to it.

I guess you haven't heard of oil? If Saudi Arabia hadn't lucked out and won the natural resources lottery 70-80 years ago, it would have remained economically, in the words of a Lebanese friend, a tribal s**thole, struggling to diversify away from pearl fishing and other basic activities. Why should values have kept up with new found oil wealth (which in turn has retarded other processes of modernisation and institution-building). It is an utter outlier and probably the worst example you could find to support your point.

What's your point?

Can't have a thread on the subject without verbal's trademark reference to Wahhabism, Sufism and weed. Alas he still looks at questions through a ponderous religious lens. Another poster was right: low income countries moving fitfully from agriculture to industry tend to have similar conservative values, regardless of religion. While religion does introduce independent fault lines, though speaking about the Islamic world in vast, sweeping strokes is patently absurd given differences in historical traditions and colonial legacies, tribal cleavages, levels of economic development, the role and power of religious fundamentalists and identity politics, it's all too easy to be blinded by it. At best, it's inaccurate; at worst, its positively dangerous when people start to slobber on about a clash of civilisations.

Wanyama has a strop; and too many precious flowers on here are unable to see past that and acknowledge what a good player he is. Bitter, biased, nah