Verbal

Or did it not happen at all?

How do we know this story is true?

We are permitted to draw conclusions you know! If you say he was 'too nice' last season it surely suggests he lacked the surgical inclination to replace players that needed replacing. Otherwise what does 'too nice' mean?

Our 'too nice' manager can hardly be accused of getting much wrong last season surely...

The original Japanese 'Ring' films are superb.

My guess is it's a pop re-working of Franz Fanon's 'Black Skin, White Mask'. In other words, a piece of identity politics; not racist as such but not helpful. There is, as you say, some evidence that some black boys in particular perform less well educationally because of this identity guff, and there are now quite a few black commentators out there trying to combat it (notably Bill Cosby). It is, in any case, a huge category mistake. It is not 'acting white' to perform well at school; succeeding in school means not simply allowing a white middle class to maintain a near-monopoly over the privileges and benefits that flow from good school education. (Many Asian families worked this out ages ago, and no one accuses them of 'acting white.')

Apart from the expenditure, WTF is the point of a tour full of triallists? It seems a rather pathetically transparent exercise in keeping up appearances.

Edit: wrong quote! Meant this in reply to tim's swooning at pap's avatar...

Reallly? My guess is he's been cribbing 50 Shades.

To give Rory Stewart his due, he's achieved far more than most Tories. Among other things, I believe he was governor of Basra or a region in Iraq during 'reconstruction', and he wrote a rather wonderful book about his lone walk across Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. He's also led a large conservation programme to protect and rebuild the large number of historic buildings in Kabul. He also lacks any narcissistic traits at all, really, and has a habit of saying what he thinks - which makes him completely unsuitable for political leadership of the 1%ers' parliamentary party.

Exactly. Thank you for slapping down trousers before I had to face that regular chore.

You know nothing about Rangers, dune/Stanley. You're just a racist scumbag who's discovered opportunistically that you can vent your bigotry more indirectly by posing as anti-Catholic.

The hounding of contracted players instigated by Birch and rabble-roused by Allen isn't to decide whether the parachute payments go to the players or the club, but whether they go to the players (as explicitly intended) or Chainrai. In neither outcome does PFC get to use the parachute payments to rebuild the club. So why is Allen seemingly backing someone with Chainrai's motives?

And still no discussion on the point I actually made, which was about the As! All I'm trying to do here is introduce an alternative way of thinking about this. The As experience in getting so close to the World Series is interesting, is it not? And there were/are LEGIONS of coaches who are anti-Moneyball. That's rather the point!

I know perfectly well who DePodesta is. I was talking about Beane's application of those ideas at the As, which you avoid discussing, and the fact that the Sox stole them and won the World Series.

Actually, if you want the real postscript, the Red Sox nicked Beane's ideas and went on to break the Bambino curse.

He did indeed, but it wasn't a team stuffed with £1m signings, nor were Derby. But again, seen in he context of Beane's ideas, you can look at this differently. That's all I'm really suggesting.

The Dodgers weren't a 'postscript'. They were a different team! Read what Beane actually achieved at the As. My point is it can be done. And why 'desperate'? Isn't it a good idea to be open to other ways doing things?

Calm down. You do know what Billy Beane did and how that relates to Clough/Taylor, right? Why don't you actually address the issue I raised rather than venting like an eight-year-old?

And yet it could be done, up to a point, with the right combination of circumstances and strategic approach. Billy Beane came as close as damn it to proving that in another sport (baseball, with the Oakland As). Clough and Taylor, before the Prem, did it here using a not dissimilar strategy.

...

The thread title is a word too long.

Some of this thread is going to find itself in the Muppet Show if you ITK fakers keep this up...

Seems fair enough. Or it's a better version than the one Terry gave.

Welcome to the 20th century.