Verbal

Here: "We would be furious if we never got that?"

Godammit, has AA still not put his pronouns on his Insta?

Good team, but not sure writing BAZ extra big is going to stop us conceding.

[Edit: in reply to Turkish's "So it's no longer a game..."] Well you can, so long as you acknowledge that, historically, the women's team's achievement could be greater, because women's football in Britain had to recover from the sexual apartheid rules introduced by the FA in 1921, when it banned women's football on member grounds - a ban only lifted in 1970 (and recovery since 1970 has been painfully slow). So rather than 1966, 1921 is the relevant date - we're a little more than a century on from when the FA deemed football "quite unsuitable for females." Not that it was plain sailing for the men's game, where the maximum wage for players persisted until 1961 - just five years before the WC win - when it was £20 pw. So it's all quite nuanced - except to say that success on the international stage only really happened after (effective) professionalisation in both the men's and women's games.

Paging @CB Fry "If they win on Sunday, they will become the first England football team to lift the major trophy since 1966." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66524191

Not sure if this is football related or Saintsweb posters related.

A finer encomium is hard to imagine

How could you have a hipster index and not include 'La Pausa'? It's practically all they talk about in the home cafes round our way.

Interesting snippet from an insider from another club last night: Mourinho was apparently a bit of a data nut about set pieces and spent a lot of time complaining about corners. He argued there was a slightly higher chance of the attacking team conceding from a corner than scoring from one. Also, around 40% more balls from a corner are delivered straight into the box in the Prem than with other major European league. He believed it was just a British cultural thing, and he hated committing his best defenders forward, leaving a lone full back or midfielder vulnerable to counterattack. Even he, though, had to send players forward in the usual way, presumably in some part because of fan pressure. Long story short, maybe our new set-piece specialist coach will be looking at issues like this to exploit the apparent advantage bigger teams have at corners... Anyway, all FWIW.

Not quite, because based on past judgements, if they want to be here, the club want them to be here, and the fans want them to be here, they're likely to be crap.

How big was your pram to hold this many toys?

Everton are negotiating a £25m option to buy.

If Halfway House is halfway as bad as Stanhope then you have a point.

The prize for the stupidest football report on last night goes to John Westerby in The Times, who starts: "One side came up, the other came down, and there was little to separate the two teams." He goes on to say that Saints won the first half and Sheffield Wednesday won the second. I'm trying to imagine how he'd explain this fantasy to literally anyone who saw the actual game. (Wrong thread - never mind)

That won't be possible. COT is hereby suspended. Henceforth please use the appropriate initials after your names for Circle Under New Trustees.

Fulham

Not sure Turkish would have the time or opportunity, hauling vat-loads of toner over the Yorkshire Moors. Oh, wait...

Thanks for that. Now I'm more confident we're going up.

Sorry, what are we talking about now?

...

Because the air is thicker in championship grounds?

Can't see him hoovering up this mess any time soon.

That iron law which states 'the lower the stakes the bigger the wobblies' just got another data point.

You can catch mine as they depart my airspace.

Have you quite finished, or do you have more of that strawman to build yet?