Lighthouse

Russ and the coaches probably thought players like Sully and Edozie would be better to bring on in than the likes of SAA. Very often when you bring on players like that you need them to force a result. Playing players on the ‘odd occasion’ for a few minutes isn’t really going to help. Only regular football will really do that. The point about 2008 was that blindly saying young players can’t possibly be worse than senior, underperforming players isn’t true. There’s no reason at all to think that SAA would have been a better option than Sully.

I don’t remember people being quite so certain of promotion when we were 12 points adrift of Leicester and Ipswich and facing the almost certain lottery of the playoffs. We needed our foot flat to the floor with maximum possible points in every game. There was no time for any passengers, Russ had to go with the best players available. Didn’t Mara score five in a reserve game last season? People said all this stuff in 2008, then when we were actually forced into playing the kids they were worse than what we had before and we got relegated.

Nobody was prevented from doing anything. Neither SAA nor Dibling were judged ready and good enough for first team football last season. What you’re basically saying is that we shouldn’t have signed a player who helped us get promoted, so a couple of young players could have played football they weren’t ready for. If either had been better than Rothwell, they’d have played instead of him.

No, he was never seen again after looking lost against a pretty mediocre QPR side at St Mary’s. His lack of appearances thereafter had nothing to do with Rothwell.

He contributed more than Alcaraz to the team last season, so if you’re going to include the latter’s return as an addition to the squad, then you have to accept that we’ve lost Rothwell. CA was a bit ‘emperor’s new clothes’ last season, people kept talking about what a class act he was who would rip the Championship apart but aside from one wonder goal he did naff all.

We've lost Che, Brooks, Fraser and Rothwell, gained BBD and seen the return of CA. McC is worse than Baz, many disagree but I fear it will start to dawn on people in a couple of months. Suga will also have to be seriously decent just to match KWP, I'd be happy to 'break even' on that one. Those are the areas we're weaker. We're stronger at LB and that's about it really.

You're getting very animated about strawman arguments and random Twitter accounts you choose to read through your own free will. It's not the middle of June any more, people are concerned because two weeks before the start of the season the only sign of even a reasonable improvement is at LB and our forward options are considerably weaker. It's not that we're missing the last couple of pieces, we're nowhere near even fighting relegation at the moment.

Taylor is a reasonable enough player for a club in our position but that's not really the issue here. A bottom third quality LB is barely a scratch on the massive void in quality between what we came up with and what we need to stay up.

People say this a lot and it's always where the argument starts and ends. "Gender identity is different from biological sex." Then that's it, no definition, no context, no examples. For me to believe that, I'd have to agree to somebody else's ideas of 'man behaviour' and 'woman behaviour' which are personal, subjective and have no basis in science or factual information. That whole argument can essentially be reduced to, "I self identify as myself," which is just meaningless.

According to Cessna’s official website, the Citation only has an internal cabin height of 5’8", so it certainly could be Ryan Fraser.

Yes but that’s quite clearly a person with female reproductive organs, which would produce eggs, if healthy and free from deformities or abnormalities. It’s not difficult at all, it’s a very clear and straight forward definition.

The PL is increasingly heading to a point where you basically have to hope your promotion coincides with somebody already there gets shafted by FFP and is forced into a yard sale and/or points deduction.

Being born with reproductive organs which produce either eggs or sperm is a perfectly straight forward definition which covers 99.999% of the population. The very small number whose organs produce either both or neither are clearly hard to define but that doesn’t appear to be the case here. As far as I’m aware Khelif ovulates and is therefore a woman, the issue here is one of fairness and testosterone imbalances, rather than gender definition.

I'm not sure that really works as an argument. You have to pay the ferryman at some point and having an extra CB usually just means you are lightweight in midfield. I remember Ralph trying it whichever season we played at Turf Moor on the opening day. We were dreadful, lost 3-0 and just couldn't keep the ball with no reliable outlet. Ultimately he ditched that formation and we looked much more solid reverting to a back four. I'm not saying that's always the correct defensive formation but it's incorrect to assume that a back five equals safety and solidity. Right now I'd say, McC... or Lucy, if she fancies a go Suga THB Bednarek Taylor Smallbone Downes Aribo Edozie BBD AA

For 99% of the population your reproductive organs are enough. There is no social convention on gender.

I fear you may be wasting your time fishing in this particular pond Hypo.

Let’s keep this thread sports related. Iranian gender can be debated here.

Unlike the whole argument surrounding ‘gender identity’ in society, there are at least facts in this subject which are possible to debate. The fact that everybody apart from a very, very small minority of people can be classed as having either male (produce sperm) or female (produce eggs) reproductive organs still hold true here, so you can argue can argue that she should be allowed to compete in women’s sport. On the other hand testosterone irregularities can clearly give some women a massive advantage which some would argue is unfair, as it was with Caster Semenya.

Well, if we line up with Stewart and Onuachu against Newcastle, we’ll know where the ‘two big ones up front’ idea came from.

After seeing what foreign owners did to football, I can’t say I’m a fan of that. If they could at least sort out some decent catering for the one day games, that’s be nice.

Nobody’s pathway is getting blocked at Saints this season, we lack genuine quality and depth all over the park. If you can’t get into the team ahead of a ‘really underwhelming’ player signed from elsewhere, then you don’t deserve to be in it at all. Im not sure which of our signings constitute ‘good depth’ either. We’ve signed two that we’re already here last season, got like for like replacements for Che and KWP and signed a couple of unproven CBs from Champ/L1.

That was the best team in the Championship and we’d added Clyne, Davis and Jay Rod by the time we went to the Etihad. We’re well below that level now.

I genuinely think this could be embarrassing. We have a worse squad than the one which finished fourth in the Championship last year and Newcastle are a decent side.

I can’t for the life of me understand people saying stuff like, “we only got promoted because of Bazunu’s injury,” after McC put in three competent playoff performances. He made an error today which was easily as bad as Baz’s against Plymouth and conceded a low shot from as far out as that Watford goal. McCarthy has replicated Bazunu’s two worst moments from last season in just half a friendly against Oxford. He's not a better goalkeeper in any capacity, Christ knows what we’re going to be saying after 35 games.

What’s the other one called?