Lighthouse

Which strikers do you think have particularly dropped off, goal wise, under Ralph?

He was promoted at the first attempt, finishing above big spenders Leicester and West Ham, one point off being Champions and with the best GD in the league. Even with this bizarre statistical analysis, that form over a 46 game season is nearly 60 points, playing the top 8 in every game. If you’re point is that he got better results against worse teams… well, yeah. Reading won the league, losing home and away against Hull and Cardiff, what of it?

If you want to turn a lower midtable team into anything other than mediocrity, you’re going to need to chuck some obscene money at it. The Arabian gulf states are your best bet because they’re more interested in the prestige and exposure than making a profit.

If you can find an Arabian gulf country, with excellent human rights, who wants to buy us then be my guest. Until then we’re all going to have to accept mediocrity.

I know but Hooiveld and Kelvin were top drawer in that league, they’ll do alright. Lyanco too probably.

You’ve cut half that sentence away so you can deliberately pretend not to understand the point. I’m done.

Well, you’d be dead then. Half of our best players f**ked off when Koeman was here and he had ten times Poch’s reputation at the time, having won everything there is as a player and a sh*t load more as a manager.

I think, from a Russian POV, it's even more tragic than that and the Americans will barely give a sh*t. This isn't the cold war, Russia has been trying to cobble stuff together for the last thirty years. Uncle Sam will have picked up pretty much everything of interest when the Soviet Union collapsed and for most of Yeltsin's tenure, Russia had an economy the size of Denmark. I doubt they have any conventional weapons more advanced than the Greek or Spanish military.

I haven't a clue and neither do you. I've no reason to believe it was anything other than professional and he's done absolutely nothing in a Villa shirt which would lead me to believe he's flourishing, now that he's finally free from the shackles of Ralph. Even if they hated each others guts, and whichever Twitter rumours you're referring to are completely true, it's not relevant. No player in their right mind is staying when someone waves a cheque that big in their face.

From a western military POV, this conflict has been an absolute wet dream, so far. Without firing a single shot or burying a single soldier, we've seen the mainstay of Russia's military wiped out Ukraine. We've stood back and watched, learning everything there is to know about Russia's tactics, weaknesses, leadership, equipment levels and serviceability etc. etc. without ever having to show our hand. We have drones, satellites and AEW which will know every time a Russian grunt farts in his trench. We never wanted a war, we didn't need to send our own troops in, there's zero appetite for C17s coming back to Brize with British servicemen in wooden boxes. However, if nuclear weapons of any sort start going off in Europe, we will have to reconsider. As Aragon said, "open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not."

So if only we had a more competent manager, those players would have turned down Champions League football at Chelsea and a monster pay rise at Villa, respectively?

Every club in Europe is out there looking for the best value players, we don't have any god given right to them. So what if Monchenglabach found someone better for £8m, or whatever. We can't afford the best players in Europe, not by a long way, so why would we have the best scouting set up? They're about what you'd expect for that price, decent Championship players. They're not hidden gems but we haven't been mugged off either.

"Well, the Black Sea fleet took a bit of a pounding, better push the big red, 'vapourise all of our families' button."

Escalate to nuclear obliteration? No.

Even if Moscow crossed a seriously big line and used low yield tactical nukes in Ukraine, and I can’t for one second believe they will, that’s not going to escalate either side firing their weapons at major cities. As has been said, it’ll probably just lead to a massive assault on Russian military targets around the world. They will know this and so do we.

I’ve no doubt they could, just not for £15m in 2019-21.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63132831 One of those laws we don’t have to go along with but why would you not, IMO.

I genuinely can’t tell if this is a wind up or if you guys actually believe something this daft. 🤷‍♂️

I remember Owen in an interview saying he could finish as well as he ever did by the time he was 16. The rest is just experience, decision making, movement, communication, physically beefing up etc. In short, I think this is simply as good as Adams and Armstrong are, finishing wise, and they’re pretty limited in that regard. Both are hard workers and basically Shane Long on a good day, but there’s a reason we got them for £15m from the Championship.

Our form as a team over the last few years reflects our leading strikers form very well if you ask me. When Ings had long Covid and was looking for a transfer, his form dropped off and so did ours. Last year we were decent up until the end of February, around the time Broja lost form.

I think we’re well beyond ‘Orwellian’ with Putin. When you’re invading your neighbours, raping and murdering teenage girls and butchering the local population, a few edited propaganda videos is child’s play.

Absolute nonsense, against the top 3 teams around us we W2 D3 L1 and the loss was that absolute smash and grab by Reading.

The problem is that those players cost £10-15m in 2014. In 2022 they would cost £25-30m and we just aren’t spending that. Today £15m buys you either unproven kids or Elyounoussis.

IMG_2652.MOV I know I really shouldn’t laugh but…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63121649 Don’t want to be outdone by the Czechs. Surely we can chip in and buy them a second hand A10 or something.