Lighthouse

It’s as much of a symbol or statement as anything else. The phrase, "convicted of war-crimes in The Hague," carries a certain gravitas and mingles you in with some fairly unpleasant company. Most Putin supporters won’t care but it might start to dawn on some normal Russians who think this is just a localised military operation.

By pure chance there are engineering works on that particular Sunday but not the Saturday. The trains for Sunday the week before and after are the same as the Saturday trains, we're just unlucky in this instance.

Points 1 and 3 are basically the same but I've never particularly had an issue with trains on a Sunday. I certainly wouldn't say they're a noticeable downgrade on Saturdays. Sunday evening is a relatively busy commuter time. I don't really have an issue with drinking on a match day before work either. Unless you're out getting slaughtered past 10pm I don't know what the problem is there.

It doesn't tip anything anywhere, it just harms the economies of all involved. Like Tim said, 2/3 of China's trade is with the West, they don't have to do that. Given that the Chinese government basically controls everything there, if they wanted to shut off trade and have a cold war, they'd have done it years ago.

Why would China or India want that?

China is currently dealing with a massive Covid outbreak which will give their economy a bit of a knock in itself. I’m not sure they’re going to pick Putin as their hill to die on.

By contrast I have a family member who worked at a place called KAUST up until three years ago. Basically, it's a large, multinational university complex just North of Jeddah. I went to visit once and it's a seriously impressive place, basically a small town they've built around a large, scientific research facility. The leaders (It's named after King Abdullah) have chucked some serious money into catching up with the 21st century, attracting expertise from around the world and educating their own best and brightest. Added to this they're hosting major golf tournaments and now a Formula 1 and Formula E race, as well as the whole Newcastle saga. They've very recently allowed women to drive cars and even appointed a women's council (although it is rather hilariously just a group of old men). For all the legitimate criticism of Saudi, it is a place taking baby steps in the right direction. They've realised they can't go on forever digging holes and hoping to find brown goo (as Monty Burns would say). They're working hard to develop and retain their own talent and expertise, in much the same way as The UAE has branched out into travel, tourism, banking, research etc. Russia can't seem to see any of this. These are the places which will gradually begin to overhaul Russia in terms of global appeal and social direction. Europe and North America are already long gone.

Putin is so obsessed with being seen as a global superpower that he can’t accept the world has changed. A declining, ageing population, a stagnant economy which is largely dependant on primary industries, increasingly isolated from the biggest trading partners and the only friend they’ve got is another self-serving dictatorship who’re going to buttf*ck them for whatever natural resources they need. Aside from having a big pile of nukes (in who knows what condition) they aren’t a superpower by any real metric.

We did try, what makes you think we didn’t? After two defeats Ralph had apparently, "been figured out," so he decided to try a slightly different approach. In the second half we reverted to our so called best team, Broja came in and nothing happened. As I said to someone else, do you expect to be undefeated against United and City and to win at Spurs and West Ham? Everyone expects to beat Watford and yet here they are with wins against Everton, Man United, Norwich and they beat Villa home and away.

That's just football though, it's the same for everyone. We wouldn't expect to be unbeaten in 9 games against Man City, United, Spurs and West Ham this season but we are. These blips and results happen to pretty much every club, every season. Even when we got promoted from the Championship we took 1 point from 6 games, against Bristol City, Blackpool and Leicester.

WTF!? We're top half and in the cup QF. Despite yet another summer where we had to sell before we could buy, including our top scorer for the last three years and best CB (of an awful bunch). Whilst teams around us in the table have spent £30m plus on at least one player, we're still shopping around in the £15m bargain bin with the likes of Norwich and Burnley. We've managed to take a step forward from last season despite replacing some of our best players with a couple of kids from Chelsea, a Championship striker and a LB from France. Everton are asked to go one season where they can't splurge £100m on new players and boom - immediate relegation fight. Leeds lose two of their better players to injury and they're down there too. Honestly, where do you guys want/expect to be under these kind of operating constraints?

Unfortunate though that may be, and I hope they are eligible for vaccines on the NHS, it doesn’t quite stack up people being homeless and alone in a foreign country, because they’ve fled a war zone. I’m not sure why that needs explaining.

I love your posts, I don’t think even you have any idea what point you’re trying to make.

TBH there’re still quite a few I wouldn’t be at all fussed to see the back of. Any of our ‘keepers, Stephens, Valery, Moi, Walcott, Long and Djenepo.

I’d say he had his Vestergaard moment of being decent for 7 or 8 games and now has reverted to being the player he was for two years before that. Looked like a passenger in the last three games.

Two yellows in three minutes by the looks of it.

Liverpool, MK Dons, Millwall…

Redmond and Armstrong for Smallbone and Moi IMO.

Newcastle fans singing, "Mike Ashley, he’s coming for you!" At Chelsea. 😆

Anyone would think we were a mid-table team who have periods of good form and periods of bad form.

What in the name of f**king f**Kerry was that!?

Free kick there just because it’s the keeper.

Like the back four. One striker is an interesting move.

Anybody going to take in a refugee?

I'd have Perraud and Redmond in for Moi and Liv but persevere with Broja for now.