Lighthouse

In the good old days we’d send a squadron of Lancasters to drop a couple of Grand Slams onto a target like that. Perhaps we’ve been training the Ukrainians to use them up at Scampton.

I was angry, I thought Adkins was doing a decent job, even at this level. Cortese was however proven right on that one, not because Adkins was crap but because we’d unearthed one of the now top rated managers in Europe. You do realise there’s a bit of a gulf in ability between, "League 1 standard," and, "as good as Pochettino,"?

Nope, Gabbiadini in the cup final and I shan’t hear a word to the contrary.

What? You’re the one who’s been ferociously talking up the idea of him being sacked, for several years. The club haven’t alluded to anything of the sort.

This isn’t as good as the old nostalgia thread.

Vest and Bertrand were first choice defenders here, Leicester fans think they’re dreadful. Can’t get into the squad that’s bottom of the table. Ings averaged 13 goals a season for us, I think he got seven last year at Villa. Then there’s a whole bunch of other players who just ended up at obscure foreign clubs or in the Championship because nobody in the PL showed any interest in them.

And yet none of the players we’ve sold have gone on to show any sign of improvement under a different manager. In fact some have shown a significant degradation in performance.

West Ham have spent an absolute fortune on their squad, enough that they should be competing for Europe, likewise Leicester and Everton. Branfoot left MLT on the bench and had the same group of players playing much worse than they did under Nicholl or Ball. Ralph has been far better than Hughes or MoPe and has pretty much got the best out of whatever he’s had available.

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.