Lighthouse

So why has it not worked then? For the last year, the message couldn’t have been shouted more loudly and frequently. We had the black squares on Instagram, people tweeting #icantbreath, ‘Black Lives Matter’ printed on the back of every Premier League shirt for a month, every player in every club taking the knee before every game for more than a whole season, likewise with cricket matches, F1 and countless other sports, we’ve had no more racism adverts on TV in the adverts for all major sporting fixtures, huge banners across the empty seats in stadia, marches through all major cities, statues ripped down, films and TV shows from 50 years ago censored and edited, comedians apologising for jokes made in good humour 20 years ago, cricketers banned for something they said a decade ago as a teenager. We’ve had all of that and what has it achieved?

Essentially yes. I don’t mean ignore it completely, by all means prosecute anyone you’re able to identify but all these statements saying, "oh it’s terrible and it’s got to stop," are basically feeding the flames. When you say changing peoples attitudes in the long term, who exactly are you talking about? How many people actually racial abused those players? If it’s 30 out of 30 million who watched the game, then we’re all making headlines out of literally one in a million stuff. Even then, you’re assuming all those accounts are A - English B - separate individuals. Half of them could be Middle Eatern, East European, Chinese, Scottish or anything you like.

The problem is now we’ve effectively created a world where you get rewarded for racism. If you’re being bullied, have self esteem issues, anger problems, lacking attention from society, want girls to see you as a bad boy or whatever, then this is just a quick fix for easy notoriety. I’m sure we all went to school with someone like this, probably more than one person. Whether they like it or not, all these statements condemning it are part of the problem. Having the prime minister, Duke of Cambridge and half the England team saying they are sickened and appalled is just the grown up equivalent of the hottest girl in school saying, "Stephen Parker is such a rebel, why can’t he learn to play by the rules, like everyone else?!" And expecting it to stop.

Gobern made sporadic appearances over the course of about three seasons and even contributed a goal or two so he can’t really be compared, as hilarious as that red was. Not a Saints player but if VAR had been around in 2015, Mitrovic would have been sent off 7 seconds into his debut, against us.

Okay, I think that’s enough of your ‘persona’ for this forum.

I can’t imagine how his ego is going to cope with being sold for €4m.

Ah right. Do you have the minutes from that meeting so that I could have a browse?

Something clearly wasn’t right for a 19 year old to be giving ultimatums about being in the first team. I’m not sure why you’d lay this at Ralph’s door when none of us know anything about what else was happening behind the scenes and in training.

NL - Ukraine Spain - Croatia Switzerland - France Germany - Portugal Italy - Spain All very good games IMO, hard to pick a favourite. Obviously England - Scotland was pretty bad and none of the games involving Sweden were great.

Clearly there's some sort of issue which we're not aware of. Without knowing what, I guess there's nothing left but to wish him all the best and hope his replacement is reasonable.

I guess that may have given him a bit of extra confidence but he was still an 18 year old, taking a penalty in a shoot out against Argentina. I can only assume Saka said he wanted to take one and I applaud Southgate for having faith in him.

Owen scored one against Argentina in '98. If he's been good in training and wants to take one then let him have it. Mentality trumps age.

I think I'd argue Southgate has hit par overall. I know it sounds ridiculous as an England fan, after a WC semi and a Euro final but I think we're just so used to under performing and failure. Colombia on pens, Sweden, Ukraine, Denmark and a substandard Germany who only made the knockouts after scraping a late draw with Hungary. Does this team get through Spain, France or Belgium on the other side of the draw? I'm not too sure. Anyway, fair play to the team, they gave their all tonight. Italy have looked a class above from day one.

Looked like a fair tackle to me.

And you’re the internets version of Pepe shouting, "I never touched him ref!" As an opponents decapitated head goes bouncing across the pitch.

I rest my case, mallard.

Ooooh, now that is nice. I may even buy one when they're 30% of in January.

He was acquitted. Have you ever tried getting a duck to testify in court?

I wouldn't, it's just comfortable, lazy, jobs for the boys thinking.

Yeah, it briefly went off on a warm, buttery tangent but that proved quite popular in its own right, so I split it off.

Different cultures lend themselves to different behaviours which affect how they deal with a pandemic. Some might be more inherently obedient, which helped to begin with, but also more skeptical of vaccines. There may also be a degree of complacency setting in, whereby people don't see the need to become vaccinated because their lock downs have, up until now, been highly effective. I think Delta will be a game changer though. Australia is right up the sh*tter and will remain so until well into next year.

How the f**k did a 'Merry Christmas' thread turn into this. 🤣🤣🤣

So not the 50% of games, where he just looks like he can't be bothered and he'd rather be someone else?

The number of people videoing that in the crowd. Tragic.

Ahhh, of all the people I didn’t want to miss one it was Morata.