Lighthouse

If San Marino played in the Premier League, they would be hit for double figures more than once per season.

I do wonder sometimes how modern society would cope with something like that. Or more specifically, to what extent certain people would be willing to deny something staring them in the face. No doubt if a disease came along and wiped out a third of the country, there’d still be some claiming that it was, "all part of the big reset, they need us scared so that we’re obedient," and that the lockdowns have actually killed more than 20 million people in delayed cancer treatments.

They’re Man City, they don’t have to take a punt on players they know have ongoing fitness issues. This is a club that signed Riyad Mahrez as a squad player. Chances are they will sign Kane or Haaland and if they want another striker it’ll be another young prodigy like Jesus. Not someone who might be fit from time to time.

Do you not think that in itself is a massive red flag?

Last season maybe. His Premier League scoring record across his career is 11, 2, 0, 1, 7, 22, 8.

Excellent news. Hopefully we will have most of the country done by Christmas, or at least everyone will have had the opportunity.

I was against it returning during the first lockdown, when literally everyone who could stay at home was being told to whenever possible. I’ve never said it will make me safe but it will undeniably reduce the risk of transmission. Yes. It’s quite literally my lowest and least concern out of everything that’s happened in the last year. Right now we’re still closing shops, pubs restaurants and even being told not to visit each other’s houses. When all of that is behind us, then I’ll worry about wearing a small item of disposable clothing, which is at worst a mild annoyance. It’s not the new normal, it’s just where we are at this moment. Anyway, what are we supposed to be worried about? I don’t get how wearing a mask fits into any sort of government conspiracy.

Seems like a no-brainier to me. Masks and sanitisers are pretty much money for old rope, having a huge effect on the rate of transmission whilst not preventing 99% of people from going about their daily business. Yes it’d be nice to go back to the pub and have some stranger coughing his STDs all over me from an adjacent table but it’s my last priority personally. It would seem very strange logic to say we can all remove our masks in Tesco and stop washing our hands, but we’re only allowed 5,000 in St Mary’s. If that’s the kind of choice we’re facing in the intermediate future I’m sure we’d all much rather have 30,000 masked fans in for the first game of next season.

Define ‘falling for’ and why would they care if we do? It’s a results business, they can’t fool the league table, which is what those running the club actually care about.

We aren't, why would you say that? We're getting vaccinated and opening everything up. Europe are lagging behind, locking themselves down and right now it's probably not a great idea to be going there.

Scientists say they're concerned about the South African variant and its resistance to vaccines, that's good enough for me. Long term, we're going to have to continuously tweak the vaccines to stay one step ahead of the scarier variants and the situation will probably end up reflecting the previous flu vaccination programme for older citizens. First we need to get on top of the virus that's out there now. We're doing that in Britain, in fact we've done a brilliant job and we can look forward to going to football, concerts, pubs etc. within the next 3-4 months. We may even be able to holiday in places like Israel and USA, who're doing a pretty decent job themselves. All I'm saying is that if Europe is lagging behind, it's probably not the right time to be going there, as much as I'd love to personally.

The danger comes from thousands of people going abroad and bring back vaccine resistant strains in large numbers, which basically puts us back to square one. I think the strategy right now is to go with vaccination and isolation (from the rest of the world) and get the whole country opened up on schedule. When the rest of Europe catches up with their vaccines, we will probably start looking at allowing holidays.

I don’t think they could have envisaged the EU third wave and their complete farce of a vaccination programme, that far in advance. If Europe was making a better attempt to catch us up and we didn’t have the supply problems which are now arising, I think things would be a bit different. Domestically, there’s no sign of them not sticking to their word, but in terms of international travel they’re playing it was after what’s gone on before.

Given that the poorer countries have extremely limited vaccine development, production and administration programmes and are massively reliant on richer countries to take on that burden for them; no we aren’t greedy or selfish. To claim otherwise would be like giving a tramp £20 and have him say, "oh yeah sure, you make sure you’ve paid all your own rent, food and bills, then give me leftovers."

Agent of player for sale in 'talking up interest from bigger clubs' shocker. Man City aren't going to be signing a frequently injured 29 year old who has been pretty average for a bottom third team this season.

I’m not sure he was intending to put the corpses in stadiums.

TBF most C of E Christians are lovely, they’re hardly religious at all.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/970505/COVID-19_AstraZeneca_Vaccine_Analysis_Print.pdf Some absolute crackers in here, including 8 cases of erectile dysfunction (thankfully reported as non-fatal) and one woman who reported that the vaccine gave her bigger tits.

Checks in on thread Sees the word ‘Hitler’ Checks out

Will you be keeping Monica Bellucci and Carrie-Anne Moss?

For the sake of variety, who was the most kick-ass god out there? I quite like Ra, the Egyptian sun god with the head of a falcon. Sadly he doesn’t get the love he deserves these days as they’re all playing squash instead.

You’re like the BLM of atheism Matt. Even though you’re essentially correct, you manage to put most people off your cause by being a repetitive, needlessly aggressive drone, who gets on everyone’s nerves.

Mock Tudor windows with plastic lattice work across the glass panel. Looks cheap and tacky and does nothing other than obstruct the view.

Criticising players en masse doesn't, by default, make them scapegoats. You don't lose 10 out of 12 games, including a 9-0 and losing to 9 men, without some pretty substandard performances.

Their wealth was generated by having glory supporters across the country. You could argue it was ‘earned’ but they were still an insufferable club ‘back in the day’. I can’t remember too many youth team products since they became successful, either. There was the class of ‘92 but when they came through, United hadn’t won a title for 25 years. Clubs taking financial risks is nothing new either. Leeds and Chelsea both nearly went bust chasing United. Back on topic; this Brighton/Newcastle game is crap.