Lighthouse

Not in January. Summer, yes but not now.

After watching that TED video, I’m practically ceramic.

But that in itself is a heavily weighted statement in Puel’s favour. You’re effectively arguing that he only achieved the points he did because he had the best centre half in Europe for half a season, you’re just arguing it from the other end. That kind of thinking is exactly what the TED video was all about, how Newcastle’s season was flattered by Cissé being nearly twice as efficient as Messi with chances. Here’s a hypothesis; Fonte and Van Dijk are worth 10 points a season on any CB we’ve had since Puel left. You may disagree but I would argue that those two, over a 38 game season could turn 3 draws into wins and 4 defeats into draws (or some variation thereof) compared to Stephens, Vest, Hoedt, Danso and the other dross we’ve had since. If we assume that hypothesis to be reasonable, taking your argument that he did well to score 46 points with only half a season of JF/VvD, then you could assume that without those two at all he’d be 5 points worse off. So you’re then left with the argument that in a season without those two defenders, which is how it was summer 2017, Puel was a 41 point manager with a GD worse than minus seven.

I did think of Puel but didn’t want to go into it again, however since you mentioned him I’d agree with that assessment. As well as the GD we also scored 8 goals in 16 of our home games, which is very poor as an attacking output. Only four of those were from open play and one of them was a goalkeeping howler. The question with Puel should not have been what did he achieve but what would he have achieved had he stayed. A repeat of the cup run would have been massively unlikely and 46 points, if repeated, is usually good for about 13th.

10. Goats can fly 11. You can get away with posting any meaningless drivel if you prefix it with being, "tongue in cheek."

Teams have spent half a billion finishing 8th, so I doubt we’ll be chucking money at that particular dream in January. It sounds like we’ve got an ethos and a business model in mind, rather than chasing any particular league position. Given that there are about 12 clubs who all think they belong in the champions league, I’m fine with that.

My gut feeling is that we won’t and that won’t be their approach. We don’t look like being anywhere near the relegation battle and there is no compelling need to spend in any position. We’d all like a GK and a decent #10 but January is notorious for poor value and unless the right player happens to be available now for the right deal, I can’t see much happening.

Well if we hadn’t it’d have become five pages.

Interesting talk. Very similar to Wolves who currently have the highest points to goal ratio in PL history.

No but it's an easy sound bite and makes for good PR with minimal commitment. Hardly surprising that he'd say something like that.

Are you talking about Uncle Albert or Savage Garden?

I phoned my local pizzeria and asked for a thin and crusty Supreme. They sent Diana Ross.

Three words; John Westwood nudes.

I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or not.

In all seriousness it sounds like Gao is selling at a bit of a loss so… is he going to be executed?

I agree, he’s like a dog that farts, sh*ts on the carpet, can’t do any tricks and humps the vicars leg when he comes over for tea… but the family wouldn’t be the same without him.

It’s all a bit weird, a 19 year old demanding to leave a PL club for more game time, ending up in the Swiss league and still not getting picked. I can only assume some agent or adviser has him convinced he is far better than he actually is.

They’re not our youngsters and were both clearly quality when they arrived from Chelsea. I just don’t see any evidence of Long or Walcott offering anything special off the pitch. I don’t know in what way we’d be worse as a squad if they weren’t here. I’m sure they are model professionals, who try their best and the young players say nice things about them but I don’t see that translating into anything on the pitch.

One would be forgiven for thinking we aren't seeing the worst case scenario models which you have been obsessing over.

I’ve explained it in plain English as best I can, if you still can’t work it out I can’t help you. You, Turkish and Casey have been posting these ‘scare stories’ about worst case scenarios with quite persistent regularity, normally tagged with sarcastic captions about how we’re all doomed. Yet you’re also the same people loudly proclaiming you were right and that these same stories, which you chose to post of your own free will, are clearly bollocks. Carry on but I’m done.

You’re contradicting yourself within the space of the same paragraph. The numbers weren’t bollocks, they were a worst case scenario, those are two completely different things. What’s just strange here is that you and Brett seem to be under the impression that nobody else had any idea that this was the case and that you’ve somehow been proved right. Everybody knows these were worst case scenario models. Nobody was terrified that they were the most likely scenario to actually come true.

I have no idea what you mean by the word, "it". What was all scaremongering? The government asked SAGE to produce models for a variety of different scenarios, which were very hard to predict, including worst case scenarios of 3-5,000 deaths per day. Media outlets naturally ran with those scenarios because they make headlines and sell papers/online ad-space. Actual figures shouldn’t get anywhere near those numbers because we have taken precautions. All of that is fairly obvious to anyone with basic critical thinking and information processing skills. When the stewardess on a plane shows you your life jacket, that’s not scare mongering it’s a worst case scenario you’re better off being aware of.

You need to think more critically about phrases like, "could be," and, "as many as." Not to mention the turbo charged booster campaign and restrictions which HAVE been brought in, like compulsory masks and WFH.

They did what every other club does, only they got caught and were forced to pay a world record fee for a defender as a result. If pressed for an opinion, I'd say Virgil was a moody git, but other than that I'm over it.