Lighthouse

If the club genuinely didn’t know that a 33 year old player would be in the decline, I worry about them. He wasn’t and has never been on a cliff either. His form fell off a sandcastle. We should have let him go. Even before Walcott signed we had Ings, Adams, Obi, N’Lundulu and at a push Redmond who call all play up front. Long added nothing to that. Of course Ings is going to say nice things about his team mate, which the clubs media dept. Can put a positive spin on, that graphic means sod all. Ings scored goals because Ings is good. He has been every bit as good when partnered with Adams, his form two years ago had very little to do with Long.

Which is a naive fantasy and does nothing to address any of the issues. Unless you believe that the root cause of racism is that people simply haven’t been told that it’s wrong before.

This is when the data modelling gives a predicted peak for the current increase in hospital occupancy. The full article says they expect it to be around half the height of the first wave last year. It’s not really news, just a date for something we basically knew already.

No, I’d buy 556 Ricardo Fullers.

Put it this way; if I had £50m and no JWP, I wouldn’t go out and buy JWP.

He’s been here two years and not shown any notable signs of progression at all.

On a slight tangent, I do think VS have gone off on a very risky trajectory with their new rebranding. I thought the whole idea behind the angels was that they were an aspiration, how women wanted to see themselves. I’m not sure there’re an awful lot of women out there who dream of looking like Megan Rapinoe.

Competitive grieving is unsavoury at the best of times but when he’s not dead it all just seems a bit sick.

Wouldn’t be surprised if they paid a nominal transfer fee which basically covers the difference in wages for the next 12 months, which we then pay off. In other words, we come out of it with net zero, don’t owe any wages and everyone moves on with their lives.

F**k me Tyldesley, you’d think Eriksen had actually died.

Ukraine involved in two cracking games so far, will be a shame if they don’t qualify. More good examples of VAR done right in this game too.

Macedonia looking substandard, Ukraine with some quality going forward.

You really wouldn’t. Bertrand and Vest have been thoroughly mediocre for the last couple of seasons and belong firmly in the bottom third of the table. £25m is shopping in Soyuncu territory, which is a far far better calibre player. If you’re spending £25m on a like-for-like replacement for Vest and £15m likewise for a player only as good as last season’s Bertrand, you’ve recruited very poorly.

This is just a straw man, there’s no reason to think the club would sign ten nobodies for £2-10m. With Salisu, Diallo and KWP we recruited well last summer. Walcott not so much but he was cheap and it was basically him or nothing at the time, with our budget. You can get a 10-15 goal a season striker for £25m if you do your homework and don’t rely on bizarre algorithms which say that a man who scored 5 goals in France is world class. You can get a midfielder better than JWP, free kicks aside, for £25m. You can certainly get a better defender than Vest.

If there’s anything I’d want removing from the roads it’s horses. Between the dung and the extreme caution you have to take not to spook them, they’re a nuisance.

Yes. JWP’s fitness and free kicks are to be admired. That aside, he’s really nothing incredible. Vest had period of good form last year before his injury, that aside he’s been thoroughly mediocre. £25m each on decent replacements and £15m for a LB, suddenly we’re a better team than last year. Recruitment has to be on point though.

They had moments where it looked like they might have potential and could be worth persevering with. Dan… nothing.

Quick? He’s 22 and has made no impact whatsoever on the first team. He’s the kind of substandard squad filler we’d be well rid of if we want to recruit better.

Turkey playing Australia this afternoon.

Looks like another Finnish opponent is off to hospital.

I paid him £30 to say Coronavirus is real and he can’t wait to get vaccinated. Worth every penny.

If we didn’t sack Ralph after losing 15 out of 21, or whatever it was, I doubt we’ll do it for not winning 5 or 8. Anyway, look on the bright side, we never win our opening fixture or our trip to Goodison. Now we’ve managed to consolidate the two into one convenient defeat, it frees up another game we might get a draw from.

A combination of high vaccination rate, a more cavalier president, (probably) much lower prominence of the Indian variant and, going by that BBC chart, a much lower BAME population.

Sounds good to me, although we’ll probably still end up about 16th 👍 I’d prefer the tough run to be right at the start. There’re always a couple who have indifferent starts to the campaign, I’d rather catch them before they get their rhythm. Remember the start we had when we first came up? We were a combined 20 minutes or so away from beating both United and City. A Koeman or Poch team would have seen those two off relatively comfortably and probably got a routine 2-0 win over Wigan in between.

It sounds counter intuitive but when you think about it, it actually makes sense. The ratio will continue to look worse and worse, the more people that get vaccinated. We will reach a point we’re something like 85% of the people dying have been fully vaccinated. The antivaxxers will look upon this with triumph as look, "see we told you they don’t work, you’re all brainless sheep!" They will completely fail to understand that 15% of fatalities coming from 3% of the population is actually terrible for them.* *figures pulled straight out the hole in my arse but you get the principle.