Lighthouse

Caught a sound bite from Dianne Abbott on the news last night whilst driving home. She was telling everyone, in her usual - conducting a primary school assembly - voice that, "some people think it’s our job, as people of colour, to have to prove that systemic racism exists in society." Yes Dianne, that’s how the burden of proof works.

Or, just a suggestion, we can all accept that a teenage boy once did something stupid a decade ago, forget about it and move on with our lives. The criticism from me is aimed squarely at whoever is digging up these social media posts from teenagers in past decades, simply for the sake of causing a stink about racism. They were dead posts, which weren’t offending anyone and should have remained that way.

To me it says, "you definitely can’t park here."

He basically did. Adkins started off 7 points behind Brighton and finished 3 behind. He also lost the Championship title by half a point (i.e. with a massively better GD) and beat a much more expensive West Ham squad in the process.

We can ban you again if you like?

Happy dogging Monday everyone. We’ve even got some nice weather for it.

I’m glad the muppet show is alive and kicking again. It’s what Bearsy would have wanted. 😢

No, we get rid of them and only bring a player in if they’re actually going to improve us. Depth for the sake of depth is pointless. We had depth in 2005, some 40 odd senior players on the books come the final day and about 35 of them useless.

Neither Elyounoussi nor Walcott should be in the squad next year if we have designs on anything other than fighting relegation with a bloated wage bill. We’ll never be able to bring in anyone decent until we stop stockpiling mediocrity just because it’s easy and cheap in the short term. Same goes for Bertrand.

Whilst I agree in principle that it’s vital we replace Ings, you are using the ‘if he wasn’t here, we’d have played those games with ten men’ fallacy. Even a s**t striker is probably good for 4/5 goals a season if playing regularly, apart from Long obviously.

I think some of you need to switch the internet off for a while and take a breather. 🤨

This is basically the crux of it and why he probably won’t be sold in summer. He’s worth more to us than anyone else is likely to pay.

Building a team around anyone for a club our size is foolish IMO. If he wants to spend his a career here then great but history shows us that this is rarely the case.

Probably in the £40-50m bracket. TBH I wouldn't particularly be against that. If we're losing Ings for £20m too then the combined money could get us a new striker, CM, #10 and LB.

Thirded. It’s a flipping weird argument, I’m out.

I really don’t know what the point is supposed to be. San Marino have managed to keep England down to just a 5-0 defeat by stuffing everyone behind the ball and not leaving their own half. On other occasions they have conceded double figures playing the same way and would do so on multiple occasions playing in the Premier League. There is absolutely nothing to suggest they’re in any way better set up defensively than we are.

Okay right, we’ll sack Ralph and replace him with Giuseppe the welder. Defence sorted.

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.