badgerx16

What are they really after, but which is curently obscured by this smoke screen ?

He also said "This is not a league for the rich, it's a league to save football."

Why would any team want to be one of the 5 "guests" when they wouldn't be guaranteed entry in subsequent years even if they won it ?

Would be trickier if Villa were involved.

Glaziers

Chelsea better win the final.

Versus us they always do, but it's a low bar to reach..

Armenia

Answer my own question: no it isn't. A hat trick has been taken in the first over of an international match on at least 2 occasions.

Was that the quickest hat trick in first class cricket, in terms of the state of the innings ?

As has been discussed earlier in the thread, there would not have been anything preventing the UK doing it's own thing from day one.

Which we would have had anyway.

A Polish pilot having escaped from the German invasion in 1939, arrives at his new RAF base and introduces himself to the squadron CO. "What combat experience do you have ?" asks the CO. "On the day the Germans invaded I took to the skies to fight back. There were fokkers to the left of me and fokkers to the right of me..." The CO interrupts him - "I thought Fokkers are flown by the Dutch Airforce". "True", replies the Pole, "but these fokkers were flying Messerschmitts".

"Just another word for nothing left to lose."

Well there obviously was a chance, however unlikely. On Jan 4th we were 6th on 29 points after beating Liverpool. Since then we have managed to limp to apparent safety, though not yet mathematical, by beating the worst team to have played in the Prem for several seasons, and defying our form and recent history by turning around a 2-0 deficit against Burnley.

In January we had only just started our current run of crap performances.

I know it's whatifery, but the semi final seems to be being used as a reason to discount, even excuse, our piss poor league performances over the last 3 months. We have come too close to getting a cup final and relegation.

How would this thread be going if the league results were the same but Arsenal had fielded their first team in the FA Cup and beaten us ?

92 in 1966/7 I think. ( And we stayed up ). In the Prem it is currently 66 in 2004/5, the season we were relegated, but we also conceded 65 in 2018/9

Yes, but there are ao many variables that in the short term it probably isn't a good idea to make definitive judgements either way. ( Didn't JRM mention 40 years, as he was moving his investment funds into an EU base ) I just thought that it might be interesting to have an alternative, ( non UK or EU ), report on how things are perceived to be progressing.

No idea, but we had CoVid last February, and only left the EU 3 months ago, and the slump in January was in relation to the preceeding month. I would have thought that the most severe impact of CoViD had already been felt well before 'Independence Day'.

If you start with 100% and reduce it by 42% you are left with 58%. If you then increase that by 46% you are still only at 86% of where you started.

100 days later, Brexit isn't working and business wants it fixed https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/12/business/brexit-trade-100-days/index.html "But it's been 100 days since the United Kingdom split from its single biggest trading partner and Brexit is proving to be disastrous for many British exporters, which have rejected Johnson's description of the issues as "teething problems" and are now asking the government to take urgent action to prevent further losses." ""The difficulties exporters are facing are not just 'teething problems.' They are structural issues that, if they continue to go unaddressed, could lead to long term, potentially irreversible weakness in the UK export sector," she added." "But a survey of over 1,000 UK business leaders conducted by EY and lobby group London First in late February found that three quarters have experienced disruption to their operating model following the end of the Brexit transition period, and half expect it to continue over the long term." "The fact is, companies trading with the EU did not need to know or understand customs until now. And there isn't enough capacity in the [customs] industry to provide the required support," said Anna Jerzewska, the founder of international trade consultancy Trade & Borders" "Since the referendum, international financial services firms have migrated almost £1.3 trillion ($1.8 trillion) worth of assets and relocated 7,600 jobs from Britain to the European Union, according to data tracked by EY. Amsterdam has already overtaken London as Europe's top share trading center." "The new trading relationship is expected to lead to a long-run loss of output in Britain of around 4% compared to remaining in the European Union, according to the UK Office for Budget Responsibility, which produces economic forecasts for the government. Exports and imports will be around 15% lower in the long run."

Any chance of a refund ?

Isn't that what they are supposed to do every day, already ? We look as if they don't practice defensive drills at all.