Wes Tender

The Mirror reports it and concludes that the clear winner is Saints http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/row-zed/shots-fired-portsmouth-southampton-engage-9954254

Quite. The thrust of Puel's argument seems to have escaped Saint-Fred, that we had more fixtures close together over Christmas and now fewer fixtures now. It is the throw of the dice, that our fixtures now are with the top clubs who would be expected to still be in the FA Cup or European competitions.

Yes, he mentions that in the interview, which just highlights how mad it has been for us this season.

I can't see it having been posted elsewhere http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/claude-puel-unhappy-with-sparse-saints-schedule-35496738.html I think that we have suffered from this more than pretty anybody else this season and it is fine for the biggest, wealthiest squads, but inclined to hurt us much more.

Unfortunately, despite it being a major final, neither the referee or the linesman were up to the job in that instance, which the technology would have shown in a matter of seconds. The match had stopped anyway for De Gea to have picked the ball out of the net and prepared to take the goal kick, so there would not have been much delay. Nothing is more galling than having a match changing decision go against you, only for the guy sat next to you with a smart phone tell you seconds later that a video replay proved the decision to be wrong.

I bow to your professional knowledge regarding the rules of the game. Benefit of the doubt might not be part of the laws, but it sure as hell applies to the World stars that populate the glory teams, as MLT astutely observed and most neutral fans would agree. Gabbiadini, relatively unknown striker playing for unfashionable minnows Southampton scores, goal disallowed by incompetent lino. Same goal scored by Ibrahimovic/Rooney/Costa/Sanchez and goal stands. Unfashionable team's defender pulls glory team player's shirt in the box = penalty. Smalling does it wearing a Man Utd shirt, he can do it all day long with impunity. I agree with you that the obscene amounts of money sloshing about in modern day football have ruined it. From the governing authorities prostituting the game to the media so that a match can be held on any day at whatever time is dictated to attract the best financial return, to the growing financial importance to a club that attaches to winning a major trophy. To advancing a club even one place higher up the table, or avoiding relegation. Achieving promotion by the difference made by a single point for or against a team because of incompetent refereeing.All these factors now make a difference of millions of pounds to a club. But so long as it doesn't damage the World brands that are the likes of Man U, Chelski, The Arse, City or Scousehampton, there will not be the clamour to make changes to modernise the game to make it fairer to all.

They'll get there eventually, but only when the incompetence of the officials' decisions go against one or more of the glory clubs. As MLT says, had it been the other way around, I'm sure that Mr Burt would have kept his flag down, but had Man United gone on to have lost the Final because of a wrong major decision, not only would their manager and fans have been baying for changes to the decision making process by the introduction of video technology, but also the clamour for it from the media would also be deafening. There have been seismic consequences for many years of incorrect refereeing decisions resulting in upsets in important matches, Maradonna's "Hand of God", Lampard's disallowed goal against Germany being two of the most notable. The Lampard goal resulted in Goal line technology, but that was some years ago now and with the advances in technology, there really is no reason or excuse for video evidence not to be used now. As I say, some dodgy decisions affecting glory clubs in major Cup final matches either at home or in Europe would be the best route to the eventual changes necessary to bring the game into the 21st Century.

http://www.umaxit.com/index.php/columns/manolo-gabbiadini-artistry-and-craft This link I posted on another thread sums him up pretty well IMO

http://www.umaxit.com/index.php/columns/manolo-gabbiadini-artistry-and-craft A very interesting article on Manolo. Fulsome in its praise for his technique and the variety of his goals.

It isn't that difficult to explain; our style of play is to an extent determined by the tactics not only that we employ, but also those employed by our opponents. I suspect that many of the beautiful games have been played against the better teams, who like to play a similar style of football to us, with plenty of movement and passing, open attacking play. I would also claim that the dull matches have been those at home against the poorer teams who park the bus and invite us to break them down. If you are able to categorise a style of play, then firstly it is easier to employ tactics to beat it because it is predictable, and secondly if that style of play is as boring as Stoke and West Brom's then I pity their poor fans who have to watch it at every home match. Variety is the spice of life. I believe that Puel is a very good tactician, who has often been hampered by injuries and tiredness caused by a very busy fixture list. In the League Cup, Puel's tactics had enough about them to have beaten the teams managed by Wenger, Klopp twice and but for an incompetent linesman, he very nearly beat Mourinho too. Bearing in mind the number of expensive stars playing for their teams, it is suggestive that they have been beaten by our players who may have had a greater desire to succeed, or who played together better as a unit, or who were employed more skilfully by the manager's tactical ability.

Who cares what a load of plastic Mancs think? So they mocked it and then replicated it themselves when they scored? I didn't know what it was all about, but like Nordic, I thought that the effect was brilliant and produced an iconic image to remember the day by in the future. I agree that there will undoubtedly be a trend for this at other matches to come.

Yes, I was there, probably only a few yards away from you with my son, also wearing the sash shirt. As you say, that section was loud and proud for much of the match. One or two at the back used some pretty ripe language aimed at the Mancs in the Wembley section tier just behind us who cheered and tried to provoke us. Bloody typical to have plastic Mancs in our end.

You've had 164 posts on our forum if the count is to be believed? Why don't you f*ck off to Milton Keynes, Tunbridge Wells, Exeter, or wherever it is you hail from? The better team lost because of poor refereeing decisions; it is as simple as that. Many Manc fans I know accept that we were the better team, as do most of the neutrals and they know that for large amounts of the game we outplayed you. I accept that as you are probably a plastic, you will naturally not accept that your team of expensive prima donnas could have been outclassed, but why don't you go onto the United forums and post your views to your fellow plastics who might lap them up without question?

Only got back home at 11ish after a long and enjoyable day with both sons. I'm not too down about the result, as I am secure in my belief that we drew the match, having scored the same number of goals as Man U. Had the linesman been as competent as a professional ought to have been at a major football match, then the early goal would almost certainly have changed the outcome of the match from then on. Furthermore, Gabbiadino was clearly the MOTM instead of Ibrahimovic, as he scored 3 times against Ibrahimovic's two. But the decision was the pundits' and naturally they will choose the darling of the Glory plastic team. I also console myself that we played the better football for most of the match, had more chances and also out sang the United fans. I take pride also in the way that our players go about the game, not resorting to the cheating employed by United players and the disgraceful way that they dive all over the place and mob the referee trying to influence his decisions. It would be nice to believe that any decent United fans would be honest enough to feel ashamed by the way that some of their players behave, but that is perhaps a naive expectation, as they probably feel that the end justifies the means. I imagine that Mourinho schools them in these tactics on the training ground. For any neutral out there watching the match, I would expect that they were impressed with the way that we bossed a team full of stars costing several times as much as our team. The team did us proud, as did the fans. Don't we have a good board who produced a great spectacle by placing a free scarf on every seat? That must have looked brilliant on the screen. And all the Mancs got, was pieces of coloured paper. Ultimately, we had domination of the midfield for a lot of the match and with Gabbiadini up top, a similar goal threat to United's. The match hinged on the defences and although United's defence was poor and is their weak point, we were relying on a rookie CB and effectively his third choice CB partner from before January. That with by much the poorer goalkeeper of the two on the pitch, was what did for us. Again, we have ample justification for arguing that had it not been for that thug Vardy stamping on V. V-D's ankle, his presence in the team would probably have defended successfully against one or more of their goals. That's the way it goes, but there are good portents for the future and for the rest of the season. The three weaknesses in the team have been addressed. Gabbiadini has demonstrated that he is as good or better than Pelle was. We have signed on the face of it, a very good CB to enforce that position and they should be a formidable partnership once V. V-D is back. It is a pity that Caceres' arrival was too early for the final. I trust Puel's judgement on Hassan in goal and frankly his replacement of Forster cannot come quickly enough for me. Puel has received quite a bit of flack from some on here, but he deserves praise for yesterday's tactics and team choice and for many things this season overall. He has suffered more disappointments than most managers in terms of injuries suffered to key players like Austin and V.V-D, also Targett and Pied and others for shorter periods. Despite losing players of the calibre of Pelle, Mane and Wanyama, the team at this stage of the campaign can't be that short in terms of prowess overall. And he has brought through some academy players like Sims, Stevens and McQueen, something that I doubt would have happened under Koeman. Personally, I believe that in Puel we could have a manager who would improve the team next season and afterwards if given the chance of staying for a few years and building a squad to his requirements and methods.

Why should it not be any good for Saints or indeed for football if the rules are changed as a result of this sort of glaring error from the officials? As you yourself readily admit, the official was incompetent with that decision, which effectively changed the outcome of the match. Whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt being given to favour the striker? It really is long overdue for technology to be introduced to make these decisions correctly, or the game is damaged every time an injustice occurs like this one and fans believe that they have been treated unfairly, or even that there is bias in favour of the glory plastic teams. The game is run by dinosaurs and it is about time that they brought the game up to date.

Which Ebell paper are you talking about, Shatlock? This one? https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ebell+paper&* That is a bit long in the tooth, isn't it? Before the Referendum even. I cast a cursory glimpse at it and having seen that they had input from the Treasury included, I recalled how hopelessly misleading they had been with their forecast that each household would be £4300 worse off by 2030 and then I became more and more dismissive of this economic modelling that was used as a major part of Project Fear. I realise that you like to masturbate over this sort of publication, but it is in common with all the other forecasts of impending doom, littered with the words and phrases that give the game away; words like if, maybe, could be, theoretical, estimates, we assume, etc. It examines different scenarios that may or may not come to pass, makes projections, numerous assumptions and arrives at potential conclusions over a period ending 13 years away. It's all brilliant stuff, if you are a fan of Science Fiction. What it does not take into account is the increasingly likely probability that the Euro might not survive, that other member states of the EU might also follow us out of the door before then, how many free trade deals we will finalise and with whom. In other words, this economic forecast is largely pie in the sky.

By this time tomorrow, it will all be over, unless extra time is played.

So essentially, you are not able to confirm Davy's claim that EU countries trade twice as much with each other than they would do in the absence of the Single Market, because you suspect that it must be based on a simplification of more careful and sophisticated work. Naturally. Therefore you find yourself in the position that you dismiss Burrage's rebuttal of Davy's claim on the basis that you are unhappy with the methodology he employs to dispute it, but you really have very little idea as to whether Davy's claim is just a sound-bite based itself on assumptions, false projections and suspect economic data. If you read the article carefully, then you will have noted the background to it, that it was a very significant claim for a Government Minister to make in front of a House of Lords Select Committee and it was accepted as fact and not questioned by them. Regardless of your criticism of Burrage's methodology, he appears to have had quite a lot of information available to him to prepare a good case that Davy's assertion cannot be accurate, but in the absence of any concrete evidence to refute his claims, you will just have to accept the possibility that Burrage may well be right and that Davy was wrong to have made that claim. I accept that voters are more likely to accept what they are told by Ministers and those in important positions, like Cameron and Osborne for example, and their position is strengthened by the influence and wealth of the Remain side, who not only had £9 million in Remain Government propaganda paid for by the taxpayer, but also an additional £5 million more spent on their campaign than the Leave side did. Despite this, and probably due to the healthy cynicism they developed towards the doom and gloom merchants, together with the antagonism they developed towards the superior attitude of the establishment elite who thought that the electorate were too thick to understand the case for remaining in the EU, much of that extra expenditure towards the Remain cause was wasted. For all their assumed intelligence and economic nous, they utterly failed to understand the psychology both of the man in the street, and also how to apply it to a campaign. Remain was all negativity, full of dire warnings about the severe implications of a vote to Leave, whereas Leave concentrated on the positives of our future outside of the EU. This forum thread is really quite a microcosm of that campaign in many ways.

You just don't get it. As I have already pointed out, Burrage's whole piece is designed to discredit the claim made by Ed Davy that EU countries trade twice as much with each other than they would do in the absence of the Single Market. The purpose of the article summarised here, explains that quite clearly in terms simple enough for you to understand. The purpose of the article was not to claim that the UK exports would have performed better had the single market not been created, but to refute Davy's claims. For somebody who believes themselves to be so intelligent, it seems strange that you can't comprehend this. Perhaps you couldn't be bothered to read the piece more thoroughly. He covers the scenario of what might have happened in the absence of the single market from page 64, but again, that is to discredit Ed Davy's claims. You claim to have answered my request for evidence that Burrage's article was based on poor methodology and suspect analysis, but of course your couple of sentences do not qualify as elaboration, as much as you would like to think that they do. Let's have some actual examples instead of sweeping generalisations. I also asked you to feel free to argue in support of the assertion made by Ed Davey that EU countries trade twice as much with each other than they would do in the absence of the Single Market, but nothing from you at all. Can I take it that despite your scathing remarks about Burrage's analysis of that statement, that you do not support Davy's claim?

It seems that you are the one who has misunderstood the article, the thrust of which is to dissect, analyse and argue the conclusion reached by the the Minister for Department for Business,Innovation and Skills (BIS), Ed Davey when he stated in front of a House of Lords Select Committee that economic evidence shows that the Single Market has delivered substantial economic benefits, because EU countries trade twice as much with each other as they would do in the absence of the Single Market programme. That statement was made by Ed Davey, the Minister, not by Burrage. Feel free to argue in support of the assertion made by Ed Davey that EU countries trade twice as much with each other than they would do in the absence of the Single Market. Refute any of the arguments made by Burrage to disparage the conclusion reached by Davey. I see that you are still being a bit coy on divulging your credentials as an economic guru.

This is taken from the summary at the beginning, but of course there is much greater depth of detail in the actual piece. More seriously, no sophisticated analysis is done on the quality of those deals. Just because Switzerland or Australia have FTAs with China, unlike the EU, doesn't mean they've magically unlocked a $10tn economy. Far from it. The reality is that most nonEU FTAs are not associated with significantly greater trade flows than do countries without any trade agreement -see the Ebell work you've refused to address (note that does have proper controls). The dismal performance of most FTAs can be attributed to their lack of progress in dismantling non-tariff barriers, which are particularly important for services trade and the UK's prospects. No doubt you'll be furnishing information analysing the quality of the deals that we have with the EU, when many of them are entered into with an element of protectionism towards fellow member states, so that we could often arrange deals for similar products externally to the EU at lower prices. The dismal performance of FTAs reached by the EU has correctly been identified as being because of the difficulty in avoiding conflicts of interests and protection of the industries among the 28 member states. The recently completed deal with Canada was the classic example. We would probably finalise a free trade deal with them and others in a fraction of the time. Reading the article in more depth than I did originally, the author is scathing of the written evidence submitted to the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union in October 2010 by the minister co-ordinating European matters for the Department for Business,Innovation and Skills (BIS), Ed Davey. He claimed that Economic evidence shows that the Single Market has delivered substantial economic benefits, that EU countries trade twice as much with each other as they would do in the absence of the Single Market programme. The author then goes on to examine this assertion, the statistical basis behind it and the sources of the information and concludes that the basis of the statement is badly flawed because it is not impartial and the conclusion reached was not properly proven by the evidence and also illogical on the figures provided, as well as them being out of date and lacking in comparative data. Unless you can provide some evidential support for Ed Davey's contention above, then one of the chief pieces of propaganda to support the benefits of our trade with the single market, is based of total falsehoods. Feel free to challenge his conclusions I could go on and on but you'd have to pay me to comment in detail on staggeringly cr*p piece of analysis. You'd be getting value for money as I can assure you my credentials are top notch Come on, don't be shy. I'm sure that we won't accuse you of immodesty if you give us a chapter and verse summary of your qualifications, books and articles that you have published, lecture tours that you have done, etc.

Go on, try us. Here is the link to the original article on which the post was based. http://www.civitas.org.uk/email-resources/myth-and-paradox.pdf Explain yourself. It is easy to be critical of a report like this with the sort of throwaway platitudes that you have employed. Let's see some substance to your criticism. No doubt you will quote the parts you disagree with and explain where Burrage has got it wrong, using factual statistics from reputable bodies to disprove his figures. And whilst you are at it, rubbishing Michael Burrage for producing a report that you claim is at the level of an undergraduate econometrician, perhaps you will enlighten us with your qualifications as an expert on economics and trade, so that we can compare them with Burrage's. I welcome the possibility that we might have such a heavyweight expert on this football forum, giving us such knowledgeable insights into matters like this when his expertise and time must surely be so much in demand. We are indeed blessed.

Whereas the Remoaners only post stuff that opposes their own arguments, do they?

https://capx.co/does-the-single-market-really-boost-exports/ As it says, does the EU single market really boost exports?