Mystic Force

Thanks for that ever forward thinking manager Harry Redknapp, normally about where that next brown envelope would be.

A good transfer window for us, we lost no one important, did not waste money on over rated players whose better days are behind them or on a panic buy of someone who turns out to not able to do it at this level.

What you need to know about the CONCACAF cup is when is the final? So you can watch USA and Mexico play another bad tempered game against each other. To be fair a lot of the central American teams are quite good considering their small populations, with a couple Island nations often having a few useful players and the rest of the team very athletic if not as technically gifted.. The games are at a decent standard, the facilities are excellent because it it always played in the US, which is not an inbuilt home advantage due to the number of people from all those other countries living here, and the refs for the most part decent, everyone in Latin America hates the US and all the other countries in Latin America hate Mexico for being the big boy so the bias is often against the big teams!. A bit more predictable than the Euros, but with the team Canada has right now the next one might be quite tasty. Normally held every 2 years, between World cups and Euro years. I have not watched the S. American version as much, But you got some of the biggest countries in football in there. And even the lesser countries produce good teams. Use to be better when they were allowed to invite a couple other counties to participate to bring the numbers up to a better number to construct groups out of. Always included Mexico, plus a few other semi regulars (I know US and Japan have both participated.) But now they are not allowed to do so. Not sure how it is currently handled but at one point the full International team was not allowed to participate in another regions competition, but an U23 or Olympic squad was allowed in. Obviously a bunch of youngsters are not going to be able to handle Messi, or a full Brazil squad, making these games mostly to fill up a calendar rather than properly competitive matches. Both competitions are held in our summer so player availability is good and does not effect premier league squads although MLS is played through the summer (because winter for most of the continent makes playing impossible which does effect that completion, a lot of MLS teams have a high proportion of those central American players) A lot of games will be played at night here so not at a good time for watching in Europe.

So how much do Spurs get if "He is a good lad to have in the locker room"?

What's the betting that the fixed penalty fine he gets becomes an "expense" for an MP.

The main objection to his signing would be the opportunity cost, as we could do something different with the money and/or squad spot.

He strikes me as one of those players who gets rave reviews in a good team but fails to live up to the expectations and becomes a bit part player but still getting England call ups. Then they get shuffled off to a lesser team where you might expect them to be the stand out player but never are, in the mold of Cleverly, Wellbeck or Shelvey. He is not like a Romeu type player, good, but not big boy good and came to us as (and I hate to do this) he is "our level" rather than someone who tasted the good times and couldn't hold on to it.

100k a week to see if he is up for it or not seems a bit steep. This looks more like a Newcastle signing than us.

I get the feeling most people (Including western governments) don't think he Putin will do it. I really think he might. I remember when the communists fell in the USSR we thought that The central European countries would join NATO and the EU followed by those further east overtime, to make us all allies rather than adversaries. Unfortunately that got derailed, now we are living in this world. Ok I am going to invoke Godwin's law and there have been other autocrats that have attempted to claim territory over time to see what they could get away with and it worked for a while claiming that they needed to do so to protect certain national groups outside their own border......

I would like to find a keeper that can throw a bit, there is a great benefit in a keeper who can start an attack with a throw when you have a player like Broja who can make the most of it rather than waiting a minute for the other side to reset and then shanking it over the sideline anyway and giving it back to them for free.

Firstly it was a terrific game to watch. We got lucky that the woodwork was doing a lot for its money, and we had some great chances to get a second. Disappointed in the goal we conceded. Never got to see a replay of the foul that got them the free kick, so not sure if that had merit or not. What annoys me is when the commentators say its a tactical foul to stop a break away and then they immediately score from the resulting free kick, every bloody time! If anyone is complaining about the way we played then they have not watched enough football. when we had chances we ranged forward, when nothing was on we brought it back and looked to try again. This was not like at Liverpool where we scored in the 2nd minute and sat back the whole time. Just sitting back has been what did us in earlier in the season. Looks like the boss has some more confidence in the boys to play, or at least decided being too defensive is asking for trouble. Only passenger was Elyounoussi when he came on, Redmond was at least taking them on when he got the ball and making them work to get it back. Salisu was the player who had the best game on the pitch. He has got in trouble diving in at the wrong time in previous games seems to have figured that bit out (or city spend less time practicing diving than others) Refreshing to see the referee not giving stuff just because VAR flagged it. I thought it was a good performance by the ref to let it be a good free ranging contest. You could see Armstrong was trying to pull out of the challenge by dragging his trailing foot on the ground to slow his momentum. That ones a difficult one, two players going for a ball. and physics takes over with the loser of the race getting punished often, with the other player doing the same thing and it would be reversed if they had been beaten to it. Still not sure about that other one foul outside of box but no free kick presumably they had advantage afterwards. I think the ref did not want to give it because so much time had passed and it would seem ridiculous.

I get the feeling English nationalism involves being able to tell the Scotts, Welsh and Irish what to do. You do not need independence when you have dominance. I cannot think of any instance where nationalism was expressed as a wish to kick out smaller territories peopled by others, moving those peoples out was..... (*except some rumblings in Belgium a few years back)

80% of what government does has to be done regardless of who is in charge, 20% is ideological, philosophical and policy. You might not agree with the 20% but everyone wants the 80% done right. Therefore people will be willing to give up some of the 20% to make sure the 80% is done at least for a while. NOTE *I will have used number pulled out my arse for the above statement, arguing about the numbers is not the point*

We will see if they come back out wrapped in plastic or not, possibly in a number of pieces greater than what they went in with.

Until the end I thought we played a good game, never a penalty, goal keeping error for the second, JWP with the second best free kick I have ever seen (behind Roberto Carlos at le Tournai in 97). But instead of putting it to them at the end to make them sweat we got done. Why do we have to always try to hang on but they do us in?

So when we are leading at the end we collapse to an opposition onslaught. In the opposite situation we concede and kill off our hope.

Don't think you should be rewarded with a penalty, when you did not have possession of the ball, over run the ball and then fall over the guy on the ground after you missed the ball.

Some of this is taking the piss. Don't worry in a few months they will be complaining about how the fixture pile up is unfair for make up games.

I left the UK a while ago so I am not really up to all the details of what has happened, but here in the US the Republicans have with the skill of a good general moved their opponents out of their position to one of their choosing. They used to be the party that was for working people and with union support, but having successfully eliminated most unions being a significant force has pinned Democrats into defending the most ridiculous woke stuff. Rather than defending equality in general and standing up for the less well off demographic, it doesn't help all those who are meant to help the poor have managed to profit themselves well from the system. I imagine that some similar stuff is what is going on back home, but with the added fun of Brexit sprinkled on top.

It could be turned in to a really good competition with people tuning in from all around the world. There are really well known players that people from outside the countries can use as a gateway to following the tournament. I would hope that might provide some of the resources to stage the great tournament they deserve.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/12/judge-rejects-prince-andrews-bid-to-dismiss-epstein-accuser-virginia-giuffres-lawsuit.html So looks like we will have to use his mums money not his friends, to pay off his accuser for being a (insert word in imagination to describe what he did to avoid me or Steve being sued)

Our record of finding players to give a second chance to has not had many hits up to this point, and if Chelsea are setting the way forward, clubs wont be dropping players with potential as they will hold on and loan out instead. Maybe this is what we are trying but with less success? Our academy clearly is not working the way it did in the past. I have seen all these reasons suggested, but unfortunately it will take a really long time to show if any of these was the case. 1) Poor coaching staff 2) Competition for talent 3) Timing due to relegation/administration 4) Being lucky/not as good as we think 5) Poor progression planning My money is on 1 and as we dropped the ball for a number of years and we are now suffering from 2 as others have increased their effort in this department. I think the underlying reason was 4, some in the club believed in their own hype regarding their ability to replace managers and players (which did not work out after all) and this also occurred in the youth set up, just took longer to manifest itself due to the nature of the product being produced.

The main point of conservatism is in maintaining the status quo and if the current version is not so palatable then a previously envisioned superior time. Its roots are in the preservation of social hierarchies from when land was the source of wealth and not business. As the landed disappeared as a class they happily embraced the cause of preserving the more recently wealthy in opposition to those who would like to join them. Neo liberal economic markets forces ideology is pretty recent, but with the twist of using said forces to entrench rather than empower. My conclusion is the county is slightly right of center, but used to value competence but for some reason has given up on that.

I think there is a difference between functioning well for one team and working well for other stakeholders (England national team, the premier league overall, academy trainees etc) However changing the structure probably not going to happen. So we will have to do the same.

The real question is can angels dance? so the correct answer is one, thank you TP and NG.