kyle04

I think if Shane Long's anywhere near the pitch we can forget it. The 2nd half of last season is where we're at now, minus our goalscorer. Adams may step up a bit but I doubt it, and it's of course it's our "defense" that's going to let us down. We have so many issues at the club it's a wonder we've survived this long. This seasons 0-9 will probably be at the Etihad (bets anyone?). Forgive the pessimism, I've been a Saints fan for 45 years, it grinds you down eventually! I have a dream, that Messi has been a lifelong fan of MLT and wants to play for us for free... Anyway 19th, just above Brentford on goal difference.

Looking at it another way, I think we were lucky to have signed someone of his quality in the first place, he definitely made a big difference to us when on form. I don't expect a similar replacement TBH. Of the players we have left only Tella exites me, we could be in for another grind this season. Regarding the choice of club, it's only ever about the money, no top 6 club offers came in (Spurs?) so he went to the latest lottery winners. Villa is certainly a sideways move without Jack, at least he can't patronise SFC by saying he wanted CL football !

On the contrary, the most ridiculous narrative in internet history must surely be this fantasy. There is no evidence for it, at all. The media in this country is far from being state controlled. While it may report the govt's official statements, it has always questioned and challenged governments regardless of political leanings. What you and your fellow enlightened souls are peddling is dangerous paranoia, if people decide against being vaccinated after buying into this, then catch C19 and die (it's happened), I'm sure you'd be happy to meet the grieving families and tell them it was the flu. I think too much time spent on David Icke's website...

I think they should either stop it or have the courage of their convictions and refuse to go to the Qatar world cup. You can't have it both ways, and having allied yourself to a full on protest against racial injustice in the world (not hunger, poverty, sex slavery, ethnic genocide, those petty little things), it's all or nothing. Personally watching 22 grown men kneeling down before every football match has long since lost any real impact, It will change nothing amongst the barbarians in our society, and as has been stated in this topic, we now live in a beautifully racially diverse and tolerant country, and are progressing forwards nicely thanks. Appreciate the gesture, but it's really not needed.

So, the vaccine is going to start killing people at an alarming rate, and every govt in the world will blame it on a new "variant" of C19, is that right? The cure is the virus so to speak. This would of course involve the sustained collusion of every scientist, medico and politician on the planet, which in itself would be a feat of co-operation never before seen in history. While I understand a mistrust of governments and commercial corporations in general among some people, this is the fantasy of wack jobs. The 4M+ dead from C19 were not vaccinated on the whole, explain that one. I have heard a rumour however that excessive masturbation can eventually rid your system of the vaccine, should you choose to believe the theory, so there is hope for us all.....

What, he pinched it from someone else? That's cheating. So no grassy knoll then...?

It's been all too easy to lazily dismiss anyone with concerns about this as a racist or little Englander, mainly by people unaffected. Just because Oliver and Jemima had no trouble getting into the local village school doesn't mean there's not a big problem elsewhere. The rise of UKIP led of course to Cameron's sphincter collapsing and the "shock" Brexit vote, not such a shock if you choose to ignore the feelings of over half the country for decades (who must all be bigoted of course). The issue isn't skin colour or ethnicity or religion, it's purely a numbers problem.

My point was a concern at the unsustainable population growth in this country, not the economics of current immigration which I have to say is debatable at best. The "take as many as we can" approach does not work, this isn't the late 1940's when this country had a chronic labour shortage due to WW2 fatalities , and where are all these millions going to live ? The fact is we are running out of living space and despite the govt's "plans" to build more homes it's falling way short of whats needed year on year. House prices are already way beyond the reach of most people due to the demand with the only option to stay at home with the parents or rent, which means we've actually regressed to the Victorian era, the "haves" of the older generations or will beneficiaries,and the "have not's" and never will have.

Theres no real way to present hard facts without sounding a little heartless, but the fact is the population in the UK (mainly England) is officially around 70M, and has been growing steadily by around 0.5M per year since 2000, although it's undoubtedly higher than this. Net immigration stands at around 350,000 per year, to put in perspective the population of Southampton is currently around 250,000, and the population of Australia is around 25M. There is already a chronic housing shortage as well as huge strains on schools, hospitals etc, so the question should be not should we but can we keep taking on ever growing numbers of immigrants at this level. At what point does the system collapse, 80M, 100M, 150M people? People are risking their lives to get here and it's little wonder why. with the French navy happy to shunt dinghies into our waters then fuck off and leave it to the UK agencies to sort it out.

... those quaint names given to hurricanes, Doris, Fred, Dave etc. Who gives a fuck if your town has been decimated by a tornado, at least come up with something appropriate - "certain death", "nightmare", "holocaust", "gomorah" etc. .... Hercules Poirot played by David Suchet, what a pompous preening over nourished class A cunt. Boils my piss it does.

... never did a single building job for a black family though did he? Questions need answering Bob.

A fairly thoughtful summation of mural-gate I think. It will grate on some sensibilities no doubt, but the thrust of the argument is sound IMO. Aside from anything else, I consider Rashford to be a remarkable individual who has triumphed against the odds, although most from his background won't be blessed with such sporting talent, he's shown you can fulfill your potential in this country given the opportunity and with the dedication and belief in yourself. His determination to improve the lives of kids from similar disadvantaged backgrounds should be applauded and should shame our "leaders", no kid in the UK should be going hungry FFS, these are the the real issues. Well done Marcus, and fuck the racist trolls..

I think the post regarding what the police define as a hate crime is pretty bloody disturbing. ....Evidence of the hate element is not a requirement. You do not need to personally perceive the incident to be hate related. It would be enough if another person, a witness or even a police officer thought that the incident was hate related. So this is now what constitutes law in this country, some random persons subjective opinion of an "incident". No evidence of hate to be charged with hate. Huh? Little wonder this country is drifting towards mass paranoia, hysteria and collective mental illness on this subject. Regarding mural-gate, the saga continues, was it racially motivated, maybe we'll never know. It's reassuring however that the police have the resources to thoroughly investigate the serious crime of graffiti, I'm sure it will cascade down to other areas in the country...

Equally, overstating the "problem" is just as unproductive. 44 racist tweets on a platform that has 300 million monthly users is hardly a tsunami of abuse, The people who do this are cunts for sure, but it seems all perspective is being lost on this issue ?

As an insult it's in the same ball park as "cock piss Partridge", but there we go, because the victim is black it must follow it was racially motivated. Dear me this is getting silly now...

It backfired on Georginio as well. Give it some welly - save that you bastard!

Shearer...? Technique through practice isn't that difficult, but you can't factor in the pressure or fatigue (not an excuse for Sancho or Rashford this time though). I do wish players would just put their fucking foot through the ball instead of tip toeing or hopping during the run up

Well credit to Italy, their renaissance under Mancinni has been remarkable. I thought 2nd half in particular they bossed the game, but to Englands credit created very few clear opportunties. The trouble was neither did we. We had a brief spell in ET but couldn't get any sort of possession going. The Spanish showed how Italy could be stiffled, but we can't play like Spain who can pass their way out of the Italian press. We failed to get Sterling on the ball enough, and Mount and Saka were anonymous for most of the game. Having said that, England have over achieved in the last 2 tournaments. I'm sure there are those who believe that we have a right to win just because we invented the game and we have the best(?) domestic league in the world and we won something 55 years ago. Many of the players used regularly (Mount, Rice, Phillips, Saka) are still developing and this experience will benefit them in future tournaments. After all, when most were predicting an exit in R16 or QF stage, to get this close to winning is some achievement.

Enjoyed that too, what a different game back then. From the many examples, when England were 2-1 up with a couple of minutes to go, we passed back to Banks to a chorus of boos. Commentator : "I'm sure many of the boos were from England fans, we don't want to see that !" Alan Ball was fantastic in that game.

Yes the penalty was "soft", but there was contact, thigh to thigh which knocks Sterling off balance(?), it's almost impossible to judge whether it was enough for a genuine fall or Sterling exagerates the effect, I'm sure a Danish player would have reacted in the same way, it's the way players are coached now. We deserved to win the game no question, tough as it was. Some are moaning because we had the rub of the green for a change, but you don't get to finals by chance alone.

You'll be OK as long as you're quiet and not a nuisance, just amble along, hands in pockets, mumbling protesty things, social media will do the rest... Don't worry this will backfire quite quickly as middle aged home counties women are bludgeoned in the street by our police "service"...

Yes we do have a squad of 2 first teams I think, and it's all going for us at the moment. Despite earlier criticism of Kane , myself included, he's about the only player aside from Pickford we would miss. We've got this far for a number of reasons - our players are fit and tactically drilled; we can score from any type of situation; we haven't yet fallen foul of any dodgy referee decisions, the officiating has been the best I've seen; our opposition has generally been poor, we looked the most uncomfortable v Scotland which says a lot, but we've exploited that superbly which we haven't always done over the years. GS deserves all the credit he gets, he's neither a flamboyant character nor a wise old head but whatever is going on behind the scenes it's working, so far.

Massive signing on fee and a hike in wages, why wouldn't he want to leave ? A sense of loyalty or professional courtesy, I seriously doubt it. Nothing personal against him but football is just a job to many players, and a relatively short-lived one at that. Grab as money as you can while you can, and tell the world you left because you wanted to win trophies or play CL football. Whether Villa are the right vehicle for that I doubt it, but I wish him the best of luck whatever the outcome.

Anyone remember the Sinclair C5? That went well....

I think young kids aren't capable of understanding these kind of topics. If people want to cut their bollocks off and wear a dress that's up to them, but now we have every corporate marketing think tank clambering on the latest bandwagon. Struggling to survive on a zero hours contract - fuck you, forced to work 90 hours a week hairing around cities trying to deliver 200 parcels a day, fuck you too no one cares we own you, but we are really are an all-embracing tolerant champion of the LBGTQXYZ "community", who we all know contains the most beautiful human beings ever born, and heterosexuals that haven't trans-gendered should feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves.