Anon

Infantino is just using brinksmanship to get better value for his product. In the current social climate, publicly shaming companies by alleging they don't value women's sport highly enough is an effective tactic. I guarantee the BBC will fold like a pack of cards.

I'm also a no, although I'm a little surprised at the results of this poll, given that support for the monarchy as a whole is usually over 50% nationally. Maybe Stive is correct in his assertion that lots of people perhaps don't understand that living under a monarchy is an act of fealty by its very nature.

Panic over. We're into double figures now. Durham are on the ropes.

In more positive news Struass has left his role at the ECB.

6-4. Grim

How come Mackay ended up at Walsall after what was overall a successful spell at Derby? I know he didn't build the team, but surely 3rd, 1st, and 4th place finishes would get you something better than a third tier club?

Good start to the innings.

Ian Evatt

1 hour ago, David said:

Nothing to do with ownership, it’s the speed in which they have bought their way to the top. Inflating transfer fees on their way which has a knock on effect down the leagues, both stock piling youngsters from young ages that have an ounce of potential.

I think there's a bit of recency bias here. Were Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal not inflating transfer fees when they broke the British transfer record in the 90's? The stockpiling of youngsters is a big problem, but don't forget it was the entire Premier League who enabled this by pushing for rule changes that stripped protections like tribunal fees for youth players from smaller clubs.

5 minutes ago, David said:

Absolutely not.

I hope Real smash them and the wait goes on.

Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs in Europe I can get behind.

Man City and Chelsea, no way Pedro.

I don't see what the difference is.

Spurs aside, all those teams are foreign owned and have a similar ratio of British to foreign players as Man CIty and Chelsea.

I don't care. There's not much to like about any of the super teams and any semblance of national pride in an "English" team performing well in Europe became irrelevant a long time ago. Super rich soulless PLC A vs super rich soulless PLC B.

On 05/04/2023 at 20:39, cannable said:

I’m not picking on you personally, it’s just an opinion I see a lot and I don’t really get it.

He was average at best for us. He’d drop deep to get on the ball without really doing a lot. Grealish, Cairney and Maddison all played, not just the position, but the intended role un the team in The Championship and they ran games. 

Morrison just aimlessly retained possession.

He was used slightly differently towards the end of the season and looked more of a threat but… 

I think "best" in the context of Morrison's career is still true. It's only the 2nd season in his entire career that he played more than 30 games and found some consistency. He was average, but that's way more than I expected.

On 13/04/2023 at 09:14, Alpha said:

These guys like KSI and those Paul brothers are making an absolute fortune out of this. 

Who's paying for this? I don't get what you're expecting. It's basically WWE. Vast majority of sales must be in the US. No way is the world tuning into these fights and surely in Britain we're cynical enough to know a con? Hence Mayweather fought in an empty O2

I wish right at the start somebody just smashed them. 

Imagine if Man City played a Sunday pub team. PPV. How many times would you get away with putting that on. How many tight games would it take for you to realise you're watching an exhibition. 

It frustrates me because I just don't get how it sells. Why is everyone so stupid? 

The Rock v Triple H was a million times more entertaining back in the day. Slamming through tables, hitting each other with hammers and chairs. 

KSI is fighting some geezer who I can only imagine stinks of Joop.

26,000 brain dead zoomers who all had that exact same stupid broccoli hair cut filled The Valley to watch the sidemen vs youtube allstars. The match gained 2.5 million online viewers.

If you get the right influencers involved you can literally sell anything to these people.

This is a pretty good summary. This guy makes good videos, but I wish he'd work on his delivery. There's only so much of the intonation of his voice going up in the middle of a sentence and down towards the end that I can stand.

12 hours ago, TigerTedd said:

Wow, that really is terrible. I wonder what went wrong there, you can see there fall from relative grace here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scunthorpe_United_F.C._seasons

16-17: finish 3rd in league 1, miss out in the playoffs 
17-18: finish 5th in league 1, miss out in the playoffs 

18-19: instant crash and burn, relegation. 
19-20: no instant rebound, crash and burn continues, finish just above the relegation zone in 20th. 
20-21: things get worse, and they just scrape survival in 22nd.

21-22: finally relegated in last place

22-23: back to back relations

what went on there then? I’m interested, as it seems like there’s a cautionary tale to be learnt there. 

A guy called Peter Swann happened. Scunny were spending well over 100% of their turnover on player wages alone in those play off seasons. He gambled on promotion and when that wasn't achieved the league sanctioned the club for the overspend, leading to an exodus of players including Duane Holmes (what's the saying about rats and sinking ships?). Scunthorpe have been dealing with the consequences of that overspend ever since, Swann sold Glanford Park to his own company to write off some of the debt (sound familiar?). He also had some pretty insane plans before the poo hit the fan, like wanting to build a new 12000 seater stadium for a club with an average attendance of 4000 when the current ground is only 40 years old.

58 minutes ago, Steve Buckley’s Dog said:

I have been away so not seen / heard anything about the FGR game but if that’s true, a - he’s an idiot and b - he should be suspended (on the condition that everyone else is). My post isn’t about the fact that we didn’t win yesterday, that’s our own fault, it’s about the constant cheating we have to endure every home game we aren’t winning. Lincoln were the worst. Holding your head to stop the game, pretending you are seriously hurt in a potential life threatening way (which is why that rule was brought in) isn’t gamesmanship - it’s cheating. The refs watch it and happily see the physio rub the player’s leg - they should be booked or made to leave the pitch for a 5 minute concussion check, simple as that. It’s become endemic and second nature and needs clamping down on and isn’t really that hard to do. 

I do sympathise with the refs a little on this issue. You could call out cheaters and fakers 999/1000 and get a little praise, but the one you call wrong and ignore a player with a legitimate head injury could be a career killer. I like your idea about a concussion check, but players would just find a way around this too. "I was holding my head because of how painful the leg injury was."

It would be quite nice if Lampard can relegate Forest in the last game of the season. It would've been better if it were Leeds, but Chelsea don't play them in the run in.

We used to joke that Jacko would get a nosebleed if he ever crossed the halfway line. He was a decent old fashioned full back and proved very good value for the 30,000 we paid for him.

On 27/03/2023 at 10:14, BaaLocks said:

Wife and daughter love it - since they changed the format (you're not actually an Apprentice any more, he just invests in your business, so maybe title should be changed to The Investment) it's fundamentally flawed. They get to the interviews, someone gets their business plan ripped apart and you sit and think (or rather you don't because you've long since given up) "well if you knew the business plan was pony why did you let them go through ten weeks of trials making a new flavour lollipop to force onto kids in shopping centres". Makes no sense.

Competent people don't make for good viewing figures. This old Mitchell and Webb Look sketch sums it up.

Kinkladze is one of those players who it's tough to judge without knowing the specifics of his contract. He was mercurial on his day, but that day only came around occasionally and we weren't in a position to be carrying an injury prone player on big wages. He was always one of my favourite players to watch and I'm privileged to have seen him in a Derby shirt, but it's not unreasonable to wonder if we'd have been a better team if we'd spent his considerable wages on a couple of less remarkable, but more reliable footballers.

Looking back to that team, I was so excited when Lee and Barton signed. They were utter rubbish. At least Kinkladze performed once every five, those two performed once between them the entire time they were here.

It will be interesting to see how he gets on at Vitesse. It looks like the money there has dried up and they're being investigated by the Dutch FA. Poor Phil really knows how to pick em.

Thordur Gudjonsson

21 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

I think the word "joke" is doing some heavy lifting there, but go on. I'd have gone with "unfunny transphobic rant"

 

Women don't have penises Stive. I couldn't give a monkey's if you think that's transphobic.

Thank goodness a former covid advisor to the Scottish government is here to provide an entirely objective opinion. Her solution, give the government more money and more control over how you live. I never would've seen it coming.

Peter Taylor

12 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Crazy.

People saying they have been sucked into a relegation battle but they have had a monster run of games against the best sides.

And they have been competitive, drawing with United, Brighton, Newcastle, Liverpool and Brentford(A), while only losing 1-0 to the likes of City and Chelsea(A).

They are 12th and their last 10 games of the season are against 8 teams below them in the league.

They would have been absolutely fine again. Such a bizarre decision.

It's more than just stats and numbers though. Go and read what Palace fans think about the way they've been playing. This isn't just about going a bad run against teams above them. Maybe Palace fans are a bit entitled, but they're the ones who have to watch the football being served up. Remember how other fans with no idea about our club criticised us for sacking Clement.