BigJim

There seems to be a lot of worry that Gerrard would just see us as a stepping stone to his dream job. No doubt he would. But we have to accept that attractive top jobs come up fairly frequently in world football. if we were lucky enough to attract a really top name, he might well move on in a very short time - just look how fast Ancelotti left Everton. We're not going to find another Dean Smith. Best we can hope is that whoever we hire is professional enough to give us all of his attention and the best of his effort while he's here.

Really sad to see him go. I think mainly he has been unlucky with the players he brought in to the club, especially this season with injuries, though in some other cases in the cold light of retrospect perhaps the selection of signings has been a little suspect. Think Wesley, Engels, Nakamba, Sanson (jury still out), even Traore. But no manager gets it right every time. I think he deserved a little more time but the situation was (is) definitely looking dangerous.

Pretty telling that in your summing up of performances you don't mention Bailey. Anyone could be forgiven for forgetting he was playing - total disappointment. I don't think I have ever felt less confident that we would score. The only surprise for me was that Soton didn't really punish us. Guess we have our keeper to thank for that. I don't know about anyone else but I hope Ings is back soon and I would drop Watkins. OK he worked very hard but he is looking like a poor championship striker at the moment when he has the ball at his feet. Buendia has to start to click soon, his class is obvious. I wish I could say the same for Bailey but I remain hopeful. We need to remove El Ghazi from the scene and gamble a bit more on the youth. I wouldn't change the manager at the moment, but he's walking a tightrope.

Agreed. He looked very competent and confident. Passed the ball well too.

This seems the most likely scenario to me. And I think they will get Kane because I just can't see Levy turning down all that cash. OK, I'm clutching at straws like everybody else.

Have to disagree, sorry, Anwar has to be one of the worst in the air. Closes his eyes and the ball bounces off his shoulder half the time

I don't have much time for RB when he's off the pace but to be fair, they were ganging up on him as well. OK his movement is minimal, but I still saw four players practically on top of him when he received the ball on more than one occasion. That's a measure of how hard Brighton work and how well organised they are. We, on the other hand...

If scientists can show that the virus was absolutely not artificially engineered, fine. But that of itself is NOT proof that this particular virus did not escape from the Wuhan lab or another. There are other ways mutation can be induced in the lab without genetic engineering, by passing a virus around among lab animals. So producing a "natural" mutation under extreme conditions. If, as it appears, such experiments were going on in Wuhan with Fauci's blessing, then he absolutely knew the possibility of a leak existed.

Since he knew he had funded the research there then yes, he was, by refuting all possibility of a leak. But thanks for posting the research.

You are quite right, my bad. I don't particularly have anything against Fauci, my position has always been that this research is dangerous and shouldn't be allowed. I believe Fauci last year publicly denied any possibility of an accidental leak, and there I think he has been disingenuous.

Perhaps the parallel you draw is fair, perhaps not. I don't have any evidence really, and I don't think it must be true. However, the link to wet markets could be argued to be just as circumstantial.

Thanks Bickster. I'm mildly surprised though why you would consider the two things a mere coincidence and discard the possibility of a leak which looks more obvious.

I don't have any theory about a conspiracy, just interested to know which part of the following is fake news? (genuinely interested, honest). 1. The Obama administration placed a moratorium on gain-of-function research after hundreds of scientists voiced fears that accidents could lead to a pandemic? 2. Fauci authorized funding for this type of research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology? 3. The current pandemic started in Wuhan?

Well, well, well. After everybody in the industry battered this scientist and the video was removed from all social media, looks like Fauci was heavily involved after all.

I have to say Douglas is a bit of a liability tackling generally. He's a bit clumsy and often gives free kicks away in dangerous positions. Most games there are times when I'm surprised he gets away with some things in the tackle.

Yeah but football is global and FIFA rules everybody. Not more sensitivity in social media, more in policing was my drift

Don't necessarily disagree with you but I'd like to explore this a bit further. Social media has no geographic boundaries, so really if he'd been playing in Uruguay and made the same post, the same reader(s) could have been offended just as easily. So under the same rules, shouldn't action be taken? I think it's clear the Uruguayan authorities wouldn't raise an eyebrow, but FIFA are more than capable of getting involved. What then happens if Ollie Watkins posts "Cheers mate" and someone in another country says that is an extreme homophobic insult? OK, I'm maybe pushing the scenario to ridiculous extremes, but I feel we are at the thin end of the wedge with social media policing. As with all policing, a little more sensitivity is called for.

I just had to look it up to be sure. The year was 75. The score 4-1. John Deehan got the other two.

Me too. Think he scored the opener at the Holte end and I seem to remember Chico Hamilton passing one into the net a la Traore.

Any chance someone could get Byeee and those other vids from Twitter onto youtube?

warlocks

I think that's right, but surely it's possible for the team to set up to defend both ways. You station one player behind the wall who drops to the ground as the kick is taken. Then everybody in the wall can jump safe in the knowledge they won't be mugged by the daisy cutter. I know this works coz I've seen it on youtube.

While it did sometimes look as if he was holding on too long, we should probably take into account he's waiting for his team-mate to make the move he wants/expects him to. I'm sure we'll see big improvements in this as he builds understanding with the likes of Ollie, Ross and Bert.

He certainly has a lot in common with Best, who for me is the best player I ever saw playing live. I would put Best among a small handful of "best in the world" I have only seen on TV. One of the things that puts GB above Grealish for me was his absolute fearlessness and strength in the tackle. Nobody wanted to get tackled by Best and I'm talking a time when he was facing some real nutters like Ron "Chopper" Harris and defenders got away with a lot more than today. Now Jack gets kicked a lot obviously, puts in his more than his share of tackles and is pretty good at winning the ball back. But on a different level to GB in my opinion. But it's a small point really. Some of Jack's dribbling in tight spaces is out of this world and his passing is absolutely sublime. I think in those areas he's getting to be as good as anyone.

Nein