MessiWillSignForVilla

He may represent the IRFU and may not be the reason Wales are winning, but it's a bit dodgy that Cardiff-born Brace is allowed to ref Wales matches.

Italy are good value for their lead at half time, a shame they couldn't get over for the try at the end. Hopefully they can keep this up in the second half.

Just tackle properly for **** sake!

11 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

Very entertaining game of rugby in Italy! 
 

 

An encouraging performance from Italy too, I reckon they could be a decent team when a few of their young players are more experienced internationally.

Just now, Spoony said:

As a man-bunned  southerner I must object. 

Sorry mate, you're a northerner now

Richard Jolly is a great follow on twitter.

Happening again in London 

This looks to be a more more modern building however so hopefully no cladding issue, but looks pretty huge.

Edit:

A more recent tweet makes it looks like it's a bit more under control now, but still a load of firefighters there to deal with it.

The recent stuff around referring to Kiev as Kyiv because that is the Ukrainian word instead of the Russian one has got me thinking about my biggest pet peeve in football: Bayern Munich.

They're called Bayern Munchen and Bayern just means Bavaria in German, so why do we translate half the name and not the other? Just call them Bayern Munchen or Bavaria Munich, not this half commital translation nonsense!

10 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I'm not really seeing how he made it about himself if I'm honest. It's obvious he was getting bombarded with abuse, and probably questions about why he wasn't speaking out, as a Russian and responded. ( I mean, he said as much in the extended version above )

He also goes on to speak about why random Russians etc are getting the brunt of all of it for a situation most of them have no control of.

This is another case of taking whatever we want from a post IMO.

With regards to the " semantics " about tit for tat and who protests more against whatever war.

FYI, 37 civilians were bombed and killed in Yemen, just yesterday for example. So let's not even go there.

My focus with sharing that, was just an example of media spin, and them all now being the enemy. They weaponised it, and shared it, for a desired effect, with ease.

The part where in response to people asking for him to speak out about it he immediately tried to turn it in to people criticising him for being Russian and saying "athletes have to suffer" whilst the Russian military is shelling civilians in Ukraine. He could've just said nothing and people would've understood that he may not have wanted to risk the consequences of speaking out.

The comment about double standards wasn't aimed at you, it was just something that annoyed me when reading Dzyuba's post again, but yeah, you totally got me, I was completely unaware about the Yemen civil war despite being furious over the Newcastle takeover and voting in our last election for the party that pledged to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia due to it's human rights abuse and role in the civil war. It is possible to care about different instances of war crimes at the same time you know.

9 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

How does he compare on the 'Elphick scale' the main scale of centre half measurement  

Where the hell did that joke even come from? Elphick is 6'2", I never got why it was always said he was short.

19 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I saw a couple of publications take this excerpt, and turn it into a totally different headline. They turned it into " Dzyuba faces outrage after expressing unrelenting support for Russia " or something like that.

Which was followed by inevitable ignorant comments from people who obviously never even read the article. I proper hate new media.

 

And that quote conveniently leaves out the part where Dzyuba manages to make it all about himself and play the victim whilst taking digs at Ukrainians like Mykolenko for being worried that their country is being invaded.

Also, I am so fed up of the "double standards" that keeps getting thrown around like in Dzyuba's statement, as if the only reason people care is because Russia is doing it, whilst usually pointing to the Iraq war as evidence, despite that war having some of the biggest anti-war rally's in history and was one of the largest scale co-ordinated protests ever seen.

48 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Was bits in the paper about this.

Apparently it will be 12 venues selected as they expect it to be 32 teams by euro 2028. Surely there's no point to qualifying then?

Anyway apparently only two venues from London allowed so will be Wembley and one other, probably Spurs.

Midlands venue is a cert so between us and Leicester. Think Leicester will shortly get their ground up to 40k but can't see any way it gets picked if we've got VP to 50k + by then.

Murrayfield and Hampden probably used, not sure which Old Firm ground.

Windsor Park can only be extended up to 25k so they might ask for special dispensation to use it.

Interesting to look back to euro 96. Only Wembley was used from London and had grounds like Hillsborough (which would never be considered now) and City Ground,Nottingham used. 

So many stadia built since then and many of them like Derby and Bolton too small to be considered now. Southampton perhaps too close to London to be considered.

If that was the case, my guess at the venues would be;

Windsor Park. Maybe Casement Park instead depending on whether it's suitable/the GAA allow it.

Aviva Stadium, Croke Park.

Millenium Stadium

Hampden Park, Murrayfield.

Wembley, Tottenham, Old Trafford, St James', Anfield and Villa Park. Etihad possibly instead of Anfield or VP depending on how much they want to spread it out.

It should be obvious, but here's why a no fly zone would be insane, it would be seen as a declaration of war on Russia, and starting WW3 that could potentially become nuclear is not something anyone wants.

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

For all the mourning of Bielsa the defence seems to have quickly improved

Weird what can happen when your tactic isn't just run around like a headless chicken.

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

There’s going to be nothing left for China go buy from Russia at this rate.

Alarm bells must be ringing in the Kremlin. They though this was gonna be like Crimea again. A bit of bluster from the west but nothing more.

 

I imagine China wouldn't say no to buying Siberia

37 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Loan fees are where it's at. Hoard decent kids and loan them out for profit even if you have no intention of playing them in the first XI.

FIFA rules are coming in soon to combat that, something like only 6 allowed out on loan at one time, with exceptions for players under 21 that are also home grown (spent three years at the club between the ages of 15 and 21). Chelsea's loans out would have to fall by half under the new rules.

22 minutes ago, a m ole said:

I know you know, the point is it’s moot to say ‘VAR isn’t the problem, it’s the guy using it’, everyone knows that. They’re complaining about the useless clowns using it.

Then why is the solution always to get rid of the technology all together and not the shit refs?

They're the new Swansea.

Small team gets promoted then plays some easy on the eye football but ultimately don't do any better than a mid table finish and actually struggle for the most part. Manager gets lots of plaudits and is heralded as the new hope for British football, whilst some of their players get insanely overrated, which makes you wonder why, with such a great manager and an abundance of talent, they can't finish higher than 12th?

They're alright, but the way they're talked about I often wonder what people actually see in them to deserve the fawning.

9 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

I thought it was quite well worked to create the opportunity

This performance has very much eased my pessimism about this team so far. Though it's helped by Wales reverting back to the side that came in to the tournament rather than the one that beat Scotland.

Typical that it's been all Wales since I posted this 

5 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

Disaster of a line out

I thought it was quite well worked to create the opportunity

This performance has very much eased my pessimism about this team so far. Though it's helped by Wales reverting back to the side that came in to the tournament rather than the one that beat Scotland.

**** yes Ollie!!!!!!