Panto_Villan

Not really. The problem is that if people can buy 5p worth of metal for 1p, they'll just melt it down and sell it for a profit.

Be interesting to see when the offensive begins. I think this constant stream of small attacks on russian refineries and supply depots could be something that continues for weeks rather than just days, and I read on Twitter that there's about a three week lag from when the rains stop to when the ground is dry enough to drive large numbers of tanks and IFVs over it. If that's true (and I'm not sure if it is) then that'd actually suggest we've got another couple of weeks to wait before the Ukrainians attack in strength.

Yeah, we've definitely made it hard for ourselves with the last couple of results. Had we got a draw at United and a win at Wolves then we'd probably be favourites to get a European spot. But we didn't, and now it's quite unlikely we'll manage it. But quite unlikely isn't the same as being out of it completely, and while people would be foolish to expect us to make it to Europe I just think it's taking it too far to write us off completely like some people want to do. It's not over until it's over.

Don’t worry - Emery is clearly sabotaging Ollie’s performances to give Villa the upper hand in salary negotiations. Once the contract is signed he’ll be unstoppable again.

People were overconfident of our chances before, and now most people seem to have switched to being underconfident instead. Are we likely to get Europe? No, we’re not. But there’s still a chance, and stranger things have happened in football.

That's my council too. Good to know, because I was planning to vote Lib Dem and (embarrassingly) forgot to vote because things are crazy at work at the moment. When I moved here I looked at the General Election results from the election before last and they were mad - Tories had about 50% of the vote, and the next biggest party was UKIP. So the council switching to the Lib Dems is big news. Maybe our new yellow overlords will allow me a slightly larger bin.

Yeah, they’re screwed at this point. Sunak doing his best to be quietly competent is the best strategy that they have, but it’s just the least bad option and they’re still going to get an absolute drubbing in the general election. Anyone even remotely resembling a swing voter is utterly sick of the Tories by now. There’s no escaping that.

Always good to see this thread getting bumped. What's he done now to make everyone angry? Burned down an orphanage?

That would be great. Scottish football has been a two-horse race for far too long!

Meh. I still find it amazing how worked up people on VT get about every perceived slight from the media. I get the point you're making, but it feels kinda small time for a fanbase to be constantly demanding respect (in my opinion at least). But yeah, clearly Emery isn't going anywhere. Even if he thought the squad was better at those other clubs, why would he want to deal with a bunch of inflated player egos and owners who would interfere? He's got it great here. Talented squad who buy into his methods 100%, a professional hierarchy to support him, well-run academy, good stadium and training facilities, and patient owners with deep pockets and the good sense to step back and let a proven manager run things the way he wants. I actually can't think of any other club where he'd get all of those things.

What's been quite unusual is that people started taking notice of us a couple of matches ago (after the Newcastle result), which is usually the cue for us to implode in spectacular fashion. But he's somehow managed to break that curse too.

He already is a legend in footballing terms, I think. Not many people on Villatalk have a bad word to say about him, and you've got to be a very good player indeed for that to happen. In terms of how he'll be remembered in the future, I think the important thing will be whether he leaves and how he does it if so. We've seen with Grealish that a club legend can lose that status with a lot of fans when they leave. Seems like he genuinely loves it here, though, so maybe in future we'll be looking back at this period and talking of the golden "Martinez decade".

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing.

That was a dreadful game. I'll take the three points because it's a good result against a decent enough team, but my god that was painful to watch.

I feel like if he's fit enough to be on the bench, he's fit enough to start. No point wasting a spot on the bench if he's just going to chunder everywhere the moment he goes on the pitch.

Well, that’s my point. Perhaps explained badly though. They’ve told literally thousands of lies in the last decade about all sorts of things, and only a few lawsuits. Most of what they say is protected by the First Amendment, even if lies. This case is unusual because they’ve decided to try to destroy the reputation of a big corporation and then also provided written evidence that they knew the accusations were false when they ran them. If that written evidence didn’t exist, they’d have won the suit (to my understanding at least). So do they rein in the presenters? Or are they just a bit more careful going forward about not letting this specific situation happen again? I’m betting it’s the latter.

Great news Tucker Carlson is gone. I’m guessing it has to be connected to the recent lawsuits. A couple of thoughts: 1) He’s a huge name in the US these days so I wonder if he’ll fade from view or not. His name recognition gives him an usually good chance to try and pull viewers to a smaller hard-right channel or go independent, but ultimately I think FOX is bigger than him and he’s going to struggle to stay relevant without a prime time slot there. Fingers crossed, anyway! 2) Does this actually change anything at Fox? Or are they just going to promote someone else to the slot who keeps trotting out the same stuff? I feel like the chances of there being an editorial decision at Fox to rein in their presenters and stick to reporting facts is pretty slim. Sure, they’re probably paying out a billion dollars in defamation suits but over the last decade they’ve made way more than that out of pandering to lunatics. So much as I enjoy this, I don’t really think it changes anything. There’ll just be a new face intent on destroying democracy instead.

Yes, mobilised make up a lot of their forces these days. But that was the same in Kharkiv - it was largely LPR / DPR mobilised, but there weren’t that many of them and they’d been gutted in the urban fighting in the months previously. The guards regiments there were newly raised and only thrown into battle after the line collapsed, and were picked apart before they even found the battlefield. The question with regards to the mobilised is: how much difference will the extra numbers and the fortifications make (vs Western gear and training on the other side)? We just don’t know yet, as there’s not been any similar battles. As for the experienced troops, without writing an essay, I disagree. There were plenty of elite Russian troops in Kherson, which is why the Ukrainians made such slow progress there. And it was an orderly retreat from Kherson where most of them made it out intact. Theres also a middle ground between elite and the untrained, mobilised-only units. You don’t really need elite troops to hold a defensive position. Anyway, the point of all this is just to say - the counteroffensive isn’t going to be a cakewalk. If we get another Kharkiv then great, but that probably shouldn’t be your baseline. That went better than even the Ukrainians were hoping it would.

Just gonna put it out there - I don’t think Arsenal are going to win the title this year.

Happy to be corrected if you've got a decent source for air power vs Bradleys kills, but that's not what I've read. However, yeah, I agree the Bradley is probably likely to be the most consequential of the vehicles used in the counter-offensive given its versatility. As for the offensive - I hope you're right. I don't think Kherson is a good comparison because the way the river starved the Russians there of supplies and forced them to retreat, and I think things will be more difficult than Kharkiv because the Russians there were spread more thinly prior to the wave of mobilisation, were generally poor quality troops, and hadn't dug fortifications like they have now. But as you say, it's anyone's guess how it turns out at this point. The fortifications could turn out to be absolute junk and it ends up being another rout after the Ukrainians punch straight through them. Or it might be that they take major losses trying to cross minefields while taking fire from pre-sighted artillery, and their attacks break down with little gains. Let's hope it's the former, but we'll have to wait and see.

I found the second MUCH harder than the first, personally. Of course if I was earning PL wages then I'd just hire a nanny so I could have some time to myself occasionally, and the whole thing would be much more manageable. So I don't think it'll affect Ollie quite the way it might affect one of us mere mortals. I'd be surprised if his form took much of a dive.

Again, I broadly agree with this, but I think they'll still have some decent tank crews in there somewhere. They've just got so many men and so many tanks that there's bound to be some decent tanks and some experienced crews left. But that's not exactly the point I was making - clearly Western hardware is better than the Russian equivalent, and I'm sure the newly-trained Ukrainians will be better than most Russian crews they face. The Russian tanks will probably still knock out some Challengers due to good luck (hitting the weaker side or rear armour), and there's also lots of other threats to tanks aside from other tanks. Mines, infantry with AGTMs, aircraft with missiles, even crews just getting their tank stuck and being forced to abandon it. It's still very possible to lose large amounts of Western armour in battle despite it being superior to the Russian equivalent, as the Saudis have demonstrated (they lost almost half of their fleet in Yemen). People might be surprised how much. No, they don't. But in the various wars America / Britain fought in the middle east, we frequently just bombed enemy vehicles or fortified positions with aircraft rather than engage them with our own vehicles. The Ukranians aren't going to be able to do that, so they're going to take more losses because they'll be exposed to more fire.

I'm not disagreeing with this, because they obviously are better than the Russian equivalents, but I think people are going to be surprised at the level of losses that are taken on a battlefield where the Ukrainians don't have air superiority. The M1 Abrams is roughly equivalent to the Challenger and the Saudis recently lost over 400 (!) of them fighting Iranian proxies in Yemen, and Iran is probably roughly equivalent to Russia in terms of military power. The Iraqis were using mostly T-55s back in the day and the Americans had absolute air superiority, so I feel like the wars fought by America / Britain are a bit flattering in terms of their vehicle performance.

I'm not sure the "hard to kill" part would be so true against an enemy like Russia, who are more capable than the Iraqi army or the Taliban who I think were the only enemies the Challenger 2 ever faced previously? My understanding is that Western tanks are heavier and better armoured than Russian tanks, and while this does give some benefits to vehicle survivability, the main benefit is that the crew more often survive the destruction / disabling of the vehicle. Whereas in Russian tanks the ammo detonates and everyone dies in a spectacular explosion. But if you drive over a mine then your tank is still going to be disabled, and if you get hit with a modern anti-tank missile (even a Russian one) then there's a good chance it'll penetrate the armour and damage the vehicle, because armour can only ever be so good. That said, even older Western tanks are far more capable in terms of accuracy and range than Russian ones, particularly the older stuff the Russians are using these days. There's a famous video of a German Leopard driving around with a pint of beer balanced on the barrel, which shows how well the turret is stabilised while the tank is moving (and therefore how accurately the tank can fire on the move). Which means they should hopefully have the advantage in scoring kills before the Russian vehicles get to shoot back, and therefore it's less likely they'll take a hit at all. Anyway, the overall point I'm making is that Western stuff is definitely better than the Russian stuff but it's not invulnerable. Once this offensive starts properly we're all going to see videos of Bradleys and Leopards being destroyed or captured by the Russians, but that's to be expected and doesn't mean that things aren't going to plan.

Welcome Antonio - I look forward to holding you personally responsible for even the smallest failures in our player or managerial recruitment processes.