Panto_Villan

For anyone not spending quite so much time on Twitter as us nerds, the significance of Kupiansk becomes quite obvious when you look at where the river next to Izyum runs. And then this map of the railway network in that part of the country is also helpful - bearing in mind the Ukranians control Kharkiv already, cutting off Kupiansk means that Izyum is cut off and a lot of important cities like Lyman would only be able to be supplied through a roundabout route via the south. @bickster yup, saw that. Hopefully it means the reports of them already being significantly further down that road are true too!

Indeed. Although I think getting the city into artillery range was probably the baseline aim of the operation, physically taking control of the city probably represents things going better than expected! (Assuming it actually happens)

Taking Kupiansk would effectively cut off the Russian forces in Izyum to the south, so if the second tweet is true then it’s really big news.

It’s nice to see Klopp is only considered “somewhat better” than Gerrard on here. Given Gerrard is apparently considered one of our worst managers ever, does that make Klopp about as good as Paul Lambert then?

As some of the other posters have alluded to, the Ukrainians attacked around Kharkiv in the east of the country today (alongside their offensive in Kherson further to the west). It looks like they’ve broken through the Russian lines with tanks and they’ve taken quite a lot of land and killed a lot of Russians. I’m following mostly on Twitter but I’m sure it’ll be all over the proper news in a few hours once the frontlines settle down.

I didn't necessarily mean into Melitipol itself per se, I just meant in that general direction - i.e. an attack south from the other side of the Dnipro. That could concievably even be a strike in the Mauripol direction rather than towards Melitipol. As you say, Kherson is important to Ukraine - but if they can take out the Kerch bridge, then the only easy way to supply most of the occupied territory in the south is through the land bridge running through Mauripol and Melitipol along the coast. Severing that would certainly make it harder for the Russians to resupply, especially as it would threaten naval resupply via the Azov sea. And they're eventually going to have to attack in that direction anyway - even if they take Kherson, there's no way they'll ever attack across the river. But yes, that's all reliant on what forces the Ukrainians have available. It depends how deep their reserves are in that particular theatre and if they've got a reasonable amount present, a push in that area might well be equally successful as Kharkiv. But if they'd moved most of their reserves to Kherson and Kharkiv to support those attacks then it wouldn't be a realistic prospect. I got the impression they had a decent amount of troops in the area, though I might be wrong on that count.

It seems like the war has finally turned decisively in Ukraine's favour. This is especially good news because it means they probably now have the full confidence of their Western backers as we approach winter and the West starts to suffer from the gas shortage. The news today has been great - I'm spending way too much time checking twitter and watching the villages fall in quick succession. Given that the Ukrainians seem to be making huge gains in Kharkiv, I'd be quite surprised if we don't see another attack down towards Melitipol in the next few weeks too. Seems like the Russians are stretched incredibly thinly already and the Ukrainians have been hitting supplies in that area for a long time now.

Yeah, come to think of it, you're probably right about most of them. I think the guy who played Jaime was good, and Sansa was passable given her age and how annoying her actual character is (although Joffrey is a great example of how good the really good child actors can actually be), but I was never really convinced by Emilia Clarke and Kit Harrington in particular. I think I just forgot because they became such big stars and they all improved a bit with time. There's so many great characters played by great actors, especially in the early seasons, that the bad ones kinda just fade into the background. Anyway, I'm off to youtube to watch a Tywin Lannister highlight reel...

Who do you think was a weak actor in GoT? I know the show didn't quite hit its stride in the first season but I thought the acting was one area where the show was pretty strong, personally.

I'd still be perfectly happy with Gerrard losing his job after this result (impressive though it was), simply because you have to assess a manager on a longer time frame than a single match and frankly we've been dire for a long time. However in practice I now think it's very unlikely he'll get fired before next match. Best case scenario is that he's learned his lesson and McGinn will be on the bench and we'll name a stronger midfield from here on out, and our results will continue to improve. Clearly he hasn't lost the dressing room as some have speculated previously, and if this turns out not to be a false dawn then I'll swing back behind him. However I just feel it really didn't need to be this hard. If all we're hoping for is that our manager puts out a sensible team then I feel like the best we're now hoping to get from Stevie is him not actively sabotaging the performances of the talented squad we've assembled, whereas a top-class manager would actually be adding value.

There’s been plenty of players that looked shite in a Villa shirt but much better elsewhere.

I was under the impression we very much tried to sign him but he wasn't interested.

The game has to be up for him now, surely? I'm still expecting him to be gone before we play Leicester but having a caretaker in for City might lift the performances a bit.

He's not though, is he? He was born in England to two Norweigan parents and moved back to Norway at age 3, and he's declared internationally for Norway. He'd be entitled to British citizenship if he wanted it but as far as I'm aware he's not claimed it? Seems a lot like he's Norweigan to me.

Lad's alright at football, isn't he? I sure hope he has an off-day at the weekend because otherwise we're in for an absolute tonking. I don't particularly like Man City and the bloke isn't even English but I like him a lot. Feels like we're going to be watching something pretty special unfold this season!

I’m very interested to see how the counter-offensive in Kherson goes. The ability to retake large amounts of territory from entrenched Russian forces is basically the only competency the Ukrainians haven’t yet demonstrated, so if they’re able to push the Russians back significantly it’ll be a major turning point in the war imo. Not only will it be a catastrophic blow to Russian morale, it’ll prove to Western backers that the war won’t just degenerate into an endless stalemate. That would all but guarantee a decisive Ukrainian victory in the long term, because if the Western arms keep flowing and Ukrainian counterattacks are feasible then the Russians will eventually be pushed all the way back to Russia on every front.

I think the other reason it’s not surprising is that the Ukrainians that wanted to return already would have done so. Most of the country is fairly safe so there’s no reason to stay abroad if you’re not from an area near the frontlines - I think literally millions went back once it was clear the Russians weren’t going to overrun the whole country.

Yeah, well I am making the assumption the next manager is reasonably competent there. The overall point is that all the problems would be resolved by appointing a better manager, which I fully expect us to do by the time the Man City game is done. If not then I’d agree Purslow would have made a big mistake.

Also we took a 2-0 lead against Man City about five games ago and we also lost after half time, but that was used as a stick to beat the team with on here rather than a measure of our progress. Some things are definitely a matter for perspective.

We should hire more ex-Liverpool staff.

Maybe the positivity thread isn’t for you then?

People do love to pre-emptively bash players or managers for doing things that they haven’t done yet. Like that time last week that Stevie G was going to freeze Mings out of the team and sell him to West Ham. Or when Southgate did literally anything ever. I’ll be quite annoyed if Stevie doesn’t start Buendia next game. I think I’ll wait to see if it happens before I get too wound up about it though, no matter how he’s handling his press conferences.

I think Martinez is also in that category. Players we would struggle to replace properly even if we threw mega bucks at the problem.

My own interpretation is that Stevie shouldn’t be airing any of this in public, but I’d be very surprised if Tyrone has been blameless in this whole affair. Tyrone has been a big part of this club in recent times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was resentful that the current manager doesn’t seem to fancy him and his status in the club has gone down as a result. It’s not a big step from being vocal about your opinions to challenging and / or undermining authority figures. This is all speculation based on nothing more than my own experience of being a very opinionated person, and then having to manage several other very opinionated people. Stevie might not be treating Tyrone well as a player but there’s several other players he clearly wants out of the club and there’s not been this public sniping at any of them, so I’m guessing Tyrone is causing him trouble behind the scenes.

I do enjoy how many posters on here apparently know for certain how arrogant or humble Tyrone is. Fact is we have no idea whether it’s Stevie or Tyrone being a knob here - or both, or neither. Obviously we can speculate but in reality I think that just involves each of us choosing whatever interpretation best suits the pre-existing narrative in our heads.