Panto_Villan

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.

I’m not actually sold on Mings as a player but I don’t think the comments to the media make Stevie look good. If he’d said “I think Calum played better in pre-season but I’m sure Tyrone has the mettle to win back his shirt” then that would have been fine. But picking Konsa rather than Chambers and the “look me in the eye” line just seems a bit weird imo.

Ah, the classic West Ham approach. ”If he’s that handy kicking a cat, he must be brilliant on the football pitch.”

Does it? Because when I’ve looked into it the intuitive conclusion appears to be supported by the evidence - that even in sports where height and larger skeletal size doesn’t count for anything, hormone suppressants get nowhere near cancelling out the strength and endurance advantages gained during puberty. Google throws up this result, for example (quote at bottom): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3 There’s a number of sports where this might not matter much (archery, diving), a number of sports where it’s likely to be unfair (e.g. weightlifting or cycling) and there’s also quite a few sports where it’s likely to be downright dangerous (contact sports like rugby). The principle that trans athletes should just be treated exactly like women on the sporting pitch until enough people get seriously injured or it becomes undeniably farcical is a pretty irresponsible one imo, and the people trying to smear anyone that thinks otherwise as transphobic don’t do the cause any favours (that’s a general comment, not aimed at anyone specific on here). “We report that the performance gap between males and females becomes significant at puberty and often amounts to 10–50% depending on sport. The performance gap is more pronounced in sporting activities relying on muscle mass and explosive strength, particularly in the upper body. Longitudinal studies examining the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed.”

I’ve not written Stevie off yet. If he starts getting results and / or we start playing well then he’d get more time - the earliest I’d consider changing him would be after six games. I just think alarm bells should be ringing. It all feels a bit Roy Keane right now. Setting high standards and being stern only gets you so far.

What makes you say that? I feel like he just has a very fixed view of the way he wants his team to play, and he’s unprepared to change it no matter how badly it (or his chosen players) appears to be faring on the pitch.

I think quite a few people have unfairly had the knives out for Gerrard since the moment he joined, but after a transfer window and a pre-season he doesn’t have any excuses to hide behind. If we’re not rapidly back on top-half form I suspect Stevie will be out of a job shortly, and rightly so.

Do we know that for certain? Genuine question.

Great news, hope he smashes it!

It’s a shame he left but £20m is astoundingly good money given the circumstances. And it’s not like any of our other promising youngsters seen intent on forcing a move either, so I don’t think any of it reflects badly on Villa. I’m generally not someone that begrudges players moving onto bigger and better things, but this saga has irritated me. It’s one thing moving on if you’re too good for us, but he’s not - he’s done nothing to suggest he should currently be playing in the Villa first eleven imo. I’m sure he’ll develop further but right now he’s not good enough for us. That said I do understand why a player would prefer to be integrated into the Chelsea squad rather than the Villa one (more games, possible CL minutes). And Chelsea clearly rate him given they’re willing to pay so much for him - so I’m not too bitter. If he’d refused to sign and forced a move on a free next summer in hope someone bigger would snap him up, the situation would have a very different complexion. I’d probably be genuinely angry rather than a bit irritated. Given he hasn’t done anything to earn the affection I still have for Barry / Milner / Benteke / Grealish, I hope he fades into obscurity. It’d be nice to think Villa got the best of the deal rather than Chelsea.

I think the club has got the handling of the situation right so far, and I hope that unless he signs the contract he doesn't get to play for the senior team or our youth teams. I'm sure we're contractually obliged to continue to provide him training on a daily basis so that should continue, but no competitive football unless he signs. I'm not at all worried it'll put off other youth prospects. There's plenty of examples of players making it into the first team here, and Grealish is a great example of how you can still get your big money move if you stick around. I don't think it would hurt to also have an example of how badly things could go for you if you dick the club around with your contract though. I think Carney is going to be left looking quite silly if the club plays hardball and one of the clubs that admires him doesn't come in with a big bid. Are people going to want to pay him big wages after 6-12 months of no football? If not, he'd have been better staying here and just taking the big pay rise we're no doubt offering him. I can't imagine JJ or even Archer / KKH / Ireogbunam are short of a few quid even now, even if they're not yet on the same money a full pro would be.

Basically if he's doing well enough that we look stupid for selling him, we spend a few million buying back one of his legs or his torso and that's his career done.

The only two who seem to be burnishing their reputations here are Tugendhat and Sunank. Sunak is the only one who can actually provide an answer to the tough economic questions being asked - you might not agree with the answers he's giving, but everyone else just seems to be claiming they can unleash the economic growth that will allow them to pay for public services without having to raise taxes or increase debt. They just sound clueless. Tugendhat seems to have a bit of charisma about him. I was kinda hoping he would be a bit less lightweight on the economy though tbh. If you're willing to say you don't regret voting Remain in a Tory leadership contest then you should also be willing to say that we probably need to put taxes up to pay for better public services. The three women just seem to be floundering and giving really wishy-washy answers to everything. I wonder if this improves Sunak's head to head against Mordaunt much? I feel like Starmer would eat her for breakfast if she performs like this in the PM TV debates.

Yes, that's the point I was making. Welsh isn't pointless, it simply looks that way if you strip it of its context. It's therefore a good illustration of why you shouldn't try to strip things of their context. I'm aware I'm now repeating myself and the subject was already pretty tangential from the original topic, so I'm just going to leave things there.

No, I know. And I'm just going to answer this in a little more detail because I don't want to derail the conversation further and I guess it's easy to misunderstand my point if you take it out of the context it was made in. The intention isn't to imply the Welsh language is pointless or whitewash the history surrounding it. It was purely to illustrate that you can't consider a piece of culture in a vaccuum, because then you omit the history and heritage tied up in it. The fact of the matter is that almost every Welsh person can speak English precisely because the language was suppressed. If you were to look at the current situation purely from a perspective of utility (i.e. can people communicate with one another) then Welsh is completely surplus to requirements because everyone in Wales speaks English now. But that's a very simplistic reading of the situation. There's a lot of history and culture tied up in a language and that's why public money is spent on preserving Welsh, which is totally fine by me. The overall point is that the same is true for the monarchy. If you created a new monarchy out of thin air it would be very different from the current monarchy even if the structure and role was the same. It wouldn't have the positive associations and history that many people in this country have for the monarchy, and indeed nor would it have the negative historical associations (i.e. the british empire) too. So while you wouldn't want to create a new monarchy from scratch today, that doesn't necessarily mean the existing one should be abolished.

It's entirely up to you whether you consider the Queen part of your culture or not, I'm not here to gatekeep either way. It was purely the way you used the word "you" in your previous message made it sound like you very much viewed your culture as seperate from British culture. Sounds like that was just due to a mutual misunderstanding though, in which case no harm done.

The exchequer pays out public money and legislation is in place to support a language that is objectively pointless if you're look at it from a viewpoint of pure utility. That viewpoint would of course be missing the point of why language and culture should be preserved, which is why I used it to illustrate that looking at things from the viewpoint of pure utility is a bad idea. Personally, I'm perfectly happy with my taxpayer money being spent on supporting the Welsh language just as I am it supporting museums I'll never visit, etc. Funny that you're foaming at the mouth as soon as there's some percieved slight about your culture though, given how keen you are to fling insults at people daring to enjoy an aspect of their own culture.

No, not really. However that doesn’t mean you should abolish it. You wouldn’t invent the Welsh language or Brutalist architecture if it didn’t already exist, yet we go out of our way to preserve those things. Shakespeare is pretty outdated writing by today’s standards too, but history and heritage has inherent value. Our royal family is interesting in no small part because it is anachronistic. Nobody would want to see a newly established royal family, they want to see the remnants of a world famous institution that once ruled half the world as they smile and wave like fairground exhibits. Actually, I tell a lie. I can think of one reason why you might want a non-elected blank slate monarch to be head of state - because if you don’t have one, the head of state is an elected politician. That means if you do have a big parade or major event, it’d be Boris and Carrie (or Jeremy Corbyn) sitting in the gilded carriage at the front. That’d be way more divisive than having the Queen do it imo. More meritocratic, of course, but I think people would enjoy the pageantry less as a result. It’s useful having a figurehead sometimes. Your mileage may vary on how much you value that I suppose.