Panto_Villan

This wouldn’t be a massive blow if true. Most of the tanks sent to Ukraine were older Polish stock and less advanced than the ones than Ukraine had at the start of the war.

I don’t think I ever said I thought people wanted them executed? I’m just saying it’s not only loons that read the Daily Mail who think the royals might bring in more than £85m of economic benefit each year. I think the interest in the royals would be reduced to almost zero if they were no longer the head of state. They currently have (effectively) a purely ceremonial role already, and primarily what people are interested in these days is all the pageantry that goes with the role. Nobody would pay to meet Charles if they abolished the monarchy when the Queen dies. Also, I very much doubt abolishing the monarchy would magically transport us to a society where your abilities are more important that your birthright. A lot of your opportunities in life are defined by your location of birth and the earnings / general attentiveness of your parents. I get the royals are an extreme example but the problem won’t go away. @TheAuthority @Davkaus so are you guys suggesting the French monarchy (probably the most famous ex-monarchy given how it ended) brings in more money and gives more soft power than ours? I’d definitely have to see some evidence before I believe that. Personally I’m pretty neutral on the royals. I don’t see many problems that abolishing the monarchy would meaningfully improve, and as I also I don’t think they’re much of a drain on the public purse I’m content to let them chug along as is for now. Thing is, most anti-monarchy sentiment I’ve encountered seems primarily to come from wanting to take away things enjoyed by groups you don’t like. I’ve got two issues with that. The first is that that’s a bad idea in general - the Welsh language is pointless, expensive and all the Welsh people I currently know are cocks, but that’s hardly a reason to abolish part of our (their) heritage. The second thing is that most people aren’t actually very into the monarchy. It’s an excuse to have a loosely crown-themed party / day out once in a while. If you asked them to do anything strenuous for the Queen they’d tell you to jog on. It’s just the same as the World Cup campaign or the Olympics. I don’t really see any value to taking that away on a point of principle. Sure, you wouldn’t want to create a royal family if you didn’t already have one but that’s not the discussion we’re having.

Is it impossible to believe the monarchy brings in more than £85m a year in tourism etc? And grants the UK a form of soft power that we would otherwise have to pay for - e.g BBC World Service and Foreign Office staffing are both things that cost money but are justified on that grounds, as is hosting stuff like the Olympics or bidding for the World Cup etc. The cost to the taxpayer is actually higher because the £85m a year doesn’t include security costs etc, btw. But I don’t think it’s impossible that the benefits outweigh it. I mean, a quick example - The Crown is the most expensive tv show ever made and I wouldn’t be surprised if it led to a few more holidays over here being booked.

Indeed, that’s why I found the reports the Chechens took casualties interesting too. Either they were caught out by the counterattacks when making TikTok videos, or the Russians are scraping the barrel enough that even the Chechens need to get stuck in (given they’re fairly well equipped). Or maybe the reports about them taking losses are just wrong. I didn’t think the DNR / LNR forces were in Kherson though? There was a tweet yesterday (which annoying I can’t find again) reporting the DNR troops were refusing to fight for Luhansk so I think there’s plenty around Severodonetsk. It would make sense to me for them to be relatively close to home too given they’re low-quality conscripts and probably not worth the petrol to drive halfway across the country. I was under the impression the Kherson troops were just low-quality reserves, but were still actual Russian soldiers?

Yeah, quite possibly. Just speculation on my part really. Haven’t seen the photos from DW because the sources I follow are pretty thorough about scrubbing anything involving dead bodies out, but it’s always good to hear the Russians are taking losses!

It seems like the Ukrainians have taken some quite serious losses in the past few days - the 100 KIA and 500 wounded per day quoted by Zelensky is going to deplete your forces pretty fast - but it does seem like evidence is coming in to support the rumours of the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive into the city you mentioned earlier. And if that is true then the Russians must be close to breaking point (locally, at least) and so their losses must be much higher than that. A few recent rumours on Twitter say that the Chechens in particular took heavy losses but I guess it'll take time for the situation to become clear. It's interesting that the daily estimates from the Ukrainian side about Russian casualties are only ~100 KIA a day right now, though. That to me either implies a lag in reporting or that the losses being taken are being borne almost entirely by the DNR / LNR forces, and maybe Wagner / Chechens if Ukraine classifies them differently and so they aren't included in the figures. That said, I'm also not sure it's the artillery doing the killing at the moment - I wouldn't be surprised if the Ukrainians are choosing to fight in the city specifically because there's plenty of cover to protect them from the massed Russian artillery, negating the main advantage the Russians have and letting the Ukrainians inflict casualties the old fashioned way.

I think this appointment and how quickly it was made reflects well on everyone involved, including Beale (who must have given us enough warning about his plans to set the wheels in motion).

The problem is that he’s not willing to commit his future to us for whatever reason, not a problem we usually have with youth prospects. Which suggests he’s either demanding crazy wages or guaranteed playing time that doesn’t seem to be justified by his performances so far.

The sad thing is I reckon most Russians think all those deaths are justified.

Mate, finding reliable PL-quality strikers who will slot straight into your team for less than £10m is easy. That’s why all our current strikers have been so cheap and absolutely none of them have any flaws in their game at all. For context £10m is 1/3 of a Wes. Edit: it’s actually also less than half of a 30-year old Chris Wood, who I consider the very definition of a competent but unremarkable PL striker.

The alternate explanation is he had a run of bad form and then a new manager came in who wanted a different kind of fullback to what Smith originally bought Targett to do. And then Gerrard spend big money buying an older player that played the same position but more in the style Gerrard wanted, and Targett was sensible enough to know Gerrard didn't fancy him and even if he was in the form of his life he was still never going to fit into Gerrard's system. All the accusations of mental weakness seem to be a bit self-serving. If he stays then he's mentally weak because he's content being sat on his arse every week when it's clear he's not going to get minutes from Gerrard. If he goes, he's too mentally weak to stay and pointlessly fight for his place. You can interpret pretty much everything as a sign of mental weakness if you try hard enough. Ultimately Targett is an old-fashioned defensive fullback. I like the guy, but he wasn't playing well at the start of the season and he was toast as soon as Gerrard walked in and wanted more from him than he'd ever be able to give. He made the right decision going elsewhere - although perhaps now they are safe Newcastle may want more attacking prowess from their fullbacks than Matt can offer too. If that's the case I imagine he'll be an excellent servant for any newly-promoted team or established team that prioritise having a solid defence over dynamism in attack.

I feel like the writing is on the wall when the club spend £25m buying a 28 year old to play in your position. When that happens it doesn't take a genuis to realise that the manager thinks you need to be upgraded and you might want to find work elsewhere.

Yeah but Dean Smith said Grealish was definitely going to be back for the game in his press conference, so our opponents were forced to plan as if he was there. 5d chess.

You've missed the point of my post(s) again. I'm going to try and explain this without any implied criticism of you and your views, so hopefully we don't have to spend the rest of eternity arguing with each other. Look, I very much dislike misinformation. Differing interpretations of facts are what debate / discussion is about, but it's essential to have a common set of facts to work from. I'll call out misinformation I see posted in this thread even if I 100% agree with the point it is being used to support. This argument came about because you posted that the Russians weren't making any gains at all, and that the Ukrainians weren't taking heavy losses. That's simply not true and even you don't seem to believe that any more, so as far as I'm concerned the argument is over. I didn't point it out so I could call you stupid and gloat about being right, it's just that it's impossible to have a serious discussion about the strategic implications of Russia's tactical gains if you are denying they even happened. It's not personal and it doesn't have to be a big thing. I'll happily challenge someone like @bickster on his sources when they don't look right to me, and we just compare notes and move on. There's been several occasions in various threads when I've been wrong and learned something new as a result. Unfortunately, you usually interpret me challenging your supporting arguments / sources as an attack on your overall position, and instead of accepting the correction you write big posts supporting your overall position even though I already agree with it. At the highest level our views are not particularly different. There's no point posting the ISW report because I've already read it and it supports the views I already hold, so it doesn't prove me wrong. I think this is the main area of confusion between us; I point out incorrect information and you launch into a big defence about how Ukraine is likely going to win the war. Yes, you're right. Ukraine is likely going to win the war. But you shouldn't be posting misinformation to support that view and implying I'm a Russian sympathiser when I point it out. Also, while you're clearly very enthusiastic about the Ukrainian cause most people are going to apply a bit of caution to any scenario with as many uncertainties as a war. Pre-war you were certain that Ukraine would win a war against Russia, which given the stance of the ISW / Pentagon etc was a pretty major outlier. When the early Ukrainian tactical victories started coming in you very quickly got aboard the "Ukraine's going to win the war!" train, even though almost every respected analyst was urging caution because there hadn't been enough evidence to extrapolate the course of an entire war from a few days of fighting. You were also enthusiastically posting every update into this thread, and obviously some of it ended up being misinformation, and I was calling that out where it had been disproved. Maybe you took that to be more personal than it was intended to be. As my views tracked pretty closely with a number of sources you now consider reliable I found it pretty frustrating that you'd continually imply I was some kind of Russian agent for expressing the sort of caution they were. Anyway, while I will continue to correct any misinformation I see posted in this thread I'm happy to wipe the slate clean with you if you want. I get the feeling we both think the other is trying to score points off them. Hopefully this post helps explain what I'm actually trying to achieve.

If we only got 8m for him I’d be very disappointed tbh now they know they are going up.

I wonder what his wages are like compared to Ollie. If we’re looking for someone to bully defenders and not score then maybe he’d be a cheaper option. I actually think he’s got decent potential to develop further at PL level if he’s spends a year starting games at PL level. I’d love to see a buyback clause if Forest go up and we sell him. Either way I wish him the best, because I feel the club hasn’t really managed his career very well prior to this loan.

It's only you that I have actual arguments with in this thread, mostly because you're very keen to correct other people while also being horribly misinformed. This entire argument started when someone said Russia has had a good week. You flat out told him he was wrong, and that was impossible because respected sources like the Pentagon, ISW and MOD said the Russians had culminated and weren't actually making gains (spoiler: they didn't). You're the one that needs to provide sources because you're the one going wading into discussions and incorrectly telling people they are wrong. But all you needed to do is just say "Oh, you're right actually, but I don't think those gains are going to change the course of the war" and there's no argument. Problem is you always double down every time even when clearly wrong. You seem to be convinced that literally everything you say must be right because Ukraine is winning the war overall - even though nobody is actually disputing that. It feels like you think the only reason someone might want to discuss signs that Ukraine might be having a tough time on the battlefield is either because they're pro-Putin or because they're still not over the fact you predicted Russia wouldn't take Ukraine and so we're all desperately hoping Ukraine will fail so we can save face and discredit you. Rather than, y'know, because we're interested in discussing what's going on in one of the biggest geopolitical events of recent times. Sure, at the start of the war I thought Ukraine would fight hard but ultimately Kiev would fall to Russia's larger and stronger army. I don't mind admitting when I'm wrong; and in this case I've rarely been happier to be wrong about anything. However it's incredibly ironic you claim I have no sources for my views. From what I recall, your views were based entirely on what one of your mates told you about the Russian army. My views were based on those respected sources like the ISW / Pentagon / MOD that you now put so much stock by. Mocking someone for reading about a topic and listening to the opinions of experts doesn't reflect as well on you as you think it does. As you asked for sources, here's a report from the ISW shortly before the invasion explaining that the Russian militiary could "likely achieve their military objectives of destroying the Ukrainian military’s ability to continue fighting and encircling major Ukrainian cities" in the case of a full invasion (page 13). Can you cite the publications your mate has had published?

Oh, I wasn’t using the word debate in a confrontational way. Just saying you were putting forward your thoughts and reasoning for consideration and I did the same thing. One thing to bear in mind is that Ukrainian artillery is a lot more accurate and used far less indiscriminately than the Russian kind so I’m not sure there will be many limitations on reclaiming territory in that regard. There seems to be plenty of videos of Ukrainian artillery flattening Ukrainian buildings that Russian forces are using for cover already. I do wonder how many civilians are actually left in many of these places too. Certainly the big cities have many but I think any situation where the Ukrainians can encircle an occupied city, you’d think it’d probably indicate the Russians are doing so badly they’d want to surrender anyway?

Right. So you can’t quote a source then? So first you argued that the Russians had culminated and weren’t making any gains at all. Then you argued that the gains didn’t count because the Ukrainians weren’t taking many losses due to their orderly withdrawals from the ceded territories. Now you’re arguing they are taking heavy losses, but that it’s fine because the Ukrainians are better placed to absorb massive losses than Russia is. Congratulations on arguing yourself around to the position I laid out in my first posts (and also in the debate I had with Blandy earlier this week), which was the Russians have recently changed tactics and enjoyed some minor but steady tactical victories over the past week where the attrition rate may be much higher for Ukrainian forces than it was previously, but the overall strategic picture probably still favours the Ukrainians due to their greater capability and willingness to absorb losses. Shame it took about twenty posts for you to realise that you actually agreed with me all along.

Can you cite even one press release from the past five days from any of those bodies that says the Ukrainians are not suffering high casualties but the Russians are? We all know the gains are incremental (though steady). The concern from many people, including a lot of strongly pro-Ukrainian commentators, is that the Russians have changed their tactics and now the Ukrainians are taking very high casualties. The whole “tactical withdrawal to bleed your enemies” only works if they’re bleeding more than you. Otherwise you’ve just suffered a series of blood-soaked defeats.

The concern was always the implied encirclement from those gains rather than the gains themselves. Anyway, sounds like we’re going to find out shortly whether the Ukrainians are able to hold onto territory when they choose to fight for it properly (read the whole linked mini thread). I do hope you guys are correct.

You're misunderstanding my point about Kiev. I'm not equating the losses or the scale of the victory; I'm simply pointing out that the phrase "tactical withdrawal" can cover a whole manner of sins. A withdrawal just involves retreating forces while maintaining contact with the enemy. The Russians definitely made a tactical withdrawal from Kiev. They'd suffered extensive losses beforehand but that's irrelevent; the definition of the word "withdrawal" doesn't change if you've taken losses beforehand. Fundamentally your own position that ceding territory is a good thing rests on the assumption that Ukraine isn't suffering heavy casualties and is retreating in an orderly fashion, whereas the Russians are continuing to suffer massive casualties. Much as I'd love there to be concrete evidence that that's happening at the moment, I can't see any proof of that (unlike during the rest of the war). In fact, several things have happened which suggest the situation may have changed. Not has definitely changed, but may have changed. Which means we need to consider the alternative scenarios that might arise if it has. It may be scaremongering by people trying to score internet argument points, but that in itself isn't enough for me to dismiss the possibility that recent events aren't going as well as Ukraine wants them to. But hopefully the Russians have just had a few good days and normal service will resume shortly.

I think the key thing part of the quoted sentence was "and scored".

Yeah, Coutinho had to go down to £125k a week (ish) to fit in our pay structure and I can believe we've offered Kamara similar wages to come join. That's £500k a month. Little Phil was earning that every week before he came here.

What you've described is just "taking territory" though, no? The Russians made a tactical retreat around Kiev but it still resulted in Ukraine retaking all that territory, which was a victory for Ukraine. The fact of the matter is Ukraine would ideally prefer not to have vacated that territory in the Donbass but has chosen to because they feel like trying to hold it in the face of a Russian advance would cause them unacceptable casualties. That's a victory for Russia. Sure, it's perfectly valid to suggest that maybe the territory being taken is not particularly large or consequential and that the Russians are paying far more in blood for every mile taken than the Ukrainians are. Personally I'm not as convinced about that as I was a week ago (particularly regarding the Russians taking more casualties than the Ukrainians right now). The counter-narrative is that the Ukrainians are holding towns and villages while they are pounded into rubble by overwhelming Russian artillery, and are pretty much shattered when the Russians move in and are thus forced to retreat to new defensive lines. Then process repeats and the losses continue. Given that Zelensky is complaining about high casulaties and the Ukrainians are going backwards, the alternate scenario (or some combination of the two) seems equally plausible. It suggests a few cracks have appeared in the Ukrainian war effort and I'm not yet sure how significant they are. It could be a portent of a new phase of the war, or it could signal absolutely nothing and we'll see the Russian attacks burn out and another major Russian disaster unfold. But I'm watching with a bit of concern at the moment and I'm surprised anyone can look at current events and think things are unfolding completely to plan. Incidentally, in the Donbas it seems like a lot of the assaults are happening at night and the Russians locally actually have better night fighting capabilities than the Ukranians do. It's another example of how the situation is perhaps more complex than initially imagined, whether it be because the Russians are adapting their tactics or because the Ukrainian special forces are busy around Kharkiv and their Donbas troops are less well equipped.