Straggler

First time I've been in this thread, is it for oxymorons?

I'm with Ash on this one

1 hour ago, will87 said:

So Wright-Philips has some banter with his dad the other week so the BBC thought it would be hilarious to have them both on the program, nevermind if he's actually any good as a pundit or not.

That was some proper BS nepotism. Amateur hour analysis tonight, makes it worthless watching the show.  May as well just watch the quick highlights on YouTube.

34 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

This part on nhs how ??

The tories been saying this was last 12 years its all good saying this is what you plan to do this? Nothing in there saying increase pay for nursing staff to attract them to sector

The scary bit for me is this....

Use spare capacity in the independent sector to treat NHS patients and bring waiting lists down.

Want to see what privatisation of the NHS looks like under this labour party, here it is. All of the Labour objectives can be completed by leaning on the private sector. 

Equally what I don't see and what screams at me from it's omission is a commitment to keep the NHS in public hands. If the use of the private sector is temporary with the plan to invest in capacity and then move away again they really need to be clear as I suspect this is not the case.

They have instead specifically dropped the commitment to reduce outsourcing. I get in the short term we have a health crisis to navigate, but there needs to be an overarching set of principles for the long term and if Labour can't provide them I'm entirely disappointed.

It's not just the nutjobs in the Tory party though. It's the labour party position too. Starmer set out his 5 point plan and it is goes on and on about the missed opportunities of Brexit. No rejoining the EU, or even the single market, no freedom of movement.

Look upon our politicians and despair. 

1 hour ago, Mic09 said:

I remember the last few games of the season when I though 'This doesn't look great, but we have good owners, lets give Gerrard a pre-season and some transfers and see how it goes'.

After the first game (Bournemouth I believe?) I called for him to be sacked, it looked like nothing has been done right over the summer. Anyone even slightly invested in Villa knew it wasn't right. 

But some people in the media don't watch much football, so they can not make a fair assessment. 

A rather searing indictment of football punditry and probably a fair one. I do get rather wound up just how low the standard is within football. Pundits are there for their playing career, or perceived "personality", but the ability to actually add value to our understanding of the game is totally absent. 

I compare football pundits with Osi and Jason from the NFL show. Osi and Jason are live wires, they are funny, they are entertaining, they are overflowing with energy, but it is all underpinned with an in depth understanding or the game they are watching and they are such solid professionals that they clearly watch ALL the games. On a live show they can draw upon that wealth of knowledge to add real context to the plays as they happen. 

Knowing that this level of entertainment with professional and insightful pundits is possible, puts the efforts of Shearer, Murphy, Richards etc to shame.

It allows the myth that Gerrard and Uni are somehow both managers and do roughly the same job. We keep hearing about Uni doing lots of classroom stuff. How many of them have bothered to understand what that actually means? How does that information get translated into a training regimen and then onto the pitch? Actually take a damn look at how different coaching styles with the same group of players can have such wildly different results. It should be a fascinating story how this was done, but all the average pundit does is parrot the same meaningless soundbites they have heard elsewhere. No professional curiosity or standards. Most of them don't deserve to be doing stadium tours, never mind high profile punditry.

3 hours ago, bickster said:

WTF does "Where we go one we go all" mean? It's not even close to having any literal meaning. Mr DumbF*** even says it as a slogan. The Slogan might as well be Trump, Fish Kettle, Bazooka

Person man woman camera TV.

OMG! this is HILARIOUS!

The schadenfreude is glorious tonight.

Robbie Savage "We are not going to second guess. It looks offside"

Man is an idiot.

1 minute ago, KMitch said:

hahahahaha...  Fookin' Slabhead!!!  Can't make this up!!!

Comedy goal, enjoyed that one.

Atmosphere is awesome in Seville too.

7 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Couldn't have chosen a better pub sign to be photographed in front of. 

I'm still pissed off at the journalist. As a sales guy if I'm after a big account I've done all my research before I reach out to them. There is no freaking way that I would be caught off guard if they called me right after recieving one of my emails. I'd be ready. I don't get why anyone would ask for an interview with someone they have shown no interest in before sending the emai.

I'd hang my head in shame if I handled an introductory conversation as badly as this. The lack of time to prepare would not wash with me at all. Don't send the email if you are not ready to go 

Not sure I buy it. Even I know that classified documents in the states contain information that when printed would identify who printed them and from which printer. Taking a photo of them won't prevent that identification taking place. I'd imagine a person who has the classification to receive the documents would know this too (although I would not have levelled that accusation at the previous administration). 

So it is either fake, or a deliberate leak IMO. With the information contained being almost exactly what loads of people want to hear I'm going with fake. if it's too good to be true it's probably not true.

2 hours ago, mjmooney said:

I think you're missing the joke.

 

No, I think I got it I just think you need to be one of them to wear the shirt.

1 hour ago, imavillan said:

Well, this one hasn't been thought through 

I think it's been really well thought through, just in a subversive way. Let's face it, if you are buying a t-shirt for £5 in the UK it sure as hell has been made some place else, probably with cheap material that will only survive a couple of washes. May a well draw a CND symbol on a missile.

These days evangelical is just long hand for word removed.

NWA - Fuk da police

Sam Cooke - A change is gonna come.

6 minutes ago, KAZZAM said:

That will probably be investigated in years to come. What did Ryan Reynolds offer TikTok in return for that sponsorship. 

Exposure via a Netflix doucuseries. It's really simple.

My twitter feed has become boring to me. I follow 243 people, but my feed only shows me the same 20/30 people. I'm not getting any of the hard right nonsense, it just seems to be a loop of the same tweets as I scroll down. It has become boring to me. It used to be the second site I would visit after VT. Now I will maybe look once a day.

I did use Twitter as my up to the minute news source from people I trust. It was quite carefully curated. Now all I see are villa tweets and interesting engineering. Can't be arsed with it like this and I'm not going to try and curate it again.

7 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Actually one of their points of reasoning was that normally you bring in a player on say 4 year contract paying £80k/wk. Then in 2 years you have to negotiate a new 4 contract to keep them at the club and the new contract will inevitably be for much higher, say £150/wk.  Same again in 2 more years, this time on a contract for £200k/wk.

Instead Chelsea have signed Mudryk on the 8 year contract for £80k/wk and contractually don't need to re-negotiate that salary for at least 6 years. Mudryk is stuck on that 'low' salary for years, even if he becomes one of their best players. Boehly also pointed out that £80k in 4 years time will be worth much less than £80k now, not only from a general inflation perspective but also in the expected Premier League salary inflation which will be much higher.

That is a nice theory but it's not in practice what happens at all. Players renegotiate mid contact as their value to the club increases in almost all cases (when the player is doing well). It's madness for Chelsea to think otherwise. If they have a player that Madrid would pay 250k a week, on 80k a week, the player will force a move or renegotiate regardless of the contract terms they are on. Chelsea will either have to renegotiate , sell or watch the player refuse to train or plummet in value as form drops away.

What Chelsea have done is set a high minimum they will be paying going forwards.

Again the opposite of this is a player who does not do well and will never be worth the 80k / week, will continue to drag that money out of the club regardless of form or value.

The thing is why do the players like Mudryk move on? There is almost no way they will get a contract as lucrative as the ones they are on ever again. None of this new intake will ever have to work again, they will need to be really motivated to play to take the financial hit it will almost certainly be to move on. A decent proportion won't make it and won't leave.

On the flip side, I can't see many clubs offering to match the wages these guys are on. The only way this model works is if Chelsea have got their player selection spot on. I mean with a higher success rate than pretty much any club has managed to do ever.

I think they will become the ultimate dead wood club.

4 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Surely chelsea will be close to being a ffp mess if they miss out on CL for 3-4 years?

I think they already are. I think the wheel is still moving but the hamster is dead. It may take a couple of years to stop spinning completely, but imo the last 12 months for Chelsea will do for them. The financial model they have chosen has mortgaged their future for a success today that has already failed. 

The only way I see out for them now is somehow getting CL qualification this season, which they look far from capable of doing. It might explain the somewhat desperate decision making at the moment 

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

I reckon you'll get really short odds on the FSB

Yeah, the local knowledge, the access to the target, the planning to get everything in place in advance. There is nothing opportunistic here, and then there is the old favourite, who does this benefit. FSB have to be high on the list.