Marka Ragnos

I don't think many here are arguing that Olsen stay if presented with a high-quality incoming transfer. My read of the situation is that -- regardless -- Emery wants Olsen to stay, and the transfer focus has shifted elsewhere. I may well be wrong, but that's my read. It's not the outcome I'd hoped for, but I don't mind seeing Villa live dangerously for a while. Events may as they have a way of doing overtake this discussion. If Olsen makes a huge blunder, if Martinez (god forbid) is injured, etc.

He plays left CF-ish/left-winger-ish, right? The role would offer healthy competition with Jacob and possibly Bailey, right? Excellent on the ball, excellent passes, excellent assists, good header? But I don't know. Almost feels like we would be overloaded with forwards.

Well, your name is lexicon. Who am I to argue with your word definitions? There are gradations of excellence, obviously. I think we can agree on the need for a new second. Emery for some reason doesn't seem to see it that way. Again, I hope it's all academic and Emi stays fit. It's a weak spot, for sure. A grave one.

Haha. Are the Villa finally big enough now, João? Or you still need a big, big club?

Moot anyway -- so yes, no, maybe -- it's little more than academic. We're keeping him this fall, it seems. We can only hope that Emi stays fit and well. The main thing is, we do need a new second keeper, IMO. I've been 100% consistent and insistent that our main recruitment drive should be a new second keeper. We agree on the need for a new second, I think. My other point isn't all that subtle. It's simply that Robin Olsen is a competent PL-level second keeper in a squad whose approach has changed in a big way. Any competent second keeper in the PL is by definition an excellent keeper in my book. Not a starter. Not a mascot. Not an academy kid. You appreciate that it's possible to think a player superb and still not good enough for Villa, right? A PL second keeper has a very peculiar set of requirements and skills, and I -- and many others! -- happen to think personality and group dynamic are a big part of that. They're not simply lesser keepers. It's a very tricky role and calls for a special personality. It seems Emery thinks that Olsen has that right now. Olsen totally has my respect. I just think the drawbacks at our level outweigh his many many benefits. And again, Emery seems to disagree. But second keepers are of course as you know not simply shit keepers plugged into emergency. They have an outsized non-game role, too. They help warm-up and train and stand ready to be called in. All that said, Olsen is more towards the end of his career than the beginning.

But bizarre in a good way, right? Like Hieronymus Bosch? Olsen is premier league second keeper standard - and any of those keepers are excellent by global standards. Emery plays a style that’s incompatible with Olsen’s skills now — and I also think he’s getting older. Measure that against his overall role in the squad — being second always isn’t exactly the dream of every academy kid — and I think he does alright and helps our club tremendously. Sadly, I think he needs to move down to third or be moved on.

When you lay it all out like that, yes, I see. Should be a compelling match when we play them.

DM sent. Wow, these stories gave me the heebee-gee-bees!

Is loathing Liverpool a natural part of getting older, or should I have a doctor take a look? It's not so much hating Liverpool as a club as much as hating the worshipful respect they're automatically accorded from wall to wall across the British and even the American football media.

Yup. I feel like Americans of goodwill have a duty to fight Trump and Trumpism before it's too late.

The badger is your true king ... Ted Hughes wrote ...

Atheists ... who believe in ghosts. And deity-believers ... who don't believe in them. In my mind, I'm like, "Pick one, you. You can have one or the other, not both." It's puzzling to me, and then it's not, too. Maybe it's merely a sign of how a person's convictions and their delusions sometimes intermingle and aren't always so easily disentangled in some minds? I encounter the phenomenon from time to time with the college-age students I teach. I feel like it's something that's been more common since the mid-2010s or so?

Yes, and did you look at Pool? I don’t see how they can keep in top four.

This. Measuring squads has to include synergies, not just individual strengths. I think Liverpool is getting seriously overrated this year. I could also see Tottenham being a shitshow. And I don’t think Brighton is going to be as much of a threat.

My wife is vegetarian. Today I felt really disturbed by a pile of blue crabs still alive in my local Asian grocer. I could see the little fellows' eyes looking at me. I dunno. It just hit sort of hard. I've also found myself feeling really sad about chickens. I think when you pick one up and feel how they are as warm as kittens, I dunno. They are lovely animals. I've tried vegetarian and vegan eating before and sometimes do very well, but then I fail. I can eat fish no problem, but I seem to draw a line with arthropods. They just seem so sentient to me. Have you read Consider the Lobster? Maybe it's time I try again to do a vegetarian diet.

Sadly, my market didn't have boat noodle soup flavour. They had a few other flavours, and I bought -- but have yet to try -- these. Also, octopus ball as well as spicy crab crisps, right beside a big clear bag of actual chicken feet.

This thread is wrecking my healthy eating ... there's an Asian grocer near me where I'm hoping to find these later today.

I remember exactly when the metrification movement peaked here in America -- and I remember exactly when it faded. I'm sure you can guess what signal event marked its decline. It's been downhill ever since. But gallons and miles and inches can't be avoided now in public writing here. If you wrote "litres" in a piece of writing for an American audience, it would get edited out. If you did it repeatedly at the professional level, you might lose a job or a contract. Canada by contrast mostly metrified itself around the same time we tried here, although there was pushback in the Conservative era of the 80s, too.

Even suggesting it here will get your locked up as a communist.

Not that simple, obviously. He's a friend who can guard the goal pretty damn well. But worth keeping at Villa? I don't know. Ashley Young was that, too, and there just wasn't room for him in the new Villa.

Some of both, probably. The only legit reason I see for keeping Olsen at Villa is the role he plays warming up our players (including Martinez) and being a familiar presence in training, qualities I feel are often underestimated. You want someone in training who provides a real challenge but is also beatable, and he's that. I think he has a great rapport with the squad, too. They like him. That's not nothing.

Can't think of anyone else. You asked and answered for me.