KennyPowers

Right now I'd love to believe we could be relatively successful with a British manager and a core group of British players but I'm not sure it's possible any more and only will be if the Premier League collapses financially in some way.

So what exactly do people think Lambert's style of football is? We had some talk about 'Dortmund' style football when he arrived and I don't really think it's coming to fruition. He seems to favour physical attributes, either in terms of size, strength, pace or work-rate over smaller, technical players and we've generally done quite well as a counter-attacking side as a result. Personally, I don't mind this style and I'd like to see it be successful but there's no escaping we look like a bad side at home when the opposition concedes territory and gives our players time on the ball. It pains me to say it because I'm no fan of 'tippy-tappy' football but I look at what Southampton, Swansea and Everton are doing with their continental managers and they really seem to dominate at home especially against weaker teams. These are teams that we should be competing with theoretically at least. I suppose they have spent money these teams but it's also a question of managerial style. I mean Martinez was committed to playing the same way at Wigan with much worse players than he has now whilst Moyes has moved to Man Utd and would rather play a big hulking player like Fellaini than play a small technical player like Kagawa. I'm still not sure Lambert has a distinctive style, maybe he's too young a manager to have a clear idea of what he wants to do yet. I'm starting to wonder if the way we're playing can ever be that successful though. I'm very interested in what's going on at Southampton, the change from Adkins to Pochetinno seems to have made a huge difference to their style of play and even at the end of last season with the same players as Adkins he made a big difference. Maybe a more continental-minded manager is needed, they don't necessarily have to be foreign, Brendan Rodgers bangs on relentlessly about his football 'philosophy' and I just don't get similar vibes from Lambert.

Gotta give them credit they looked a very solid team. I didn't think we were that bad but as ever there is the very obvious lack of a creative no.10 in the team. The Spurs bench today was impressive. 07 Lennon 11 Lamela 16 Naughton 18 Defoe 19 Dembélé 23 Eriksen 24 Friedel

Why would they? Their funding and hence their roles and jobs are dependant upon making the impression that racism is prevalent, persistent and endemic in football. They will take any opportunity to raise their own profile, indeed, anyone would do the same in their situation when their funding depends on it. That is the problem with any 'awareness raising' campaign or organisation. Yes, racism is persistent in football but I still find it hard to believe that anyone who goes to games at any level in this country hasn't come to the conclusion that there's far, far more racism in society as a whole. There are just a lot of campaign bodies who want to use the high profile of football to promote their own cause. In some ways I find this okay but when we have the most inclusive, multicultural league in the world it can get a bit sickening. I mean, there was a story a few weeks ago that less than a third of playing time in the Premier League was played by English players. Quite literally it is the most inclusive, multicultural league in the world, you will quite inevitably encounter more racism working in any other industry, they should go worry about that for a change.

I agree Tony and it's an unfortunate consequence of the internet that posts appear much more matter-of-fact, much more forceful and aggressive than they are intended to be. The relative anonymity of the internet is an issue for me though. I do think people need to stop treating social media as a playground where anything is acceptable, it's in their own interest if nothing else as the illusion of anonymity on the internet has slipped away for me, everything you post on the internet is essentially permanent.

It seemed a veiled insult to me, not that thinly veiled either. I agree, let's get back to talking about football though.

Literally, I hope, with a Bowie knife. Well done, post of the year. A real sickener for the rest of us who can only gape in awe at the scintillating wit of these snappy one liners. Not sure I can agree with post of the year because the competition is so stiff. They are all of the same quality. This comes back to something I said last week actually. For me the vitriolic hatred that laces political comments is more prevalent in those of a left wing nature in my experience. Not being specific to this thread or this forum, but in general. And I'm not entirely sure why, it is interesting though. I think you're completely right. I tried to make a similar point earlier. I don't understand how people who claim to be so such bastions or tolerance and compassion can rationalise their abusive posts. Well I don't think they can really and as you allude to, their comments betray their hatred and intolerance.

Who wants to sign my petition that England are racist for playing in such a white kit? Until they play in a rainbow kit all England matches should be boycotted.

I don't know really. I get insulted because I don't 100% accept the premise that without Peyton Manning the Colts would be in LA, without Drew Bledsoe the Patriots would be playing in St. Louis (or LA), that without Adrian Peterson the Vikings would be playing on the moon. I don't really know where it is going.

What are you getting at here? There's a very simple test to prove I'm not a brain in a jar and if you think about it hard enough you should be able to figure out what that test is.

For someone who is supposedly a bit of a statistician I'm surprised you would argue that no-one knows the counterfactual, it's a very basic statistical argument and that's all I am saying really, As I said what Dungy said and what he meant were very different things.

Not it's not a safe bet at all. It's completely, unprovable, untestable and there's no inherent logic or test that could be applied to even attempt to prove the hypothesis.

Well, as long as we're all allowed to make completely unprovable, virtual reality comments, If the Colts hadn't gotten Manning they would have drafted Drew Brees and won 4 superbowls. The slightly ironic thing with Dungy's comment is that it would actually mean something if Jim Irsay said it, you know the same Jim Irsay that most people have decided should keep his mouth shut. What Dungy meant anyway was that Irsay shouldn't make any critical comment on Peyton Manning, he should only be kissing his ass. Now I'd accept the premise that Manning should be exempt from any critical comment if he had spent 15 years working as a doctor in war torn countries for an international NGO (i.e. "You did great but you could have saved a few more lives"). He didn't though, he's just a sportsman.

The American sports media machine is always impressive at blowing up non-stories but what they have done with those Jim Irsay comments is especially impressive. When you take into account how great Peyton is because he is an all-time great, the Colts underperformed in the playoffs with Manning QB, how can anyone dispute that? You can be sure Manning thinks the same because he is a smart guy. This is what Tony Dungy said: "Without Peyton, there would be no Lucas Oil Stadium. This team would be playing in L.A. right now." So Tony Dungy is a time-traveller or he is psychic now? It's such an awful, plain dumb comment, you should never make such bold statements on the counterfactual. It's kind of a weird thing with this twitter generation we have now. People think they want the honest opinions of celebrities/sportsmen but when they get them they absolutely hate it. Pretty much everyone I've seen comment on it has said that Jim Irsay should shut up but there's a big difference between disagreeing with someone and telling them to shut up because you don't want to hear their opinions. If you don't want to hear their opinions, then ignore them and definitely don't follow them on twitter FFS.

Yeah, Indy are not a team to bet against, there are always a few games a year that completely surprise you and that Colts-Niners game was one. Then they only manage to score 9 against the Chargers. On a side note, just listening to a few shows and reading a few columns there is so, so much love for Andrew Luck. No one has a bad thing to say about him. He really is the new Peyton Manning

I wonder why you're so keen on the Economist. (It's not a newspaper, by the way). It's always struck me as rather dull, plodding, and prone to repeat uncritically the false certainties of the establishment. You get more diversity and more intellectual challenge in the Torygraph or the FT, if reading right-wing papers is your thing. It is a newspaper. What in the world do you think a newspaper is if not a publication that reports news? As the above poster has pointed out it is non-partisan politically and is very critical of the government of the day. It's fairly obvious from your response you don't read it regularly (if you've ever read it at all) which makes your assumption-laden response a curious mix of sad and amusing. The FT is more intellectually challenging no doubt and hence less accessible. I occasionally encourage people to read the Economist because it really is very accessible and as a fairly succinct weekly publication not particularly time-consuming. I struggle to see why anyone working outside of financial services would read the FT regularly. It's been described as Readers' Digest for corporate America, which seems about right. Like "Hello", applied to politics and business. Panto Villan is broadly right to describe it as economic and social liberalism; I would say that's also a good description of David Cameron - support big business, but no need to be beastly to gay people along the way, because some of our chums are gay. Sod the scroungers, though. If you see that as "centrist", well, I don't. Damn you economic and social liberalism. You really yearn for an oppressive, totalitarian state hey?

You will find a very good example of the irrational contempt for Economics to the reaction on some sites to the Nobel Economics award this week. How dare they carry out empirical research. Economics is not a science blah, blah, blah. How dare they work on trying to make the world and it's immeasurable number of variables a tiny bit more understandable. Why can't they predict every single thing that happens in an economy. I've never met an Economist, professor or academic of any kind who thought Economic theory was falsifiable and hence a true science. Perhaps we should scrap Economic research and do more political theory, you know political theory where you form your opinion first and then work backwards explaining why you are right and no that's not like Economic theory, anyone who has ever studied Economic theory would know that one of the first things you learn when studying any Economic theory is it's flaws and limitations. How do people who call for evidenced-based policy rationalise their contempt for Economics anyway? Don't bother to answer that, I know the answer well, the evidence never actually supports their preconceived view of the world.

There's nowhere to go with this. It's a magazine in the sense that is has a glossy cover. Anyone who has ever opened one up understands that it does general interest news and hence can call itself a newspaper, as it does and as most people do. As we see on here the people with the strongest views on it are mostly based on the glossy cover and the title.

In that Saints game when they were driving down by 6 I was sat there thinking their best chance of winning the game was kicking a field goal. Because the Patriots would get the ball back up by 3, play very conservative and then the Saints would likely get the ball back down by 3 with the chance to tie with a field goal and win with a touchdown. I was sat there thinking if they score a touchdown here Brady will just drive the length of the field for the winning field goal. I was very wrong but I had the right idea.

Found it, a lot of the details are different to how I remember. http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/playbyplay?gameId=281109024&period=4 The Chiefs did go 2-14 that season though.

When a team has to score a touchdown with 2 minutes to go I usually expect them to get it. When they have four downs to play with and are playing ultra-aggressive combined with the defence backing off into a soft shell to avoid giving up a huge play it so often just looks inevitable. I remember a few years ago when I was gambling a lot, there was a bad team (I'm pretty sure it was the Chiefs) playing a good team and they got the ball back with about a minute left down a touchdown. I bet on them to win in-play at something like 20-1 just because I remember thinking, I don't care if they're a bad team, when only a touchdown will do and they're completely focused on that they usually get it. Funny story is they got the touchdown, celebrated wildly and I went out the room to get a drink in preparation for overtime. When I came back the game was over. They had gone for 2 points instead of kicking the extra point and failed. I was gob-smacked. To quote a line from Rounders:" Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." I'll try and dig out the box score to prove this game didn't exist merely in my head. I'm sure you can understand the point though and although I don't have the statistics to back it up that Bill James quote is so incredibly true.

There's a good line in Moneyball, I think it was a Bill James quote, that the balance of strategies always favours the team that is losing. Obviously he wrote it in relation to baseball but there isn't a better sport to illustrate it than American football. The Saints, the one team in the league that are more likely to throw it than run it when they have first and goal on the opponents 1 yard line (probably not strictly true but indulge me). Yet they have at least 4 plays where a first down will ice the game and they let Drew Brees throw once. Play calling in the NFL never ceases to amaze me. I mean that's Tom Brady on the other team, are you really surprised he can go 70 yards in a minute when he gets 4 downs to do it? Especially when you give him two drives to do it. Be aggressive be-e agressive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApcC8Hieu7Q

I wonder why you're so keen on the Economist. (It's not a newspaper, by the way). It's always struck me as rather dull, plodding, and prone to repeat uncritically the false certainties of the establishment. You get more diversity and more intellectual challenge in the Torygraph or the FT, if reading right-wing papers is your thing. It is a newspaper. What in the world do you think a newspaper is if not a publication that reports news? As the above poster has pointed out it is non-partisan politically and is very critical of the government of the day. It's fairly obvious from your response you don't read it regularly (if you've ever read it at all) which makes your assumption-laden response a curious mix of sad and amusing. The FT is more intellectually challenging no doubt and hence less accessible. I occasionally encourage people to read the Economist because it really is very accessible and as a fairly succinct weekly publication not particularly time-consuming. I struggle to see why anyone working outside of financial services would read the FT regularly.

Nothing in the Royal Charter proposal affects a free press, they are free to print whatever they want. If they get it wrong however, it will be easier for those affected to get redress, not only that but redress judged by a body not run by the very people who have a vested interest in the outcome as it presently is. You can't be the accused, the judge and the jury all at the same time. The press' objection to Leveson is full of red herrings put out there by… the press. Currently the only redress people have against the press is the PCC, run by the press and the law of the land which is prohibitively expensive for the average person to even contemplate. That is what this Royal Charter is about, nothing to do with censorship or "controlling" what the press print, which seems to be the general idea that its objectors keep putting about. The press will still be free but if they stuff up, now those affected will hopefully get correct redress and not some small print tucked away on page 35 next to an advert for canine flea removal http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/11/secret-state-itching-gag-press Jonathan Freedland's piece today might change your mind. Which is not to say the PCC isn't a disgrace and needs reforming/revolutionising in some way to pre-empt your inevitable response.

What are you blaming me for? It was an ignorant post but it still didn't merit a sweeping response that implied he was not only an islamophobic EDL supporter but condoned and if you read it word for word should be held responsible for colonization, torture and murder. Now I was being sensible saying this has gone way off-topic and should be left alone but of course you had to wade in with some juvenile posts as you seem to on most threads. Serious question, can we block people on this forum so we don't see their posts?