tom_avfc

4 hours ago, bickster said:

She was 16 at the start of Vith form. I doubt many Tories exist at that age and the ones that do are usually to the right of Ghengis Khan. Young Conservatives (their former Youth Wing) had such a bad reputation for saying outrageously bonkers things they actually got disbanded at least once if not twice

This is absolute rubbish to be fair. I know it's the done thing to criticise tories and it's got likes from the obvious people on the forum but to accuse any youngster with Tory leanings of being extreme right is nothing short of ludicrous. 

I sometimes hate the black and whiteness of politics. Let's not allow anybody to support the conservatives without labelling them bat shit crazy! 

As an aside I voted Tory aged 18 but couldn't vote for the Tory party under may at the last election. Sorry for being "to the right of Genghis Khan". I guess it would have been more acceptable to be supportive of the oppression of white people than to vote conservative. I'll consider myself told!! 

6 hours ago, theboyangel said:

With the latest welsh, I mean Lions line up I can only see a demoralizing loss by over 15 points. 

Garland sure likes his tried and tested doesn't he? 

Another criticism which I don't really get.  There's 5 Welsh, 6 English and 4 Irish players. If we look at the Welsh players in the team we have:

Faletau - surely nobody is saying he should be dropped.

Davies - one of the better performers on tour particularly last week in the first test

Warburton - O'Mahony struggled last week so can't really argue with this one.

Williams - Probably wouldn't be in the team if Hogg hadn't got injured but did well last week.

AWJ - I wouldn't personally have him in the team but he's experienced. Took a knock last week and was ineffective but I still thought Kruis was the weaker of the two.

So I'd have 4 of the 5 in the team as pretty much no brainers. 

To be honest I think Gatlands done OK but it's a tough ask to beat one of the strongest New Zealand sides in history. I do wonder if he wishes he hadn't taken this tour in as the criticisms he's had have been way over the top and largely based on preconceptions.

Yes we probably will lose but if it's anything like last week it'll be down to all black brilliance rather than Gatland's failings. 

I'd also add Jack Nowell to the list of players who can consider themselves a bit unlucky. For me he's looked the most effective winger on the tour so far but he's not been given a go against the all blacks. Hopefully he'll get some proper game time tomorrow to show what he can do. He seems more suited to the game plan that Gatland was looking to use than someone like Anthony Watson for example.

11 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

Is Gatland losing the plot? dropping Te'o makes no sense. Farrell and Sexton are talented, but Sonny Bill and Read will target them so much that we'll always lose ground. Also Kruise is a better option than Wyn Jones

I think I'm with you on the first point but not the second. Te'o can consider himself extremely unlucky not to be in and he linked up nicely with Davies in the first test. Sexton and Farrell could well have storming games though to be fair and I suppose gatland doesn't want to go down wondering what if.

However, for me Kruis can't feel hard done by. He's lost form at completely the wrong time and made handling errors in both the first test and the Maoris game. I'd potentially have gone for Lawes and Itoje but not sure how well they'd complement each other and also Lawes played 60 minutes in the week. 

48 minutes ago, bickster said:

I think my mates moving from London since the last election may have helped too

Or the absolutely shocking statement he made in the run up to the election

As far as I can see this was never actually said. I think this fad for putting made up quotes next to pictures of famous people is pretty worrying but only another example of how easy it is to present fiction as fact to influence people.

Feel free to correct me if there's any actual quotes.

10 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Valid concerns, as I mentioned before.

But the criticism Labour and Corbyn seem to be getting (not just from VT, but from the public) is "where is the money coming from?". i.e. they're being criticised for not having a plan, when they clearly do have a plan.

If the plan isn't perfect then fair enough, but at least they HAVE a plan.

 

It just seems baffling to me that labour are getting hammered on this issue when they are the ones who have the costs laid out. Tories are getting off easily despite the fact they have no costings for their policies.

I agree with you that at least they've tried but I'd say the reason they're getting hammered on it is because they are placing a "costed manifesto" as such a large part of their campaign. In fact the manifesto was described as "the biggest star we have" by shadow Home Secretary Emily Thornberry.

If things are then identified which haven't been costed or if independent financial bodies identify weaknesses in the costings then I think its inevitable that you're going to take a bit of a hammering. Like I said, I'm glad they tried to provide a costing but I'm not sure they should ever have placed such importance on it as its left them wide open to easy attacks.

9 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

"Where's the money coming from?"

"Here. Everything's written down right there"

"Ah, don't believe you"

I think this is a bit of an oversimplification of the issue. Yes, Labour have provided a "costed" manifesto. However in this manifesto not everything is actually costed and what is costed is inevitably based on a large amount of guesswork.

So yes fair play to them for attempting to provide an estimated cost on some of what is in their manifesto but I think it would be naive to simply "believe" the figures provided. The IFS have already commented that they don't believe that Labour would raise as much tax as they've said they will and some policies will inevitably cost more than estimated.

This costed manifesto seems to be a huge thing for Labour and is mentioned quite often but in reality means very little if the costing is inaccurate. I do like the idea that manifestos should be costed (although a completely independent costing of all manifestos would be more ideal) and Labour have at least made an attempt (more than the Conservatives) but why on Earth would anybody suddenly start just believing politicians in an age where we seem to have some of the least capable and least believable politicians. 

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

There's also another potentially more powerful angle. Fully politicise it but make no apologies for doing so because you're so angry about it and are laying the blame directly at the door of the Tories. Bit dog whistley but it's only what most of us are feeling.

Is this what most of us are feeling?  It might just be me but I'm not laying the blame directly at the door of the Tories but rather at the tosser who blew himself and innocent kids up. With all the talk earlier on about the government politicising the attack id have thought that this kind of post is fairly hypocritical. An attack of this nature could happen anywhere and at any time. It's happened in many other countries and I wouldn't want our foreign policy to be decided based on such attacks. 

Corbyn's statement is also nice in that it states "we need a smarter way to reduce the threat" without actuallly giving any kind of smarter way. Provide an alternative and give people something to vote for. I genuinely feel about as out of touch with any politician as I ever have to the extent where I'm not sure I can even be bothered to go and spoil my vote.

5 hours ago, Wainy316 said:

Spot on!  Not only is it a matter of good versus bad, it's a complete no brainer.

I haven't seen a remotely coherent argument from a Tory supporter yet, just the repeated mantra of 'Terrorist sympathiser', 'who's doing the sums, Diane Abbott' yada yada.

I agree with the majority of this but 'who's doing the sums?' isnt really a trivial point to me. I won't be voting Tory (probably won't be voting at all) but it does come across as a labour manifesto which hasn't been costed at all and probably doesn't need to be as they know they're not going to get in.

Anybody could come up with a great list of things they'd do knowing that they won't get in so will never be held to account for it. It's like the nick clegg tuition fee promise which ruined his reputation as it was never going to be feasible. 

Now maybe this labour manifesto has been costed properly and is achievable but when you have prominent labour politicians who can't do basic sums on the cost of one proposal it doesn't give off the best idea.

As I said I probably won't be voting. I have no trust in any party at all and the move to the right from the tories and to the wishful thinking left of labour means I find myself with much less interest in politics as someone who would sit much more central on the political scale. 

5 hours ago, Wainy316 said:

Spot on!  Not only is it a matter of good versus bad, it's a complete no brainer.

I haven't seen a remotely coherent argument from a Tory supporter yet, just the repeated mantra of 'Terrorist sympathiser', 'who's doing the sums, Diane Abbott' yada yada.

I agree with the majority of this but 'who's doing the sums?' isnt really a trivial point to me. I won't be voting Tory (probably won't be voting at all) but it does come across as a labour manifesto which hasn't been costed at all and probably doesn't need to be as they know they're not going to get in.

Anybody could come up with a great list of things they'd do knowing that they won't get in so will never be held to account for it. It's like the nick clegg tuition fee promise which ruined his reputation as it was never going to be feasible. 

Now maybe this labour manifesto has been costed properly and is achievable but when you have prominent labour politicians who can't do basic sums on the cost of one proposal it doesn't give off the best idea.

As I said I probably won't be voting. I have no trust in any party at all and the move to the right from the tories and to the wishful thinking left of labour means I find myself with much less interest in politics as someone who would sit much more central on the political scale. 

1 minute ago, thabucks said:

The £100k per week in wages or £5.2mill per season. If you paired them together they would get ripped apart due to their slowness. Age catches up with everyone eventually. 

Oh, I kind of agree with you financially although I have no idea how much either would be on. 

As I said, I wouldn't put them in the same team but being able to rest both and share out the minutes would be good from a squad perspective.

But again as I mentioned above, I'm convinced there's better value out there and as good as Jedinak has been there's better value than him also. 

6 minutes ago, thabucks said:

What's the fascination with signing old players past their prime ? Barry I'd take but we couldn't have him and Jedinak in the same squad let alone team. 

Why? I can understand not putting them in the same team but why can't we have both in the squad?

For what it's worth I'm not massively keen on signing Barry. He's decent but there must be better out there for the wages that he'd probably cost. 

14 hours ago, Czechlad said:

Johnstone seems like an average keeper. It's no surprise that his form picked up when we started playing worse clubs. 

If I could choose between Gollini and Johnstone, I'd choose Gollini every time. Gollini did not have the luxury of playing with Jedinak, Baker, Chester in front of him, and yet Gollini still made some ridiculous saves. Gollini had 3 errors that led directly to goals, but I'd say Elphick and Cissokho definitely played a part in those errors. 

Johnstone has had Taylor-Baker-Chester-Hutton/Bree and Jedinak playing in front of him most of the season.

Gollini had Cissokho, Elphick, Westwood, Tshibola, in front of him for most matches. 

BIG difference there in terms of ability. 

I disagree with almost all of this post. I don't understand the part about playing worse clubs. He had a poor first 8 or 9 games which included playing teams like Forest, Wolves and Barnsley who I wouldn't call great clubs. After that he's been pretty consistent including in games against Sheffield Wednesday, Reading and Brighton. He's got better as he's settled in imo.

Gollini played with Baker, Chester and Jedinak in the majority of games. Cissokho played in less than half of the games which Gollini played in. Hutton had played consistently since October and before that we had de laet who most would consider a better player. You've just picked the worst players that have played with Gollini and the best that have played with Johnstone. I would say that the organisation in front of Johnstone is better under Bruce than RDM but that's not really to do with the personnel and more the tactics.

I actually thought Gollini was starting to settle but I see more potential in Johnstone, the way he's played recently. My only issue is I'm not convinced we'll be able to sign Johnstone and developing players for other teams is frustrating to me. 

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

Oh no because of that incident. I hope he never plays for us again because he's a terrible footballer and if he's a regular next season it would indicate that we've done nothing to address a serious area of weakness in the squad. 

I hope he becomes the squad player which he should have been this season but there's plenty I hope never play for us again before Bacuna. 

He cares (probably a bit too much for his own good at times), was at least as good as the rest of the midfield today and offers a solid substitute option in a number of positions.

I was actually disappointed to see the boo boys back at him again after his small strop over the free kick. The fact that he still gives his all after the rubbish about his 'champions league' quotes last season makes me find it difficult to understand why some have such a strong hate for him. He's no worse than many players we have in the squad at the moment and certainly looks like he cares more than many. 

3 minutes ago, BOF said:

I'm seeing a lot more criticism of Mourinho than I am of Pep this morning.  This despite United going away from home and getting a good result against a very dangerous team, where a defeat would have been extremely damaging to their top 4 ambitions, where the other manager was at home with a glorious chance to put a nail in a coffin and failed to beat a direct rival.

I genuinely think people hold Mourinho to some ridiculous standard while letting almost everyone else, including the second coming over at Eastlands, away with murder.

Ultimately I think it comes down to personality.  People don't like Mourinho.  So people will give him very little leeway and will look for the negatives.  The reaction to last night's game and to the result is a small but fairly typical example of that.

I think it's the style of football more than anything that people will hammer Mourinho with. Rightly or wrongly people will look at the amount of money United have spent and see 30% possession and 3 shots as unacceptable.

I'm with you though to be fair. Job well done and a solid point. Personality wise I don't see Mourinho as any worse than Guardiola, who has been petulant at best this season, but he does seem to be hated by most for one reason or another.

14 minutes ago, JB said:

Joseph in after all. No Roberts. Phew. 

Still some very lucky boys in that squad, though. Biggar over Ford is questionable to say the least. I'd have picked Ringrose over Davies.

The biggest one for me is Moriarty being chosen over Robshaw. One of them had a decent game for 50 minutes of a 6N game, the other has been a warrior for years and man of the series in a 3-0 tour win down under. At some point you to look at who knows how to win against the SH teams. A lot of those guys have proven on several occasions that they don't. 

Can't argue too much with the squad selected. Potentially, Ford would have been a better call as he could continue his partnership with Farrell if Sexton were to get injured (and he's bound to be a target for the All Blacks). I don't see too much between Ringrose and Davies and this Lions tour may have just come a bit early for Ringrose. If the tour was in a year's time I'd be pretty sure he'd be in.

I thought Moriarty had a pretty decent Six Nations and ultimately Robshaw's lack of big game time has probably cost him as well. Had Robshaw not been injured for almost all of the serious matches this season he may well have found himself on the tour.

I would add that Launchbury can consider himself unlucky not to make it but he is in the most competitive position on the whole tour.

13 minutes ago, ViewFromT2 said:

Norwich played us off the park.....as did QPR for long spells.

I wouldn't say Norwich played us off the park. They had a lot of the ball but did nothing with it and Johnstone only had a couple of shots to save. We had a Hourihane header off the bar, a good save from Hogan's shot and Kodjia's chance which went just wide as well as the two goals we scored.

QPR was more of a struggle but even then it was more a case of us sitting back at 60 minutes in.

Just now, astonaidan said:

I do understand, in the same way that you use it as a excuse you fail to comprehend we also had a 8 wins when play offs were out of reach against teams who season was finished. Take away the 8 wins and do we have play off ppg for example. No

This is odd. If we take away 8 wins we don't have a play off ppg. That's not exactly surprising is it. If we take away 8 defeats we'd be on to win the league. Means about as much as your example.

Stevo has done a ppg based on actual results not taking away results which don't fit the agenda. Seems more reliable to me.

2 hours ago, astonaidan said:

He gets results, how come then we arent promoted or in the play offs. How much closer are we since he took over? I would be very surprised if he is still in charge come January, Id love to be proven wrong and him bring us up, I just have no confidence he will do so

When he took over we had 10 points from 11 games at 0.9 points a game.

Since then we've taken 48 points from 30 games at 1.6 points per game. If we'd picked up points at that rate all season we'd currently be on 66 points (3 points off the playoffs) and over a full season we'd get 74 (there or thereabouts for playoffs most seasons).

Given what he inherited, could he improve on this with a full pre season and a few quality additions? I'd argue yes he could and I don't really see any argument for getting rid of him at this point. 

Its just a shame we had a terrible January and February as a few more points there in some very winnable games could have made all the difference 

9 hours ago, Wezbid said:

Omar Bogle, yes, I am very aware of him, Wrexham had the chance to sign him before going to Grimsby and we (Wrexham) fluffed the chance. He then shot Grimsby out of the conference and continued to belt them in a league above before the move to Wigan. 

I'd offer Wigan £2m and double their investment, the guy is a goal machine. 

Was at Solihull Moors before Grimsby so I saw a fair bit of him. Was so far ahead of everybody at that level so it doesn't surprise me how quickly he's risen through the leagues. He's that style of player where he's always going to be a handful no matter what the level. Not sure he has the technical ability to really challenge Kodjia and Hogan for a starting position but he'd be an option and I can't imagine he'd cost much with Wigan almost certainly going back down.

14 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

Its more down to the ridiculous praise Guardiola gets. I'm sick of hearing about how he's some genius for a bog standard job at Bayern and a decent job at Barca. 

Its no different than people getting joy out of one of the big European clubs losing, because they get mad hype and praise, or a big name player having a terrible game. 

With Pep, the hype isn't all his fault. But his arrogance towards the game here is. 

I'd absolutely love him to fail here, like him taking Bayern backwards in Europe I enjoyed. 

It's not the praise that he gets that annoys me as much as his own arrogance and the way he's conducted himself since he's been Man City boss. Some of his press conferences this season have been particularly poor and he seems to get away with it when other managers are slated for the way they act.

I also don't get the people defending him by saying Monaco are a great team. This is the last 16 of the Champions League and every team in it is going to be decent. When Monaco were beating Spurs earlier on in the tournament there was no mention of this great side. Of the teams left in only Leicester are below them with the bookmakers in the odds of winning the whole thing.

I just think that if any other manager had gone out over two legs to Monaco with the money they've spent there'd be more questions being asked, particularly with the tactics that were employed in that second leg.

1 hour ago, a m ole said:

I've mentioned it in the Bacuna thread, but I don't know how football as a whole can come to the conclusion that deliberately stamping/treading on a players head or elbowing one in the face is worthy of less time out than chest bumping a linesman off balance.

Completely this. If either of them get away with less than Bacuna then I just don't get it. Two premeditated attacks which were both borderline assault.

I don't get the argument of if someone trod on my head then I'd deliberately try and smash an elbow into their skull either. Is it just me that finds this defence slightly disturbing. 

2 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Was he?

He gave a bad decision. But it was only a throw in.

For Bacuna to act like he did was beyond idiotic. He's a fool for doing it and he's gotten what he deserves.

Whilst it was only a throw in, it was a throw in from where there throw in taker could reach the middle of the box and this had looked one of their more likely ways of scoring. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that he was stupid for doing it but had they scored from that throw in it would have been difficult to take especially with it being such an easy decision to get right.

As for whether he's got what he deserves, judging by the incidents highlighted in this thread (Wenger, Akpan, Bamba, Shelvey) I'd suggest he can feel like he's been treated slightly harshly whilst accepting he was an idiot for reacting as he did.

6 matches seems excessive given Akpan got 4 for pushing a referee. Not sure how these lengths of bans are arrived at. His own fault though ultimately.

7 minutes ago, smg said:

The problem is that he has already been labelled as shit on here after two or three games. He could keep clean sheets for the rest of the season and get no credit from some on here, it would be down to the defence in front of him. If Bunn is as bad as people say and offers no real alternative why don't we just get behind him regardless of any mistakes he might make ? I doubt he goes onto the pitch trying to make them. Perhaps with a bit of confidence we might see the potential realised that Man Utd saw when they signed him.

Yeah he can't really win now. Even when he makes a good punch now it's "Why didn't he catch it?" The good saves he's made recently are just ignored. He doesn't come for a ball that he's never going to get and the crowd get edgy. The edginess of the crowd won't help him either. Feels a bit like Guzan in his last year. Once the crowd are decided on a keeper it makes his job infinitely harder with the edgy atmosphere it creates. Now obviously this is partly his fault for the big mistakes he did make in a few games but now it feels like a vicious circle which he's going to really struggle to get out of.

I think hes done well in the last 2 or 3 games considering this and would like to see him given some kind of support.