icouldtelltheworld

I think he's done enough and we'll see him soon, but Ramsey did well last time out and didnt deserve to be dropped IMO

Just came here to post this. Has only predicted us to win 6 games all season, we'd be 15th had his predictions been right, Leeds would be 5th

Wouldn't surprise me at all. He's a 'Celtic man' which is good enough for lots of their fans, and nice and cheap for the board

Surprised this thread is on page 2 and didn't get many posts last night. Has been excellent for me for weeks now, he's always been lively and has a goal in him, but last few weeks he seems to have got comfortable with the physicality of the PL and is holding the ball up really well. An absolute bargain, just love him.

Growing up in north Brum I can only remember there being a handful of SHA fans about. Moved to South Brum a few years ago and it's a fairly even mixture of Villa/SHA tbh. I probably see more Villa fans if anything. It's only the areas out to the east that I would say are comfortably 'Blues areas' IMO (Yardley, Chelmsley Wood etc). I suppose if you've never set foot off the Wood it might seem like the whole city is full of SHA fans!

Hopefully you're right and I'm wrong mate!

Been saying this for weeks. They're going to be very cautious about easing lockdown so they can ride the wave of optimism from the vaccine afterwards. People have short memories, so if they can end things on a high note then for a lot of people that will end up being their enduring perception of the job done by the government

It's a fair point, but the reality is that we have two options to deal with the double whammy of covid and brexit: increase tax revenue or return to austerity. Its really not a good look for the Labour Party to position itself as the party of austerity IMO - even if I can understand the logic behind the decision, this is going to really hurt Starmer moving forward I think

Whilst this is undoubtedly true, I'm not even sure if this is the problem. New Labour had a plan and as a project it read the mood of the country well. I'm to the left, but its nonsense when people claim NL did nothing whilst in power (Iraq rightly overshadows those achievements, mind). Under Starmer I don't think there is any great strategic plan. I think someone said on here the other day that Labour are still fighting the 2010-2015 Tory party of Osborne and Cameron and that's the best way I've seen it summed up tbh. There's seemingly no vision of how to run the country, a complete lack of any ability to read the room and a doubling down on a Miliband style approach which aims to please everyone but actually offers the worst of all worlds and pisses everyone off. Feeling very despondent about the state of UK politics at the moment.

It's incredible really when you think about it isn't it? What he had to do really was adopt some of Corbyn's more popular policies, drop the pie in the sky ones and look and sound like a viable leader. How have the Tories managed to harness the desire for a more interventionist state better than Labour? Its a complete **** up I've stuck with him thus far but he's lost me this week. There's no point in voting for a Labour party that positions itself economically to the right of the Tories. I'm officially politically homeless

Guardian journalists doing Guardian things

My moneys on Steve Clarke being appointed after the Euros tbh I know they don't get much love on here but a lot of my family are Celtic fans. Their board have been absolutely terrible, given their financial dominance there's no way Rangers should be winning the league this season. Lenton was a caretaker option two years ago and only got the job permanently presumably as it was the cheapest option and he wouldn't rock the boat.

No chance of the Celtic board splashing out for a manager anywhere near Benitez's level IMO

Al Murray, Vicky Pollard, Lee Nelson and basically any other character which is just a negative portrayal of working class stereotypes played by a privately educated actor.

Thought he was fine at the weekend and id have kept him on the pitch personally. I think his role in the squad is back up for the left hand side of the front three, which means game time is always going to be limited. He is what he is really, capable of popping up with a goal and looks decent when the team plays well as a whole, but never going to be able to grab the game by the scruff of the neck singlehandedly at this level.

Thats a decent budget for houses in and around Brum. I'd have a look around Kings Heath/Stirchley if you want to be within the city, a few miles out of the centre and both have there own bars/restaurants etc so you don't necessarily have to travel into town for a decent night out. In terms of satellite towns, as others have said Lichfield is nice and has decent pubs and restaurants but its a slow and unreliable commute into Brum on the cross city line. Sutton Coldfield and the surrounding areas might be worth a look with your budget, has a town centre in its right but only a short hop into central Brum as well

I've stuck up for him but he's been woeful for weeks, and rather than playing himself into fitness he seems to have got worse with each game. Not sure if his heads gone but at this stage you have to wonder if he's finished as a force at the top level - starting to seem as though he might be another Jack Wilshere type, breaking onto the scene with lots of promise but losing something through injuries and never really kicking on.

I'll be in a minority here but I don't see much wrong with this. Its a fairly positive message to convey to the players and if they've any pride to fight for the club youd assume their manager and senior players can use this as a bit of a rallying call. Given their situation it'd be much easier to leave a banner at the training ground calling the players a bunch of shit words removed not fit to wear the shirt. Personally think the idiots who hound our players off social media are much more embarrassing than this (im sure SHA have their share of these whoppers too, but I wouldn't know coz I've not got time to follow any Blues pages - we know that isn't the case the other way round...) Don't get me wrong though they're shite. Think they're finally down this year. Incredible that they were above us in the league what, 18 months ago?!

Youre making a whole bunch of (incorrect) assumptions about my mom's taste in men here

Great point on a night we didn't deserve anything

Something in this tbf. I reckon the talk of Barkley underperforming would be a lot quieter if we'd smashed four past Burnley in the first half like we should've done. Hes not at his best atm but its not long ago Carles Gil was our great hope in his position. I think Smith will keep his faith in Barkley and he'll repay him properly before the end of the season

Not just on Twitter. The thread about villa on their forum has fallen to page 4 and hasn't had any new posts since the end of January, after previously racking up 35 pages of posts since June 2020. There's some crackers on there. A few months back a few of them were all in agreement that there were loads more Wolves fans outside the Midlands than Villa fans. Tbf there's a fair few pointing out how embarrassing the thread is too. I don't mind Wolves generally, find most their fans to be pretty reasonable if you ignore the idiots on Twitter, but I've lived in Birmingham my whole life and can honestly say that I never met a single fan of theirs until I started working in Wolverhampton a few years ago. Massive.

Interesting

Never got going tonight and got exactly what we deserved out of the game. Far too many passengers, but Mings had a good game and I thought Watkins was clear man of the match, great that he's continued his scoring run. Don't think we're in a slump, I'm sure we'll bounce back. Credit to West Ham, they came with a plan and executed it very well. That's the quietest any team has kept Jack all season. Moyes has done a great job there this year and they deserve to be where they are in the league, the arrogance from some of our fans before the game was unwarranted.