Sam-AVFC

The apology is the worst bit. One of those ‘sorry if anyone took offence’.

She always seemed a little bit of a knob to me. Maybe it's just my perception as it's the only stuff that gets widely reported, but I've seen quite a few interviews where Aluko takes the controversial position seemingly with little to support it.

Maybe they will, but to do that they would be completing the season on vastly different rules than everyone signed up for, which I think would create a strong legal challenge. Problem is it wouldn't really help the relegated teams winning £100m each if it didn't count towards FFP considering they're owned by billionaires anyway. I've always thought voiding the season is by far the least problematic legal solution as you simply state under conditions it was impossible to complete the league within any sensible framework. I really can't see them playing again as it just isn't feasible to get it all finished by the end of June and there is absolutely no way they can play after transfers are up even if Les from Bootle thinks they'll 'just have to work it out'. I've also seen people mentioning all players having to quarantine during the playing period. Presumably we'll sign the army up to enforce this for their families too. The only reason it appears the discussion is still ongoing is there is a huge amount of political will to finish the league for a 'morale boost' and some sort of perceived government win. Also huge pressure from people who don't realise the amount of money you earn doesn't stop you being concerned you'll give the virus to a sick relative and they'll die.

I'm not, it's just what I want. I still think it would be well worth the cost as long as Villa Park can keep up* with modern stadiums once redeveloped considering how much they cost to build from scratch. I was surprised a little while ago to see the Milwaukee Bucks stadium completed in 2018 cost $500m to build; keep in mind it only has a capacity of ~18k. I appreciate these american stadiums are different beasts and generally have a lot of local funding too, but still seemed a hell of a lot to me. *or at least not be left too many decades behind

More than anything I'd absolutely love them to look into brick cladding to try to have some consistency with the Holte. Needless to say I'm of the opinion any new or redeveloped stands should incorporate this. I wouldn't have a problem with an ultra modern glass and steel stand to contrast with a brick style, but the crappy 90s office block style the Trinity was redeveloped in is just depressing. My only memory of going to Villa Park in the 90s is of seeing the Trinity and being in absolute awe as I'd never seen anything like it before. Well, that and my godmother not realising you had to toast gluten free bread at the time to make it edible and me politely choking it down because I didn't want to tell her and look ungrateful.

Number 9 will presumably have a big premium.

Yeah, I do think he’ll be a bit in the shit financially now though so I he probably would sell which is why I’m hoping there’s outside intervention. I’ve seen people mention that the Saudi state pirates Bein and plays PL games for free, which is probably the only thing likely to make the PL pause for thought.

It must be that. Nothing else makes sense but the speculation is making it all so confused. Although the Reuben brothers are disgustingly wealthy it also seems weird them willing to be minority investors, although I understand they own a lot of Newcastle city centre so maybe that’s their main interest.

It's probably way too optimistic, but I'm holding on to hope that Khashoggi's widow speaking up makes it a step to far to approve.

I've read some weird stuff that Amanda Staveley and the Reuben Brothers will be buying the club then selling the majority to the Saudi investment fund. No idea how this would be beneficial so could just be internet bollocks. It is interesting though as if Amanda Staveley puts up £30m of the cash for 10% then the Saudis pump £600m into the club over the next few years (presumably by issuing shares) her share would go down to a little over 3% unless she invests another £60m herself, which I don't think she could. I understand the value of the club will increase, but with little room at the top I just don't see how they add enough value to compensate this. Maybe I'm looking too much into it and she simply wants a seat at the table which would add up with her previous involvement in takeovers. Just seems weird that the person with by far the least resources seems to have little to gain.

Irrelevant to the point you made. So they only conceded 1.13 a game the year before? Not sure how this reflects badly. That is a very good record this year, but your claim was implicitly that Frank INSTANTLY improved the defence not after the transfer window in which they spent a load of money. on a whole new defence including blowing their wage structure for Jansson. No he hasn't. But then neither has Sam Allardyce, who you always bang on about, since the 9 games in his first season. In fact he conceded 2/game in West Ham's Championship year. Chris Wilder only achieved it for the first time in his career last year etc etc Do I think we are good enough defensively? No. You just oversimplify it and refuse to give ANY credit even changing the basis for your arguments as they are disproved.

I wouldn't. I don't think I've ever seen him trying to get others pumped on the pitch. Vice Captain all day though as he leads by example with the effort he expends (presumably also in training) and is probably one of our more approachable players.

Barely. The numbers below equate to 1.5% less goals conceded under Frank. Their scoring output did drop by over 25% though. To put this in context of Brentford's goals for and against for that year, assuming the figures remained consistent, if Smith had stayed they would have conceded 0 more goals and scored another 17. Brentford 2018/19 Smith - 10 games, 13 conceded, 1.3/game 20 scored, 2/game Frank - 36 games, 46 conceded, 1.28/game 53 goals, 1.47/game

Does he wear shirts with bold colourful stripes and/or different colour collars?

Just redownloaded Skyrim and am going to add a few mods that improve the vanilla game and graphics. It’s a pretty stunning game once you download 30gb of texture packs. Still not sure whether or not to try some of the massive mods with new maps like Beyond Skyrim. I’m just worried with the scope of them I’ll get 40 hours in, go to a new map and find my game ends up broken. If anyone thinks there are any essential mods all suggestions are welcome! Been about 7 years since I played Skyrim so looking forward to it.

I binged it last week and enjoyed it. I think quite a few will struggle with it though because of the slow pace.

I'm talking streaky bacon like in the photo and it has to be crispy. I've never been to America, but understand their bacon is all streaky (presumably belly?) and am well on board with them on this. For toast that's fine, but I'm talking specifically fried bread as I wouldn't tend to go for toast. A greasy yellowed triangle of cheap white bread is the ultimate addition for me.

Thank you! I've had friends taking turns trying to write their own quizzes and as you can imagine it's a **** disaster.

Only way to do it, it's so much better than any other bacon. Nothing more disappointing than biting into a bacon sandwich which isn't 60% crispy fat. The mixing of ketchup and brown sauce on the other hand.... I wouldn't have a problem with cheap sausages (which I know yours aren't) I just treat them as a completely different food than higher meat percentage sausages. One thing I find quite upsetting now is how few places (particularly in London) do proper cheap white fried bread. There are some good little greasy spoons if you know where to look or are in a particular area, but largely it's bullshit brunch spots selling avocado, granola and soda bread.

I'd be far more worried about them parachuting a troll like Raab in to front Cummings band.

I don't think I knew any Jewish people growing up and never heard a single antisemitic comment that I remember. I did see plenty of outrageous examples of racism against black/Indian/Chinese/Polish/Romanian people. Weirdly I've noticed that now when I go home to the South West the Tommy Robinson types have two new links to antisemitism. One is shouting how antisemitic Labour are and the other is constantly complaining about George Soros. It all comes back to social media, which I think plays into all 3 reasons. Regionality is a bit moot as everyone is online all day, we're now lucky enough to read every Tom, Dick and Harry's opinion on Twitter and lastly this all adds to people feeling more brave about saying things so I think it would have increased massively over recent years. I do think the US has probably influenced us a lot as the two talking points I mentioned earlier are quite standard for the American right (replacing Labour with 'the generic left'). You only have to look how many British people on Twitter have something along the lines of "pro Trump, pro Boris, never Labour, Zionist, anti fake news..."

Any issue of discrimination in a group is clearly a problem but can the group be blamed when it has open memberships and incidents are less than the national averages?* *I have no ideas what the numbers are on the Labour thing, more of a general musing

Unfortunately I don't buy that at all. You're right, they don't. I bet a lot of the voters on the Labour left do care though. I just wonder what the point is of trying to unify the party and bring back the centre if you alienate another part of it.

Allegedly botching an investigation into anti-semitism to purposefully create bad optics isn’t trivial to me. Of course it’s not top priority and shouldn’t be pushed in the media but by ignoring it you risk creating a group like the Sanders supporters in America who will vote Trump out of spite.

I struggle to take some of you seriously. Corbyn was dreadful during the election because... "he was unclear on Brexit" "he didn't deal with anti-semitism" "he can't unify the party" "he alienates the working class" *find out numerous investigations may have been botched on purpose to undermine leadership* "Lul only the tramps care" "it's important to understand WHY they botched the investigation process" "investigating wrongdoing just splits the party yada yada" "why couldn't Corbyn speak to more racist journalists" Whether or not this is appropriate to investigate is completely irrelevant to what you think of Starmer, Tony **** Blair or even 'Catweazle' and if it's an investigation carried out while coronavirus is ongoing I really struggle to see how the potential of 2/3 people getting expelled for doing their jobs badly will cause such a huge rift in the public eye. Like has been said, no one really cares apart from the type of people who talk politics on an online forum.