HanoiVillan

He's better than every single player in our squad, by a considerable distance as well.

Cinemas do seem to have given that one up as a lost battle.

The out campaign talks about terrorism constantly, there's plenty of fear-mongering there. I guess where I disagree with other VT'ers is that I don't necessarily think fear-mongering is a Bad Thing. Everybody always wants referenda to be decided according to who has the most plausibly sunny outlook, but they never are. There are real dangers in the world, it's worth addressing them. I happen to believe - and I believe the evidence suggests - that leaving the EU has many more dangers than staying. I don't feel bad or embarrassed pointing them out; people should be aware of them.

Well, liberals don't like it, therefore it must be brilliant. Also, global warming is a conspiracy made up by scientists to expand the size of government and steal your taxes. American conservatives have by and large entered a period of 'epistemic closure', in which reality is entirely defined by self-sustaining conservative narratives. Julian Sanchez argued this a few years ago: 'One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!)' http://www.juliansanchez.com/2010/03/26/frum-cocktail-parties-and-the-threat-of-doubt As a result, all sorts of beliefs that look risible to the entire western world can flourish in the American conservative ecosystem, like the belief that coal is a valuable or useful future fuel source. Coal is popular with the donor base, so support for it is encouraged within the ecosystem. There is of course no internal opposition to this support in the conservative movement, and any external opposition can be opposed as the lying of liberals. Since liberals are liars, and liberals are against it, it follows that the way of the truth must be to support it. To be clear, liberals sometimes have their own version of this, on certain topics, but to nowhere near the same extent.

I agree. But while he should have scored that chance, he should have had more than 8 minutes on the pitch to score chances in.

I'm torn on this Dr P. On the one hand, there are a lot of players who definitely need to go, who have demonstrated quite clearly that between a combination of lacking attitude and lacking ability that they have nothing to offer us going forward. But on the other, some of them will be here next year, simply because we can't turn over 25 players in a summer. If we take Westwood for example, seeing as he was the one I saw blubbing. Do I think he's good enough to be a PL midfielder? No, definitely not, at least not without much better players around him a la D*lph and Cleverley. Do I think he might be somewhat useful next season? Maybe. Are we going to get rid of him over the summer? Probably not, he's cheap, he's not old, his attitude doesn't obviously stink, he has a lot of first team appearances. So I suppose he's the sort of player we need to ultimately have a rapprochement with. I guess for me it's a case of 'scorched earth' with the bad eggs, offer of a reconciliation (conditional upon much better performances) for the others.

I think it's fair to say that if we're going to criticise players for crying when relegated that we need to admit there's literally nothing they can ever do right again. Which is fine, I guess, but seems a bit of a 'scorched earth' policy to me.

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean to make it look personal! I haven't come across much in the way of contrition from him personally, but then to be fair I don't really ever listen to him so you're probably a better judge than me. I do tend to react against depression being an excuse for domestic violence, but your post makes clear that wasn't what you were doing, so sorry for misinterpreting you

Since your post has proven so fantastically popular, I shall have to cede the argument, I'm clearly not going to persuade people. I simply say 'I don't agree' and leave it there.

Well, there was the bit where he battered his wife.

And the rest! We're well into double figures at this point.

I considered typing that, then thought better of it.

I don't even understand what this means. Who was the last Premier League footballer who wasn't a mercenary? Matt Le Tissier maybe?

We've heard nothing except how hard it is to play at home from the players for the last six months. Hilarious how badly that campaign backfired.

Watching him attempt to get down to ground level to save that shot was painful, **** me even I could get down quicker than that.

I'll be sad to see him go, and I can't say that for many of them.

Another one who should be in the team. Richardson and Sinclair are not adding more value than this guy would be.

He absolutely should play from here on in, if at all possible. I think I've made clear that I think he's over-rated and that I don't think he'll be anywhere near as good as people on here think, but there's no reason for him not to be making match-day squads at this point.

How do you put a bread board into a dishwasher 'by accident'?

A quick note to say that mathematically and logically, this cannot be true.

Yes, I agree. I never liked that either.

Yes sir, sorry sir, three bags full sir.

Well to be fair he already has the charismatic dress sense.

Anything could happen! Although given N'Zogbia's contract runs out in a few weeks, he's probably not the most likely emergent leader.

Hear me out here TRO. Of course it would begin as a catastrophe. They wouldn't know who to pick, there'd be fights, failures and all that shite. They'd be an unprofessional rabble, but then they are already. My cunning wheeze, though, is to say to the players 'we're not going to sell anyone for the next five years. You leave when your contract ends, no sooner'. So if they wanted to salvage anything from their careers, they'd need to start trying. Sooner or later, they'd have to co-operate and work together. A leader, who actually gave a shit, even if just to ensure that his career didn't die, would emerge from the bunch. I'm operating here on the 'spiderman principle' - they need power before they will take responsibility. And there'd be no shirking that responsibility - the club would say no coaches or directors would be sacked, whatever happened on the pitch. All on the players' heads. I love this idea, and I'm going to begin a one-man campaign for it.