Mark Albrighton

Any kind of win going into the second leg is fine with me.

So.....I can only guess that the lack of visiting blades supporters on here waxing lyrical about Scott is because they’re too busy petitioning the Sheff Utd owners to part with a substantial slice of that promotion money in order to secure his services on a permanent basis?

They beat Parma in 1994 to win the cup winner’s cup. They nearly retained it but Mohamed Alí Amar AKA Nayim had other ideas.

Yep, I point this out to my Man Utd mates when they say how easier it was to win it 30 or so years ago. Their finest moment would have been the treble win in 1999. Under the “easy” way of previous years, Man Utd wouldn’t have been able to win their third and final trophy.

Let the hamster jokes commence...

It was when Dion joined “Homes under the Hammer” that they really went too far - Link

Probably been covered at some point but in case it hasn’t, the top six highest point scorers since he took over until the final game was - Norwich 76 Sheff Utd 64 Villa 61 Leeds 60 Derby 56 WBA 56 That’s just under 1.8 ppg and a 50% win ratio. Over those 34 games, Villa were the second highest scorers with 62, only behind Norwich on 78. Defensively, Villa conceded 41 goals. Only 3 clubs conceded fewer (Sheff Utd 28, Boro 35, Bristol City 39). Leeds, Derby and Forest all also conceded 41 goals.

Yes that’s fair. If Watford were playing in the europa, I wouldn’t be rooting for them to lose. I’d be indifferent to them unless I was given reason to be otherwise (Deeney scores a last minute winner against us a week before and reveals a “sotv” t-shirt or something). But as you say, it’s probably more palatable to root for a side like Watford (who probably aren’t going to make winning things a habit) than see Liverpool or Man Utd win again.

In fairness, football doesn’t quite work like that, wanting (relatively) nearby clubs to do well in lieu of your own. If it did, we’d want small heath to do well in cup competitions as they’re geographically closer to us than other clubs. It’s not an exact like for like situation, but to all intents and purposes, English clubs in Europe are our surrogate derby clubs. Their success has a potential knock on effect domestically. I want Man Utd to lose to Barca in the same way I’d want Small heath to lose to QPR. It’s the same principle but just extrapolated. Like I say, people love football clubs, they therefore can hate football clubs. It’s irrational.

I think for some, it’s their supporters. A bit of London biased coverage, maybe. The wanting the group of English clubs crowned European champions to remain small. But maybe there’s also a sense that in another reality, this could/should have been us. Anyway, it’s football - it’s irrational, if people don’t like Spurs, I won’t begrudge them that. I don’t mind them myself. I’ll be supporting Spurs on 1st June. Hopefully by that point, we’ll still all be too merrily drunk and giddy to care either way.

Wtf

It’s been said on here before, by myself and others, but it was great when they had the UEFA cup, the cup winners cup and the champions league. Three reasonably distinct tournaments, all of them significant trophies that were all sought after by the clubs who entered them. And you had a variety of clubs, interesting ones who you looked forward to seeing, Parma, Werder Bremen, Real Zaragoza etc. Just a big congealed wankfest now with an after thought of a tournament promising a golden ticket for the winners to said wankfest.

Hmmm, this depends on the opposition I think. Ok, if Liverpool play Spurs in the final there would be some, probably a lot supporting Liverpool for that reason, keep it an exclusive group. But if Liverpool or Man Utd were in the champions league final against, say...Leicester, I reckon most would choose to want Leicester to join the club than have “six times la’” or the United fans going on about how their rough patch has finally ended.

I think in part, Kodjia being more flamboyant, in his talent and his personality is a factor. I can imagine more people see themselves in a Hogan-esque player. Not particularly outlandish in his style, someone who tries but his limitations let him down. They could never be a Kodjia, but being Hogan is somehow more realistic, if that makes any sense? They probably see Kodjia the same way they saw that kid at school who didn’t go to practice but was guaranteed a place in the side. There possibly is an element of race in there, but I think in the main it’s not intended as such. At least I’d hope so. Maybe more lazy stereotyping than anything else.

Yes, while this isn’t unique to Liverpool, this aspect of the game is something I really dislike.

I doubt anyone is really surprised. Some, like myself, often complain about how much attention/favourable coverage they receive. Why would I expect any different tonight? No, I don’t like it. But I’m not evenly remotely surprised to hear it’s the leading story on the news. It’s not actually annoying me in fairness, I can avoid most of it. It would have been great to see what would have happened had Harry & Meghan announced their kid today instead. I reckon the news production teams would have had to literally fight it out to decide the running order.

Haha...well, as I knew you’d be interested....

I remember after the final whistle, when Sherwood runs over to the panel covering the game. You had the presenter, I don’t know, Dan Walker or maybe Jake Humphreys. Then for the Liverpool angle you had Michael Owen and Steve McManaman. The other two panel members to add a bit of balance were David James (come on he played for Villa nearly a third of the amount of time he did for Liverpool, balance!) and finally rounding out the panel so all views are covered in a Villa - Liverpool cup tie was none other than Mr Robbie Savage.

Not sure about others on here, but I’ve only just learnt about this. The Dyatlov Pass Incident. It’s now 60 years old, quite an interesting, now apparently reopened, case. Couldn’t decide whether it should go in the history thread or this thread, but have chosen to risk the “aliens” meme and put it here as the main thrust of the case is determining what the hell happened. There’s obviously lots of theories with this, but none seem to answer everything satisfactorily (e.g. potential avalanche while plausible, doesn’t explain why the camp site and footprints were left intact). I’ve tried to find an article that’s not so sensationalist about it, but there’s plenty out there for further reading. To clarify, I’m not thinking KGB or aliens or a yeti or anything, so possibly a conspiracy thread isn’t the right place, but the little bits of unexplained weirdness of it interests me. Curiosity link

Ruge, if you want someone to upload a Kenneth Williams gif, you just have to ask.

I can picture it now....

Just watched “Anomalisa” for the first time. Interesting, typically Kaufman-esque so it’s not going to appeal to everyone but I liked it. David Thewlis is rather good, isn’t he? There were a few occasions when I forgot it was stop motion, the sex scene managed to avoid looking anything like Team America anyway.