YouUnastanFren

17 minutes ago, DJ_Villain said:

Weird to think that last season saw us beat Liverpool, Utd, Arsenal (twice), Chelsea and Spurs…

Smith oversaw all of that - and deserves to be proud of that achievement considering he hasn’t any “Champions League” or “International” footballing pedigree…

 

We did need a change, but everything Deano did for us deserves thanks and appreciation… in my opinion anyway

Not just wins either, the Liverpool and Arsenal games were proper thrashings. Imagine thrashing the reigning champions by 5 goals. The stuff of legend.

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

If Max goes on to add a few more titles then 2021 will be less of special case.

If it’s his only title (like Button at Brawn with the rear diffuser) then the way it came about always hang over him.

I really don't think it will. He statistically dominated the season and was one of the rare winners of the WDC not from the WCC team and the only non Merc champ of the entire era. If anything his season will be looked back one as a great one, with Masi's **** up as a bit of trivia.

Back on topic to this season, what in the ever loving **** is going on with the new graphics?

Every **** they were showing on screen had at least one purple sector. It made absolutely no sense and managed to annoy me in the middle of a very entertaining quali

1 hour ago, Jimzk5 said:

At the end of it all nothing will change, max will forever have the stigma of winning the world championship through a mixture of incompetence and/or cheating from massi.

I really don't think he will. Michael Schumacher literally crashed Damon Hill off the track on purpose to win one of his and he has no stigma.

He had the most wins, poles, laps led. It wasn't like he was an undeserving champion. If Masi had made that **** up in the 7th race of the season rather than the last nobody would even remember it. The only reason there was a massive outcry is because one of Masi's numerous, glaring errors happened to be the last thing that happened in the season.

He should have been sacked and was, not just because of that decision though, because he repeatedly did a poor and inconsistent job.

If VER wins again this year he'll be known as a multiple world champion in the same breath as Alonso and there will be no stigma.

11 minutes ago, Farlz said:

Russell outqualified by Bottas oh that is good 

And a full second behind his teammate.

Turns out he's only Mr Saturday when he's up against a painfully slow pay driver

3/12 players down, 2 didn't play and the other was my FT Jimenez for a total of -2.

Wish this was one of the weeks I'd missed the deadline

Kilman benched, Raphinha out with COVID.

I'm already down to 9 players and the first game hasn't even kicked off ffs.

Just read that Ramsdale sat out of training as well. Sort of feel like I should've used the FH already.

On 16/03/2022 at 10:21, The_Rev said:

 

I've read this sentence three times and still can't figure out what it means.  

 

If DCL has had a ticket for speeding then he'll get a letter from the DVLA telling him they have evidence that a car registered to him was over the speed limit in a particular time and location.   He can then admit he did it, deny he did it or ignore the letter.  Two of those three options will end up with a court summons.  

He could also deny he did it and provide evidence. I got one through and sent evidence that my car was parked on the drive at the date and time stated and they sent me a letter that it had been dropped.

10 hours ago, BOF said:

Read my posts in here. No denial at all. The credit towards drivers in here is one directional. I like the whole sport. I don't have a team or a driver. But I'm in a thread that very much does. I think I probably followed Jordan back in the day. Otherwise it's been as a general fan since day dot.

Ah come on, you must have favoured the privateer teams and smaller teams in general over the megaglobocorps.

Who didn't love watching Brawn GP try to cling on to their lead while the other teams spent tens of millions in R&D to close the gap?

The main things I hope all this extra interest brings is enough money into the teams so that none of them need to employ pay drivers to hit the budget cap. Obviously it's likely the Strolls will be here for the next 5+ years but if they're the only ones by that point then that will be a big win in my book.

I for one enjoy DtS for the extra behind the scenes footage we get of the teams. Horner and Cyrille after Ricciardo moved still makes me smile. As does Horner after RIC left Renault.

It's also helped my get my OH, parents, cousins and several friends more into F1. The editing is usually heavily apparent if you watched and can remember the races they're showing although some of it borders on nonsensical. There was one bit where they showed the McLarens side by side on track and had Norris radio message clearly from a different event talking about being pushed off for example.

Hopefully they tone it down next season but either way it's still has lots of enjoyable footage imo.

Last season is gone, an error was made and the error maker has been removed. The only reason it's still such a big deal is that it was the last race of the season. If it happened in September nobody would be batting an eye about it now.

The racing is by far the most important thing though and this season looks set to be great. A 3 or 4 way title fight would be magnificent.

100 points but still doesn't feel like a great week. I've got 10 players for GW30 and a FT but none of the strikers playing this week fill me with confidence. I've already got Kane (and for some reason Watkins) and 3 Arsenal so I can't take Lacazette.

Daka and Iheanacho look likely to share the minutes and Toney only scores if they get a penalty.

Will probably be Jimenez but he's expensive for a striker who never scores and I've already got Watkins filling that role

Who Are Ya? 16 1/8

https://missing11.com/who-are-ya

Well that was lucky.

29 minutes ago, Genie said:

You could cheer on Lewis as he grew up “in the slums” as he put it. 

To everyone else that’s Stevenage.

Hamilton is just a bland PR bot these days. He has been pushed at various times to overplay his background, but other than his ungodly speed there is nothing particularly polarising about him imo.

I hope he **** clean sweeps Russell this season though.

2 hours ago, Farlz said:

I’m not keen on Russell myself. Probably right he’s now at Merc to cement that. 

Also that “Mr Saturday” nonsense was as cringe as it gets. 

I have no real strong opinions on any of the drivers these days, Kimi was my racing hero growing up and now he's gone I tend to just lean towards rooting for anyone who didn't grow up super wealthy.

Except Russell. God damn he's a smug, unlikeable clearing in the woods. He's like the amalgamation of every posh, self aggrandising toad I've ever met.

I couldn't conceive of a driver who is there on merit who I would actually cheer outloud against every time his billionaire pay driver teammate beats him and yet here we are.

Only watched a few episodes of Season 4 so far but my main takeaway is that Toto is a diva when it comes to breakfast orders.

He only just stopped short of specifying the kneading technique used for making his pumpernickel

9 hours ago, sparrow1988 said:

Just on the penultimate episode and one thing that this series has reminded me of is that Mercedes made some very uncharacteristic mistakes throughout the season with strategy. Be it Paul Ricard, Turkey, Bottas‘ tyres in Qatar. Usually they are perfect with that stuff. 

I'm actually not sure they Merc been that great with strategy calls over the years but it has been disguised most years by their dominance and the fact that until this RB Honda partnership the only competition they've had in the hybrid era has come from Ferrari who are the world leaders in bad strategy calls.

Konsa, Young, Sanson, Buendia, Traore, Bailey and Chuk is the strongest bench Villa have ever had.

3 hours ago, TRO said:

?

Was a light hearted reference to our somewhat streaky form. 3 games ago we seemed to be predictable and stoppable.

Much to my surprise and delight we have tweaked our system and now look like a very good side again.

56 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

My (probably) final wildcard plans and transfers up to GW36. Glad to finally get it down on "paper"

Looks solid but seems like a long time to carry two premium goalkeepers just for BB.

Then again, if you've budgeted for all of the transfers and can afford it then it shouldn't be any hindrance

Just now, CVByrne said:

It was more than just the formation change, he changed how the full backs played. Newcastle were the team to beat us tactically and Watford followed the same blueprint. Block the midfield and force the attack to come from wide (which is the full backs) then counter into the space vacated by them. 

In Gerrards system from later Rangers he wants positional rotation from his front three. So a 1 2 becomes a 2 1 depending on different phases of the game. But Buendia is more a player dropping deeper to pick up the ball and in this congested midfield we had against Newcastle and Watford it was hard to get the ball into the attacking areas. So it was like 4 4 1 1. 

I think the switch to 4 3 1 2 was down to opposition. I can see a 4 3 2 1 returning for more difficult games. I also think if we had a top class CDM the 4 3 2 1 would work better as Buendia can drop deeper to pick up the ball but he needs Ramsey and McGinn getting past him forward. Which they can now do more of due to the change to how full backs play and even more so next season if we have the safety net of a quality CDM. 

The more I think about it the more I see big futures for Buendia & Bailey in the system. Bailey can operate in the 1 2 and 2 1 positional rotation. Buendia can become a key link player dropping deep, think how Kane does this for Spurs dropping into his own half to pick up the ball and 4/5 players are further up field. 

 

Obviously it was more than just a formation change but the 4-3-1-2 has really been quite different in terms of how we progress the ball.

I keep seeing people saying that it's because the fullbacks stopped playing overly attacking but they really haven't. Cash is in the box as much as anyone and has 2G2A in the last 3.

I agree the 4-3-3 with the wide 10s will return but it will be far more difficult for the opposition to prepare for with the new added threat of the 4-3-1-2.

3 hours ago, vreitti said:

He's never in hurry this chap, yet play never stalls when he's on the ball. The mark of a genuine footballer. 

There's a saying in motorsports that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. I think it definitely applies to Coutinho.

He's so slow, controlled and smooth with everything he does that it allows him to make things happen very quickly

When teams cottoned on to stopping our two 10s and our results turned sour I started to fear he was a one trick pony.

Changing to the 4-3-1-2 and getting some great performances and results has put that fear to bed.

His next big test will likely be using the depth of the squad to keep intensity levels high until the end of the season but I'm very hopeful he's up to the task.

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

I have to say on a negative, the amazon commentary was so biased towards leeds it was absolutely ridiculous.  Completely one sided.

But the best thing about games on Amazon is that you're two clicks away from watching the game without commentary and just stadium noises. Infinitely better viewing experience. I only wish all channels had the option.

In fact, Amazon are so aware of how s**t commentators are that when I opened the stream again after half time they were reminding veiwers how to **** them off and just listen to the stadium.

16 minutes ago, blandy said:

Blew it today

Wordle 265 X/6

One letter to get is always surprisingly tricky. Nearly got me today as well.

I was in the same position with two goes left and had at least 4 potential correct options for the remaining letter. I didn't like my odds so I used the 5th guess to guess a word that contained 3 of them to figure out which one it was. Only my 3rd 6/6 out of 50 odd goes but was very nearly the first failure.

Wordle 265 6/6