Rolta

I don't think this is a fair comparison. He looks effective and as if he worries defenders every time he plays—he always has done. He might not score, but he looks like he can actually compete. He has a presence in the game that a lot of our players are lacking, along with a certain quality and we've all seen it. I imagine that's what people are getting hopeful about. Obviously, he's been held back by injuries, and nobody is going to argue that his goalscoring could be improved upon. You can't pull a rabbit from the hat unless there's already a rabbit in the hat, and for me, I'd argue there's a good shot at there being a rabbit here as a Premier-League-level first team player even if he won't score countless goals. We look like a better team when he plays. Carles Gil never had that kind of presence. He was too slow for a start.

If only there was a transfer window.

Ok I'm going to try again. I don't know why I stopped tbh!

I think people need to wait a lot longer to start making these kinds of statements about Samatta. I hope you're right that he's better than those two but he's not played many games, and a few of those we as a team have been dominated and he hasn't had a chance to do much. Btw, it is possible for you to admit that injuries make a difference and still be against Smith. Nobody would begrudge that. There are shades of grey in the world.

I love Danny McBride. For me, Eastbound and Down has some of the best comedy moments I've ever seen. I barely got an episode into Vice Principals though—I should probably give it more of a chance.

I believe I might have been late to the party with Succession, but for me it's up there with The Wire. It's so good. Another HBO plug—The Righteous Gemstones is great too.

I agree that the timing is bad. I guess the protests must be a big deal if it transcends even a worldwide viral pandemic. At the end of the day people are risking their lives and the lives of others—but the issues they are protesting are deep-rooted and hundreds of years old. They're not issues that have appeared on a whim, but have been felt through multiple generations. That means something too.

Why do you think this? It doesn't seem to reflect what's going on at all. Everything began after a policeman murdered George Floyd and it was caught on video. Really it seems to be a protest in spite of the virus, and a protest to promote anti racism after a particularly shocking incident that can easily be read in a racist context...one incident of thousands. I wonder, honestly, do you think you'd probably have the same attitude to the overall message even if there was no pandemic?

The whole thing is here. I'd say he's talking about racists, as in 'Don't use racists'/the establishment's shops and invest in your own'. I don't think it's very well written though: the use of 'their' isn't very well linked to its antecedent, and I'm not really sure what shops he's talking about. But he does many times before that talk up the idea of no-racism, so saying 'Don't shop in white shops' wouldn't fit. I think it could have been written better.

What newspaper do you prefer out of interest? I hope it hasn't got a political slant. In the UK the press is something like 80% right wing. Dismissing something in the Guardian because of 'a political slant' is a strange argument considering you can say that about any paper, especially considering the domination of the right wing in the press. Also, in a period where the Mail/Telegraph/Express act as a government mouthpiece this comes across, to me at least, as a convenient excuse not to rock the mental boat too much. There is plenty of good journalism in the Guardian and just imagine the steps towards a dystopia we'd be taking if there was only one point of view, one media voice, and it was that of this government of demonstrable bullshitters.

Whichever one wasn't defending here: https://www.westbromnews.co.uk/2020/06/08/kamil-grosicki-shares-footage-of-first-goal-for-west-brom-in-2-2-v-aston-villa/

Why would you say that? And which exact comment was disrespectful? Bear in mind my point was that it is good for people to know the wider span of British history. The other point was that it seems as if some people feel WW2 was the only event in history. I didn't say it wasn't important, and I didn't say anything disrespectful to those who fought in it. But it's also impossible to divorce WW2 from the wider context of the Empire, literally impossible. You can't draw a line in 1939 and say 'Let's only talk about our past from this point.' Do you disagree that it would be good for people to know our history more broadly? You can't move forwards as a country if the country, generally speaking, is selective of its past to such a degree that it doesn't even know what it is—and part of that is knowing that our wealth was built on the exploitation of other races, and that we did it because we thought we were superior. The truth sets us free and all that. It's nothing to be afraid of. But we shouldn't ignore it. Which brings us back to your comment 'Your comments show great Disrespect to those who laid down their lives so you could live in freedom'—I respect those who fought in the war, terrible though it was. But do you respect all those exploited by the likes of Churchill, who were forcibly exploited and murdered in order for you to live in a prosperous country?

Or it just gives a convenient excuse for people who don't really have that much sympathy anyway to work a little confirmation bias in their heads and get sanctimonious about it all. EDIT: The truth is probably a bit in the middle though. But Churchill was a racist, and it's good for people to know the wider span of British history—the whole history, the history beyond the 'We fought WW2 against the Nazis and won' story, which frequently comes across as if it's the only moment in history that has ever mattered. It's not. It's not by a long shot, and it's part of a really naive British myth. Personally, I wouldn't have sprayed it on his statue, but they're not wrong. A lot of people in the UK need to take a look in the mirror. The country's wealth is pretty much built upon the premise that black lives don't matter.

He could be the wildcard.

You say OK. I can't help but look at our position of 19th, how shit we've been for large amounts of the season, and how shit he has been in particular in a shit team and conclude that he's worse than OK, particularly at this level. He's not OK for a prem team. He's been a non-entity bar a few goals that he didn't create and I also struggle to see what he'd achieve in the Championship. Though I imagine the tweet is probably not a fair reflection of the truth, as usual.

This. Do this Dean and never play Trezeguet.

It's **** bullshit because it's blatantly unfair. To add this rule on top of the (understandable) no-fan rule is just making thing worse for us.

The UK is a foreign country too by the way.

Well, it's not going to be any better than they say. At the moment when they want to lie about something (e.g. amount of people tested in a day) and they don't like the answer they just omit it and hope there are enough fanboys out there to quash any criticism.

Our government seems to be trying out a lot of Russian tactics when it comes to their information delivery. There's an example every few days of them making shit up.

It's naive to dismiss the affect of the media. 700 billion a year is spent on advertising every year in general—getting your message out there and seen is one of the most powerful ways to influence people. There were relentless negative articles from 60% of press for years, the majority low-level bullshit. There was so much bs out there and a lot of people were parroting it without even thinking about it. Personally I was lukewarm on him, but I'd take him any day of the week over the empty bullshitter in charge now.

A lot of obvious rags for years put out a relentless campaign to undermine Corbyn. I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing.

It's lucky he got sick at the beauty spot and not somewhere else along the route. That would have at least been nice for his child and wife along for the test drive, although I'm sure he was too sick to enjoy it himself. It would have been a bit of an unexpected birthday stroke of luck for his wife too. Shame that after Cummings was so sick she didn't offer to drive back from the castle though the selfish so and so. I guess going 30 minutes and having to stop at a beauty spot because you felt so sick might have been a failed test of their driving suitability for most people, particularly when he said he'd also had problems with his vision, but Cummings is different to most, so it's good he was so resilient that he then concluded he was right to drive 200 miles to London. It's good people do tests like this the day before they're due to drive back too, on a sunny day, on his wife's birthday. It would be stupid to do it on the day he was planning to leave.

I think you hope they'll argue and that's why you're posting it

Mate, Vox are odious. Reina is a fool for buying into their nonsense. I live in Madrid and the lockdown has been saving lives—to go from where we were to where we are now is night and day. We can all symapthise with difficulties, but there's very definite context. **** Vox and their lame brand of sorry nationalism.