KentVillan

On the subject of his punditry, though, I agree with @HanoiVillanthat he isn’t that bad. I don’t mind listening to what he has to say as a pundit because he’s more clued up than most of the people they have on. Most punditry is just random words being strung together that the pundit hopes sounds plausible. At least Gerrard is coherently sharing his limited vision of the game.

You’re right, @uselesshas not applied the rigorous data collection standards expected on this site. I suppose “Gerald” Houllier should have been the giveaway. I’ll take another look at it next time I’m suffering from insomnia.

Strong correlation between manager being a deluded word removed and a lot more pages per game, although Lambert is a mystery. Are some of his pages missing?

The annual VT off topic trip to New Orleans 2023 surely has to happen now

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64869760 What is the point of asking for independent, expert advice, and then just completely disregarding it?

So as I was saying, that was a weird season

Grim. Pleased to see my memory is so good

Sorry you're right it was Grealish and Gil, not a Gil brace

Agree with the promotion season, but another one that always sticks in my mind is when Tim Sherwood and Carles Gil nearly beat Leicester in our 5th league game of the season. We were on 4 points from 4 games and a win would have put us comfortably in the top half of the table. A brace from Gil has put us 2-1 up, finally he’s delivering on his potential! What a player! Scenes! Goals from De Laet and some lad called Jamie Vardy (surely not going to sustain this form) and it’s a heartbreaking 3-2 turnaround. Leicester go on to win the league, while we finish the season on 17 pts via 4 different managers, and Lescott accidentally Tweets a picture of his car. In some ways that season was completely predictable, but plenty of bizarre plot twists.

Yes it’s the French pronunciation of Charlotte, that was my thought. There are a few names in British English where we keep this stress, like Michelle, Suzanne, Louise, Elise, etc but i’ve never ever heard an English person pronounce Charlotte like this!?

Watched The Banshees of Inisherin and The Wind That Shakes the Barley last night. Enjoyed both. Thought Banshees was a bit slow and drawn out for the last half hour, but lots of brilliant lines and great acting. TWTSTB was excellent. Think it got panned in the UK as pro IRA propaganda when it came out, but hard to argue with its broad depiction of the conflict if you read up on it, maybe some of the details.

New York Times exposing a bunch of foreign "fighters" in Ukraine who have been building a big social media presence, taking donations, and not doing much by the sounds of things. https://archive.is/VR4ge It makes you realise how hard it is to really believe anything you hear about the conflict, when there are so many unreliable sources involved, and it's so hard to actually cover the fighting. When you see this vid, it's hard to believe this guy would have done much to help the Ukrainian cause. But he had a massive social media presence. There are stories of foreigners in combat gear just floating around Kyiv, Poland, etc. trying to look the part, while basically being on a holiday. I know all of this will be seized upon by the wrong side... the Trump trolls are loving it. But seems worth reporting on regardless. Also highlights (if it ever needed highlighting) how stupid Liz Truss was when she encouraged random untrained civilians to just head over there and get involved.

I really like Stoke, Herefordshire and Shropshire @Marka Ragnos - my favourite spots in the West Midlands

Any thoughts on this @CVByrne?

I know it’s probably different, and no two crises are the same. But it’s the old thing of history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. There is something eerily familiar about all of this. Too many of these mini crises happening too frequently atm, and every one of them shortens the runway for the next one.

Interesting thing re Kane's scoring record is he often gets criticised for bagging them against minnows. But Bobby Charlton got 16 of his England goals against Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland in the Home Championships, and 5 against Luxembourg. Gary Lineker got 25 of his 48 goals in friendlies! Guess it's just always been the case that you're going to get most of your goals in international football against the weaker sides who can be turned over at a canter.

He'd just come back from that Achilles injury though hadn't he, made sense he'd finish the season stronger?

Tactics was on TalkSport this week talking about his time at Villa. Basically made out that in the season he joined, he spotted Benteke's goalscoring potential, and built the team around that, and that's how we survived. Wasn't that exactly what Lambert had already been doing for 3 years? Almost felt sad for him that he still has to trade off that half a season of keeping us in the PL and losing an FA Cup final. Still chucking in all the bollocks about being a proper football man who lives and breathes football as well.

It's that facial expression he does when he's sitting on the floor after deliberately getting himself fouled by slowing down and leaving a leg out to be clipped. Also he runs like a pony. And his hair is shit. Fantastic when he's in full flow though and actually trying to do something with the ball - except for finishing.

Thought Kane was fantastic late in the game where we needed to hold on to the ball and everyone else was panicking. No idea why Southgate thought it was wise to leave so many players on the field who looked tired and / or on yellows, when he had ready made replacements for all of them on the bench. After seeing how Emery uses subs, it's so frustrating watching Southgate behave as if he only has 3 subs and might have to worry about extra time and pens. Still that is definitely a good result, however you spin it. Italy away in a competitive fixture. So what if they didn't qualify for the WC.

Yeah agree. I honestly think (and my posts on here since he joined should hopefully confirm) that it’s been blindingly obvious that he will be an elite player. It’s the touch and the composure and the positional awareness, which have always been evident, but now he’s adding physicality to it, and playing in an organised system. Guardiola wasn’t lying when he said he wanted him at City. We’ve been haunted by Alex Ferguson’s bullshit about all the Man Utd cast offs. Only injuries or life issues will stop this guy from going to the very top IMO.

Inflation, etc. For a relatively stable developed economy like the UK, % of GDP is probably the best measure. If we want our military to punch above its weight without relying on the US, we’ll have to make some big public spending sacrifices elsewhere. Not sure there’s much appetite for that. Or get the economy growing at a rate that simply hasn’t been seen anywhere in the developed world for decades.

I feel like giving Johnson exposure just plays into his hands. The ideal would be the man just f***ing off for a few decades and then turning up in the VT Deadpool. He’s an absolute piece of shit, but he loves an opportunity to be centre of attention, and turn a grilling into a circus.

Obviously yes, although this started a long time ago, and spend has been pretty flat for about 20-30 years:

I mostly agree with the majority here, but where I concede a bit of ground to @villakram is that I’m really not convinced anymore that Ukraine has much of a prospect of reclaiming most of the Russian-controlled territory anymore. Russia has had time to regroup, work out how to get round sanctions, and there is ambivalence or tacit support from countries like China, India, etc. which is enough to keep them ticking along. Massive Russian losses in terms of “expendable” troops are now baked into their strategy, so can give the appearance that Ukraine is battering them into submission. Which is true if you care about human life; but less true if you are Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainians do care about their own people, and while that is clearly a good thing, it also narrows the kinds of things they can do vs the Russian zombie approach. At some point this is probably going to turn into a stalemate, if it hasn’t already, and then you are kind of left with no option but to reach a settlement which probably doesn’t mean returning the pre-2022 or pre-2014 borders. The Ukrainian sovereignty frame is useful (and I agree with it) but it gets caught up in the fact that NATO has a huge influence on Ukrainian success, and also the reality that sovereignty is just an ideal. It means very little if you can’t exercise it. I hope Ukraine rolls the Russians back, and I think that would be a good outcome, and wouldn’t trigger nuclear war or WWIII or whatever. But it seems like most likely outcome is a very unpopular and fractious negotiated settlement, with Russia controlling land that should be Ukraine’s. Most likely a Transnistria / Abkhazia / South Ossetia type situation.