Kwan

MUFC: De Gea, Evans, Evra, Rafael, Jones, Valencia, Rooney, Giggs, Carrick, Van Persie, Kagawa Subs: Ferdinand, Lindegaard, Hernandez, Nani, Welbeck, Cleverly, Buttner Wouldn't put my money on a 0-0 game here

On one hand, this has the makings of an incredibly heavy defeat if it gets out of hand. On the other hand, it seems like we're going for it. The realist in me is screaming because we can't take the GD hit and a point would be massive but the dreamer in me hopes for a goals galore match up. Up The Villa

Gabby on for Bowery being the only change supposedly Official:Guzan, Lowton, Vlaar, Baker, Bennett, Westwood, Delph, Gabby, Weimann, N'Zogbia, Benteke Subs: Given, Holman, Sylla, El Ahmadi, Bent, Bowery, Clark Oh ****

Line up should be coming any moment. I feel like throwing up.

I think most people can see that we're definitely playing better than we were at the start of the season. It's just the case of whether or not that beginning of the season is going to be the the price we pay for performing so poorly or if we can pull it off and beat the drop. Some of us are optimistic. Some of us aren't. Hopefully we beat it.

Probably have to send him back given that we've seen roughly 20 minutes of him. Don't think he would start over Gabby or Andy in the wide roles (and apparently Bowery too) and I can only really see us putting him on if we're chasing a game and someone's been ineffective. Shame as he's scored some pretty goals in the MLS, but probably just haven't seen enough of him to move on with him. Then again, maybe they like him enough in training to keep him.

There's been links that the older brother might have been involved in an unsolved triple homicide involving his best friend. The older brother apparently didn't attend the memorial service or the funeral even though they were really close. While it's all speculation, I think it's looking more and more like the older brother was the main instigator behind all of this.

Was sent this today and it made me wonder why this guy above has not been questioned Uploaded with ImageShack.us There's another picture of that guy standing off to the distance with his backpack on after the explosion. Given the ear piece and combat boots, likely he was security.

Yeah, but they didn't make a lot of fully automatic guns before 1986 that were available for wide consumption to the public. You'll probably find a spare few from the Vietnam veterans, but in general those were pretty limited

Yeah obviously the ideal situation would be keeping Benteke for another season and buying some players anyways. That's what I envision happen if we stay up and I'll be moderately more excited if we manage to pick up some attacking midfielders and a couple defenders

Any news on Gabby's fitness? Could really use him here.

I think he means that if we took out the results before the calendar year, we would be a mid side table. Probably around 12th or 13th

If that's a response to my post(s) then you seem to be missing the point that I am making by a country mile (and, possibly, rather reinforcing it). My 'holding a firearm/gun' was a reference to Duggan (before the riots); my leaping over barriers was a reference to de Menezes. Ah, I didn't realize you were referencing a hypothetical or rather something else entirely.

Yeah that would be correct though that still only applies to specially referred "assault rifles" that are still semi-automatic The one you're looking for is the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) enacted in 1986 (my mistake) that heavily restricted the sale of fully automatic machine guns to only higher law enforcement and military personnel. The whole distinction between semi-automatic and fully automatic is important because a pistol is semi-automatic and does the same damage as a semi-automatic "assault rifle." One just looks scarier

On the question of selling Benteke, I would probably sell. We might not find another Benteke, but it's almost a guarantee that we will lose Benteke. Might as well get some other potentially good players in instead of just trying to stave off the inevitable

Just a note, fully automatic assault rifles are banned in the US. I know that ignores the larger point about guns, but fully automatics haven't been legal since '84

There are multiple videos you can find online recording the shootout from a distance. We likely won't see the dashcam until the trial, but even by listening to the video, they're packing long guns. I suppose that they could have not been holding a gun and that the police were simply shooting dozens and dozens of rounds at them in a case of several hot trigger fingers and that the explosions are just made up hearsay by the police, but that's a big ask to have everyone and the civilians in on this

Taking off work early to watch this. Probably not worth it but oh well

People take comfort in the conspiracy. The alternative would be accepting that the world is a violent and chaotic place and that you have no control of what will happen, when it will happen and who did it. That's much more terrifying than, say, the Jews controlling the world bank or that Lambert wasn't playing Bent to avoid the 50 game 'pay clause.'

Given the media attention, I doubt he gets sent to Cuba.

My point wasn't about anything being a 'set up' (as the last line of my post indicated) - though at some point I wouldn't put it past the FBI cocking up with one of their sting operations and one of those going tragically wrong (again I'm not suggesting or speculating that has happened here). My point was to suggest to people that they hold in check the 'well of course he's guilty, we watched it all on TV' line (and, yes, I'm paraphrasing a seemingly popular response to all sorts of media covered events). Ah I see. Well if he doesn't get sent to gitmo, I'm sure he'll get the whole innocent until guilty show. Hell, if I was the public defender, I'd pin all the blame on the older brother to try and avoid the death penalty

Disseminating and spinning information to the Villa forums is an important part of the job

The 'pretty clear picture' that has been painted has been of events and actions at least one step away from (almost) everyone, though, hasn't it? This isn't some kind of 'they were set up' claim from Dagestan, btw. Of course anything is possible, I'm not naive enough to exclude that. It's just Occam's Razor. In order to justify this all being a "set up", you would have to have government sources plant elaborate stories about both of the brothers, have someone else plant the bombs in a public place, subsequently convince the thousands of cops and FBI agents that it's not these shady agents and that it's actually the two brothers, then have these brothers kill a cop and engage in a fictitious shoot out that was caught on video by several neighborhood people (though they could be plants too I guess) and then subsequently have an incredibly media exposed manhunt complete with humvee's on the road and armed personnel walking around all for show. Yeah.

They have video evidence of them dropping off the bomb, they just can't show it to sway any potential jury. But yeah, couple that with the fact that they killed a cop, engaged in a shoot out, threw grenades at cops, threw the same delivery device of the original bomb at them, had the older brother wearing a suicide vest, found more explosives at their residence and it paints a pretty clear picture.

Played 45 mins. for the U-21. Hopefully he gets some games next year