TWar

Seeing a few links to Ryan Guald (https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-transfer-news/ryan-gauld-wanted-southampton-transfer-24164906) apparently just had a superb season in Portugal.

They are pretty level. Both top top players. Ings when fully fit for an entire season is one of the best strikers in the league so probably would be him, but him remaining fully fit is a big ask. If asked who I would rather retain of the two and who I would sell I'd definitely keep JWP purely because of his safety and consistency, whilst still being a top top player. I actually don't know how we would cope without JWP as we haven't ever had to find out since Ralph came in and made him what he currently is.

Oh OK I get you, my bad, sorry I thought you ment to make "back-up RB" JWP's primary role.

Burnley maybe. It was a tough win but I think after the first two losses it was vital to give us the confidence to kick on.

JWP is in my opinion our best player, he covers the most ground, his set pieces win us about 10-15 points a season, he is an excellent progressive passer, and he is our captain. On top of that he has 15 goal involvements this term while pumping out 56 defensive actions this season, same as Fabinho and one more than Rice, second most recoveries of any player in the league. There is no chance at all he is dropped imo.

He won't be. This guy replaces Romeu in his role, Romeu drops to 4th choice, Diallo steadily improves to 3rd choice and plays against sides that are hard to break down and we need someone more press resistant. It's a squad game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/mfwum5/thomas_delaney_denmark_goal_in_training/ Scored a beauty in training.

Things are undoubtedly better than they were even 20 years ago, so the approach of not ignoring it does seem to be working. Just because we aren't at the end yet doesn't mean we aren't moving in the right direction.

How do you decide anything when there are varying sources? Listen to each of them, try to understand what they say, and use your critical reasoning skills to determine which you think is correct. Then when someone else comes along and disagrees with you you have more than "but person X said...", you can use their argument, with them as a source, and defend it. That is the difference between the gaining of knowledge and a garden variety appeal to authority. My point of view is indeed that black voices who disagree with the existence of systemic racism and BLM are wrong, just like white views that think that, and any other ethnicity. Being black doesn't make you right. I think you think making me admit that is a winner for you because you believe left wing people think minorities are always correct, we don't, that's a strawman. Neither of us believe black people are always correct so me saying I believe a black person to be wrong shouldn't be news to either of us. If there are two black people disagreeing, one of them by definition must be wrong.

I take it you also didn't bother to read the article. The idea is that people shouldn't be treated differently due to their race, however pretending people aren't already being treated differently and not even discussing racial inequality in the hopes that will get rid of it is not going to work. You need to accept different races exist in order to consider how they are treated relative to each other.

I don't know how you can feel so passionately about a subject and then make no effort to research it. I don't know where this "king of the black people" comes from. Black people are not a monolith, some believe some things, some believe others. You can agree with one and disagree with the other, that is allowed. The article you couldn't be bothered to read was written by a black person, incidentally, and they are a professor of sociology rather than just a celebrity. Marginalising black voices doesn't make sense as an argument when you are literally posting black voices. Problem is, you don't understand the concept of racial theory well enough to appropriate its language. Probably because you take no intellectual curiosity in learning, you just want to moan until it goes away.

Yes, they do. Class is one of many determining factors as to your chances in life. I think there was a German guy who wrote some pretty useful stuff on the matter.

Depends on the reason, if it is it doesn't go far enough and is tokenistic, then yeah it's a fair point. If it is "Marxism" or "things are fine" or "keep politics out of football", then you are either an idiot or pretending to be one to not confront the issues. As for the "some black people agree with me, so it doesn't matter if the vast majority don't" argument. See my reply to Turkish regarding Morgan Freeman.

Yes, Morgan Freemans views here are very much counter-productive. Colour-blindness is a really bad way to deal with racial discrimination. Here is an article on it https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/color-blindness-is-counterproductive/405037/. Some black people can be wrong, that's fine, Morgan Freeman actually dedicated his social media to amplifying experiences of racism (https://www.nme.com/news/film/morgan-freeman-share-peoples-experiences-racism-social-platforms-2682978) last year so his "lets not talk about it" thing seems to not be his view at the moment. Morgan Freeman himself often says things that are pretty silly on a number of matters, sometimes people have weird views. That's fine, black people aren't deities, they are also people capable of bad takes.

Yes: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/ethnicitypaygapsingreatbritain/2018 Yes: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/479874/analysis-of-ethnicity-and-custodial-sentences.pdf "Being recorded by a police officer as coming from a Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic (BAME) background was independently associated with approximately 39% higher odds of being sentenced to prison, than offenders who were recorded by police officers as coming from a White ethnic background." Yes: https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/poverty-ethnicity-education-full.pdf Quality of schools in predominantly black areas are significantly lower than in predominantly white areas, as seen in the above source Remarkably still yes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52979173 Transitioning beyond your career into management is significantly more challenging for black players than white players. You know you have google too, you could answer these questions yourself if you tried.

Players are welcome not to take the knee, lots of players have and have given good reasons. If your view is "keep politics out of football" or "stop talking about this issue" then you objectively are part of the problem. You can either deal with that fact or get upset, but it doesn't stop it being true.

No, I actually addressed this is in my second to last comment. You don't have to be a racist to reject the knee. Most people doing so just don't want to think about racism. The problem is the urge not to think about racism when it is an issue that needs discussing and solving is counter productive. Here is a quote from MLK on the matter: "First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."" You can be as accepting and non-racist as you like, but if you hold back the fight against racism because you don't want to think about it, then you are part of the problem.

Well it's one of two things. Either people actually believe that having Marxists supporting a movement invalidates it, despite not knowing the first thing about Marxism or the movements Marxists have previously supported, which is deeply stupid. Or that people really don't like the fact we are discussing racial issues more than ever and want to go back to normal. This is not the sort of reason, usually, one would openly state as it makes you look like a bellend given all the current racial issues in the world so they hide behind "leftist, Marxists want you to support BLM so I won't, I liked the quiet campaigns no one ever considered or spoke about". I personally think there are some people in each camp, but there definitely exists a lot of people in the second.

Nonsense. BLM is a household name because of how many people support it. It was supported publicly and openly by pretty much every American celebrity you can think of, half their politicians, most of our UK celebrities. If you pick a name at random who is in the public eye, chances are they came out in support of BLM. The couple of incidences of looting or violence is not more in the public mindset than the kneeling of the now president of America, for example. We are discussing this now because players are still showing support for it, not because of any statue toppling. I honestly don't think you are a racist, for the record, I think you like living in a position where racism isn't a factor in your life. You enjoy not thinking about it, thinking of racists as bald swastika wearing lunatics and convincing yourself that there are barely any of them so there isn't that big an issue. The problem is that isn't what racism actually is, it is real, and your want to not think about it is in direct opposition to those who are experiencing it and are trying to do something about it. You aren't a racist, most likely, but your apathy certainly doesn't help.

The thing is, you are not the only one. Your comment is one of many many comments regarding this I have heard both in person and online since the kneeling began, as well as many positive comments. At the very least it is starting a dialogue. I don't think I said the phrase "kick it out" or "racism just aint saintly" outloud more than twice in my life. BLM on the other hand has been discussed on repeat for ages. Also BLM is a loose conglomeration of different factions and pre-existing groups with a collective goal. It's like feminism or flat-eartherism or whatever. It doesn't really have a centralised power structure. There are some Marxists involved, of course, the idea of systemic oppression existing gels pretty well with the dialectic materialism at the heart of Marxism, but you don't need to be a Marxist to support BLM. Marxists supported a lot of good causes over the years like the existence of weekends, the 40 hour working week, womens voting, the legalisation of homosexuality, the abolition of Apartheid in south africa, the minimum wage, against the Iraq war ect. That doesn't make those causes invalid. It seems the only thing people have linking BLM to Marxism is one of the founders was a Marxist and that doesn't really seem enough to turn on them. They will have good and bad people like any organisation but BLM is doing more for the conversation in the last year or so than I think anyone else has done in decades.

I don't disagree, but if both are keepers are pretty equally hopeless and we are getting a new first choice keeper, experience as backup isn't a bad thing.

Yeah I agree. I think the one big advantage Macca has is that he is a couple of years younger. I also worry that if Fraser spends time on the bench his lack of confidence might creep back in whereas Macca has spent a lot of his career as a back up keeper.

Forster has hardly been in form. Less glaring howlers admittedly but -0.14 goals prevented per 90. Macca is admittedly worse, with -0.29 per 90, but neither is any good. When the season is over I think alternating to see who can step up is a fair thing to do. Especially when statistically Macca was actually alright last season and had a positive goals prevented.

Celtic could be back in for Forster, I here there other guy has flopped. Gunn could end up at Norwich apparently.

People liked the old anti racist campaigns because they were easy to ignore. Kinda not the point. Also pretty weird people conflating being perceived as popular with being right. Either way, it's nothing new. Society gets slowly more accepting, you only have to look at history for that. But it generally isnt because the racists or homophobes get convinced, it's because they are old and they die out. Young people overwhelming support good causes. Again you can look at Corbyn voters for that if you like. We aren't losing because the old people crying about "woke", we are winning, thanks to time. A lot of them are covid deniers too, which doesn't help.