Gloucester Saint

All the posters who say it’s only one point off the play offs are also wrong because it’s 2 with the negative GD. Not as if his record at Swansea and MK wasn’t a huge warning with a red beacon on it. The issue with only had one clean sheet so far is that if by chance we do squeak into 6th on the last day of the regular season, can you really see a couple of clean sheets needed to win the play-offs. Or just three decent performances when it matters? Not an end of season propaganda run aka Swansea. Bring an experienced keeper in for January and maybe. Given his aggressive defence of Bazanu at the fans forum. It won’t be with him in charge.

Which there probably isn’t amongst the general population, and the hardliners have been poised for a few years for a scrap, which Hamas and Iran have been stupid enough to give them in the most vile and unspeakable way. What will be making the Netanyahu crowd think harder is the threat of Hezbollah getting involved on the northern border with Lebanon. Lebanon could really do without it too, so far no dice but Hezbollah has mobilised and trained troops that could get involved in S Lebanon. Israel would be more stretched by a punch up on two fronts - probably Putin’s dream to distract the West on his dreadful Ukraine campaign - and the 2006-10 punch-up Israel had there was very damaging for all concerned. https://apnews.com/article/hezbollah-israel-hamas-lebanon-war-423f5f20d691dcd0cc8af1788f11857b#tbl-em-lnopvz2qq8miutzqdhh

It’s also worth pointing out that Netanyahu unpicked many tenets of the Oslo accord and he’s brought about anything but a ‘safe peace’ which is what he originally campaigned on in the mid-90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu Hamas has also purged many of its opponents over time in the Palestinian Territories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas The issue is mistrust even though both broadly can see a two-state solution on pre-1967 borders eg one would always eliminate the others right to the Red Sea. Whilst there are extremists at the microphones it doesn’t help.

Davey certainly ruled out working with the Tories again on the Laura K show on the BBC a few weeks back and with Beth Rigby again more recently on Sky https://news.sky.com/story/liberal-democrat-conference-sir-ed-davey-hints-at-post-election-deal-with-labour-12969876

One thing we’ll all agree on - Suella is fucking moron for trying to score political points within her own party on this issue https://news.sky.com/story/waving-a-palestinian-flag-on-british-streets-may-not-be-legitimate-suella-braverman-warns-12981988 Hamas is a recognised terror organisation throughout the EU and Western world, it’s widely been a criminal offence for many years to promote or support their activities in any way.

The opponents were Rotherham. Not won away in 12 months, 23rd and lowest scorers. It’s akin to arguing that City wouldn’t have chased a second against the Saints side who propped up the league last season because they were scared of Adam Armstrong catching them on the break (two goals all season). And it’s a valid comparison as Saints had players on the bench who earn more per week than Rotherham’s entire squad. By all means play Devil’s Advocate but Martin got it wrong tactically. It’s the type of logic Pellegrino used and it got him the sack.

After 2-12 aggregate from four defeats, two goals conceded in the first minute of two of them. You seem delighted with drawing versus a side who haven’t won away from home for a year and 23rd in the league. And with 80% possession there should be a fuck sight more chances and efforts on their goal. As for people lauding their goalkeeper, he did have a good game but it was hardly Kelvin at Leeds, peak Neville Southall at the Dell or Brad Friedel vs WGS’s Saints at SMS (now that WAS a show of shot stopping because Saints truly peppered the Blackburn goal from all angles, and didn’t need 39 slow passes to work up to it). At least he was free - Bazanu statistically the worst in the next league down and he cost £12m. Think about that. Brilliant business by the club again. Yeah, those four white flag displays - and Ipswich should have been 0-4 with the woodwork and two sitters even Che could have scored - boiled 99% of fans piss frankly. Only an abnormal few seemingly who weren’t. Thing is, you’re actually a fan and not one of the infiltrators who have popped up. At least they’re getting paid to spout garbage on Rasmus’s behalf.

Seems to be mostly Iranian weapons and some homegrown Hamas have used thus far. But little doubt the outbreak is helpful to Putin’s campaign in Ukraine so the US and NATO are distracted. Whilst I can’t stand with every fibre of my being Netanyahu and his fellow extremists, and their bullying, illegal, activities in the occupied territories, Hamas have no justification either for these tactics https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67053011 They’re not interested in 2-state solutions or the everyday issues of Palestinians, who they are harming beyond measure, they’re just hate-filled racist thugs willing to collaborate with any blood-stained repressive state who will give them time of day to kill Jews and Westerners in general. Every bit as bad the racist Netanyahu. Even Thai labourers trying to earn money for their families in Israel getting kidnapped and brutalised.

Yep, a minority of posters/fans seem determined to defend the indefensible, plus a few plants by the club (who are as subtle as a fart in church). It’s comparable to when Jeremy Corbyn posted that video at the end of 2019 opening with ‘well that was quite the year’ on the basis of a few more BO-stricken Trots signing on the member rolls. For younger posters, this what the forum was like in 2008/9 with entrenched posters, bitterness and PR plants lurking in plain sight. All we are missing is Richard Chorley and his pieces of silver lobbed at Rasmus. One big difference - that was a post-parachute payments kindergarten squad of lower/non league lads plus Kelvin, Lallana, Surman, Morgan and McGoldrick before he became half decent. This season it’s the third biggest payroll in the league. Jan Poortvliet and Russell Martin have rather different resources to draw upon. Martin’s performing worse than George Burley was if a comparable resources comparison I’d being made. At least we had some wins and semi-consistency, 6-0 at Wolves etc before it went to shit the next season. Burley also underperformed but there was clear improvement in some players eg Jones, Bale, Surman. I’d struggle to spot a first team player at SFC who has improved in recent memory. Look at Ryan Fraser - arrived taking on defenders and going at them, now a sidestep shuffler like the rest.

There’s a small minority kicking about on the site, as well as a handful of long-standing posters who just have a different perspective on events and Martin (which they are fully entitled to have btw). Some of the language of the post you responded to was very PR-ish and suspiciously similar to the Lowe agent who was known to be on here mid-late 2000s. Another one teatime yesterday was talking about the club not being capable of being of 7th/9th place PL and/or cup final. Clearly didn’t know anything about recent history of Saints, WGS period and further back and other posters very quickly corrected them being caught out. Nor were they aware of the recent history of Palace, Brighton, Stoke, Watford, Wigan who have done one or both. Clearly, we aren’t as ‘big’ as those clubs either. The common strand from all of them is fan blame and sparking division via WUM posting. Could be lurking skates but 20-odd unbeaten, top of the league and bright young manager, why would they honestly bother? It feels far more like club/PR agency infiltration and it wouldn’t be the first time. Hopefully the mods will be proactive in dishing out bans.

Yep, WGS used to talk about being brave on the ball and that meant using the ball progressively and ambitiously In the right areas. He used to describe sideways or backwards passes all of the time as cowards football.

Pele is an interesting story. When it’s been discussed on here about Stephens or Lyanco possibly being better at DMC, that’s what happened with Pele. He was signed by Burley for a decent fee but was all over the place as a CB. Due to injuries and suspensions in midfield, he was played there, was better than expected and stayed there for the rest of the campaign. Became a bit of a cult hero with the fans. The reason he played CB in the play off first leg was Claus’s career ending injury in the final league game v Southend which we had to win to make the play offs. Brought down Pearson for the penalty and lucky not to get a second yellow. Derby should have been down to at least 10 by that stage with two awful fouls to crock Bale and in-form Kenwyne Jones (hence slightly out of form Rasiak on the bench). IIRC, Burley got a decent offer from West Brom and sold him that summer as he wanted to sign Safari from Norwich

Educated at world top Unis. Get your facts straight boy. Don’t wind our fans up like you are always are on here or you’ll get a reaction. If you can’t handle that, and you can’t, wind your neck in about our fans. Try a lower league club where there’s no expectation, you’ll prefer it.

Get these club PR people off our site

In huge danger again, back to where he was pre-Boro. Had to win today, next game has to be a heavy victory and immaculate display. For a manager on the brink, his Pellegrino tactics and holding on for a 1-0 v Rotherham were astonishing. Go, go now. You have no legitimacy from our fanbase.

Phillips I can vaguely understand off the bench although he’s not played enough football to start. But Henderson is now playing in the equivalent of the former NASL, there’s no way the Saudi league is consistently as competitive as the MLS theses days. And he was declining fast for Liverpool, Klopp knew it as well. JWP is one of the most consistent PL midfielders at the moment from whatever angle you look at it from. And if Southgate insists on picking Maguire as a two-up to supporters and press, at least give the slap head some quality deliveries to attack going forward.

Or in a nutshell: ’This is what the Tory Party exists as a vehicle to enable’. By the way, plenty of it in the other parties too (plenty under New Labour) and further back in the 60s and 70s both parties were caught in John Poulsen’s corrupt web but it’s a byproduct not the core reason for the party’s existence which only has a thin mask of xenophobia and anti-wokery (whatever the fuck that means) these days. At least in the 1980s there was some intent for the majority of people to prosper even the policies didn’t often work out like that.

I’ll let Ben Rooney, his former colleague at the DT, define it. Not doing work, or very difficult to get him to do work that he doesn’t want to do. https://www.thedailybeast.com/boris-johnson-is-lazy-and-will-be-a-terrible-prime-minister-say-his-ex-colleagues Fired for fabrication and not researching his article properly. Tick. The cabinet minister quoted there about not or rarely reading his briefings (really lazy) tallies with Alan Duncan’s book. He’s supposed to be quite convivial and forgives quickly, so that was probably part of the charm but he’s not in the Thatcher, Blair, Brown, Cameron (allegedly Boris referred to him as a ‘girly swot’), May levels of productivity.

Quite, and the warm up was a two-up to Braverman and her Monday Club style speech yesterday. Braverman was going for the most rabid Sun/Mail readers yesterday, with a core of Tory members who are political refugees themselves from UKIP and the also defunct BNP. Sunak was aiming at the middle class more technocratic part of the membership, or what remains (no pun intended) of it, knowing the far right haven’t got anywhere else to go before the GE. The smoke-free item is appealing to the same group and floating voters, certainly not to the Lee Anderson/Braverman/Rees-Mogg group and Farage is a prolific smoker, so that may have been a two-up at him hanging around like a stale trail of cigarette smoke. Post Sunak and Hunt, they really are going to be as unelectable as Labour were in the era of Militant Tendancy and nuclear disarmament. I don’t think Braverman will get the leader job, Tim Montgomerie is right, if Farage gets a safe-ish seat, he will sweep the members because he’s so similar to the rump that’s left from the 1m plus it used to be. But I think she’ll wreck them from the inside like Benn did with Labour without the realities of power (not that it really has much impact on her craziness) to vaguely ground her in reality. Farage himself has had to say about the Tories in the last 15 years, not much of it pleasant. He’s cozying up this week via the ERG but he could bite them again next week. The one nation section might be joining the Lib Dem’s (and will be welcomed). Truss will be around but spending most of her time in various think-tanks with shady funding spouting garbage. The membership know she has shot her bolt with the public and no amount of tub-thumping by the Mail or Allisder Heath wanking into a sock would make an impact. I can see 2-3 years of carnage in opposition until they are miles behind what will be a Labour-led administration fighting a rough legacy and a Kinnock/Cameron moderniser (but one with some backbone) will need to perform a repair job for a few years with a new pool of people with the odd old hand around eg Gove, Davis (if he’s not retired).

The problem Sunak and Hunt have as the two leading adults in government is that the Tory strategists are obsessed with the culture war stuff where Bannon visited the HoC and spoke with Rees Mogg et al. Hunt is resisting on the idiotic calls from Truss and her little group of fantasists for sweeping tax cuts because he’s had a proper cabinet career including a long time at the DoH. He knows all too well the social care and other issues we have and that rolling a dice crossing your fingers for six or bust won’t solve them via trickle down economics. Truss and Sinclair really ought to emigrate to the US and work for one of the think-tanks GM reads. Take Simon Clarke with them as well, it’s hard enough living in Middlesbrough as it is. They will never accept the public desire for a Westernised health system so I don’t think this country is for them. Sunak has gotten stuck on HS2 extension though and it’s a dangerous issue for him. I honestly don’t know how those two can function in a government with children like Braverman, Badenoch, Grant Schapps/whoever he is this week, Jenryck, Coffey and any other pillocks escaping my memory. Gove counts as an adult although somewhat damaged. And in a party with Truss, Redwood, Lee Anderson owned by GB News, Rees-Mogg, Chope, Patel, Grayling, Keegan (her AC Delco story was full of holes), Halfron, and loads I’ve forgotten on the ERG side of fanatics.

The only thing Liz Truss will be making grow is Allister Heath’s tadger in the DT. As for the civil servants, the only reason they have so many is a mix of Covid and Brexit. Latter of which was entirely a Tory creation. Easiest deal ever my arse, thick twats. So not even real cuts.

What a total lowlife. Fortunately his fellow supporters have given a better picture by raising a large sum for end of life care in the North East. Whether he was off his head on cocaine at the time is neither nor there. 31 is plenty old enough to know better. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12582117/Man-charged-public-order-offence-picture-six-year-old-cancer-victim-Bradley-Lowery-held-Sunderland-match.html

We all enjoyed yesterday’s game but before cupping your ear to the forum, let’s see six points against Stoke and Rotherham. Then there might be some justification. The league table is still unacceptable for the resources he has available and the Sky pundits were very clear about this yesterday. Let’s hope for more displays like yesterday and quiet satisfaction/praise from the fanbase and forum.

I didn’t know what Fox was responding to so did a little research https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2023/09/27/if-you-dont-know-why-laurence-fox-ranted-about-ava-santina-you-need-to-see-this/ Then some context further back https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/28/ava-evans-hits-back-gb-news-commentator-19569480/ Evans’s comments were fine until the last sentence about the rise in men’s mental health being used as a political weapon to beat women with which was wide of the mark, having volunteered on projects to help young men with their mental health. Up until then she makes good points that mental health for all categories needs more focus and investment. The public feedback about that final comment prior to Fox had made her re-think a bit. The other Oakeshott-Tomlinson-Evans debate being referred to is covered in the second link which Tomlinson is using on GB News as whataboutery. Evans could be better in how she expresses herself but there is some very deliberate and cynical misinterpretation from Tomlinson there which his co-presenter shoots down with ease. Fox and Wootton have no excuses and some of the whataboutery is pathetic from certain GB presenters. She’s left wing - just admit that’s your beef rather than attach misinformation to what she said in order to justify incel and hatred-filled personal attacks. Wootton you’d have thought would have kept a lower profile with the Russell Brand to make the disturbing sex allegations surrounding him recede. Now GB and Mail online have finally been forced to apply some seriously overdue editorial control to someone who is unfit to be on air. The final conclusion I draw is that it’s another clear reason never to watch Talk TV or GB News. Two nasty, tacky little channels for adults who can’t digest/think objectively about the news of the day. And look, on top Calvin Robinson’s ban, another one of of their infamous presenters with an IQ of 5 makes a similar mistake https://www.thenational.scot/news/23825123.lee-anderson-calls-carol-vorderman-plastic-gb-news-criticism/

Far better, fell off a bit for a 15 minute spell second half but otherwise big improvement. Better for being less predictable in the play, Sully and Stu excellent, KWP class, Alcaraz did valuable work pulling Cooper out of position, destabilising their midfield. Smallbone very good goal, bit more bite in his play and hopefully builds on that. AA buzzed around like a wasp and took goal very well, bit unfortunate the second deemed an OG. THB and JB at CB much better pairing and few issues with Piroe. Downes still recovering his full strength but like Smallbone, more bite. Could have done a bit better on their goal. One good stop from Baz, great distribution, not heaps to do but tidy. Bit more proactive off his line but a work in progress. Manning forward nicely, the more pragmatic system offered him more protection and he looked more comfortable.