saint1977

She won’t even see the irony. Her politics is as dated as the artex on people’s 1980s ceilings up and down the country and trickle down theories are the asbestos hidden within it. At least her and Kwarteng have ensured any honeymoon she or any new PM might have ridden on after the last few days events have dissipated straight away. Astonishing unforced error. Chances of another Tory majority on a par with Che Adams scoring 20 PL goals this season - yet still uncertain Starmer will secure much of one either, which is not a great portent for Labour.

Sigh https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/matthew-sinclair-liz-truss-climate-change/ It’s as if Truss is determined to appoint the leftovers which even Thatcher and Boris baulked at and couldn’t contemplate. Heaton-Harris and Steve Baker in the Northern Ireland Office, as if the Brexiteers haven’t tried hard enough to bring the Troubles back. We also have a climate change sceptic (at least Sinclair isn’t that, he’s arguing instead to pay for the damage as we go but ignoring the global south impacts) in charge of BIES who looks like a Victorian funeral director and a rabid anti-abortionist as Health Secretary. I’m sure there’s even worse if I could be bothered to look. Oh yes, Braverman in the Home Office, I forgot. Kemi Badenoch for Trade as well, as if the Victorian funeral director wasn’t enough embarrassment on the global stage. People talked about wets and drys with Thatcher but her cabinets had Heseltine, Clarke, Hurd, Baker, Brittain and plenty more talent. They’d be disgusted if they had to sit around a table with these imbeciles if they were in their prime again. Where a strong intellect and practical experience was essential, not something to be ashamed of and hide from within their own swivel eyed party. If I was one of the few left with a brain eg Clark or Skidmore, I’d defect to the Lib Dems. Kit Malthouse is more solid, he might clean up after Truss has detonated them at the next GE.

I thought it was just me, the clapping does jar slightly, it broke out again down that last parade stretch.

The Madrid derby https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-11225169/Atletico-Madrid-supporters-heard-chanting-Vinicius-monkey-ahead-Real-Madrid-match.html

Yep, wants to go and retire, get pay off. SR will balk at the lay off cost but the club will finish 19th or 20th with him in charge and relegation is far more expensive to fix. So push the button this weekend and time for new manager bounce v Everton. Doesn’t mean staying up but it would least offer some chance as opposed to 0%. All of the fans backing him on here said it would be different with the energetic younger squad he wanted, big net outlay. Well, sorry lads, that was the same insipid sideways and backwards shit with Ely and all of his favourites when he had other options. Even you can’t credibly defend him after that. Sacking him this weekend is the last realistic opportunity for survival this season. People on here are talking about him having until the WC - far, far too late, that’s Wigley/Redknapp territory. That’s accepting the drop as unavoidable. We can only assume if he’s still here for the next game that SR are prepared to fully accept and underwrite the risk trying to come back from the Championship first bounce with the parachute money if Ralph is still there after the international break. It can be the only other reason along with the payoff cost. They or Semmens really must be desperate to hold onto him like that, every other club in the top two divisions would have pulled the trigger. Even fucking Les Reed did on Pellegrino (6 months too late) and tonight was every bit as bad as anything we saw under him. Boardroom totally lacking in drive and direction.

Yep, Dave Jones was effectively sacked after a similar 1-0 defeat at Villa with no genuine efforts on goal (won his last game v Everton but decision made). Appalling tactics all game and to keep Ely on for 80 minutes…some serious either alcohol intake or delusion there. I reckon the new young recruits have clocked this idiot really. Benitez would keep them up.

It’s more interesting talking about SNSUN’s date night than this game. Villa are Championship, Saints playing like National League. Selles needs to take control here, Ralph lost the plot again. As bad an individual performance as you could see from Ely and gets kept on. WTF.

That’s the people who voted for it in the main. Watching them moan about customs queues and roaming charges they have brought about has an amusement value. Some of the architects of Brexit do want Singapore on Thames on the Tory hard right but others are more invested in the Empire/Anglosphere 2.0 model. When the UK joined the EEC in 1973 it was seen by some as a pragmatic alternative to empire but by others as inferior to empire and whom cling to UK exceptionalism eg Boris’s ridiculed push to commission a new Britannia yacht.

So far so good, Northants over 250 and nearly 170 lead, no wickets this morning and these two batters well set https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/scorecard/ECKO53001

Forecast as dry as a bone at Wantage Rd for tomorrow. Cloudy though and not warm, if Northants can get over 200 lead…

Cask ale, especially Porter, Milds and bitters British pubs and pub quizzes Worcestershire Sauce/Henderson’s Relish HP Sauce - when it was still made here Cream tea with scones and jam Regional accents and their variation across segments of the country with modest difference in mileage Fish and Chips Bank Holidays Queues Detective Fiction - books and TV eg Morse, Sherlock Holmes, PD James or Ruth Rendall Cornish pasties Roast Dinner Red phone boxes Lower and non league sport, with the crowds they get Roast Dinners Crisps

I may be wrong here but the perception has always been that the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh were quite thrifty with their settlements, particularly post-Windsor Castle fire and the press coverage around funding of repairs. Perhaps this is a normal restructure like when the Queen Mother passed on and Andrew took over her property and staffing but this seems quicker and a bit more ruthless from the outside looking in. Or perhaps the Clarence House finances are in a more challenging position? Hence the swift restructure?

Did anyone else notice in the photos with Liz Truss that the Queen had dark blotches on her hand. Might have indicated a circulation/heart problem.

Exactly. Turn a £28m profit, get to see a great player in the making in a Saints shirt, plus hopefully he and the others increase the PL place prize money, cup runs and shock horror, maybe even a cup itself. Compare that to Lemina, Boufal, Carrillo, Hoedt, Vestergaard, Ely who have either or will cost heavy losses on original outlay + wage contributions.

I think the whole SR model is about turning frequent £20-30m player trading profits every couple of years. Some buys won’t turn out at their maximum potential for various reasons (as with all players, major injuries, mental health and development) but at the level of up and coming elite players they are in the market for they believe more will have the mental and physical attributes to succeed given greater exposure to full PL football. They’ve also arrived at the time when the academy is starting to look as if it will bear some serious fruit for the first time since JWP/Chambers/Shaw era. That revives the FFP headroom that we lost under Reed with the Juve/Lazio wages and no return, keeps the wages headroom to perhaps one major contract extension for players who come in and do well but slower burn than Lavia or ABK look like they’ll be. Given the way the PL has gone with City/Chelsea and co, it’s a perfectly reasonable strategy and just enjoy watching these players in an SFC shirt whilst we can. Its not new - some of comments on here about when Krueger said the club were proud to see Bale and Mane thriving in the CL final were daft - but SR is putting more initial investment behind it until the £15/20/25/30m profits become more frequent and we move back to mainly self-sustaining. Crunch will be if either the club get sucked into trouble this season (wage bill will be reduced though as the younger players will be on medium level salaries at best and wage bill to turnover has been reduced by Semmens over last 3 years tbf since Les left) or a batch of younger buys mostly doesn’t work out. Either scenario might require a fresh injection of funds but I guess SR might be able to if necessary. Whichever way, it’s miles better than 2017-21.

Yes, it’s hardly a government of all the talents is it? Despite the rhetoric, Thatcher carried on with a number of ‘wets’ throughout her tenure who offered expertise, and Blair government ditto was more representative as well. This is just a continuation of Boris personnel wise with a few more loonies thrown in. Speaking of which, look at the new Health Secretary’s views on neo natal health and reproduction. She’s entitled to those views of course but it doesn’t seem as if the lessons from Chris Pincher and appropriate vetting for senior roles has been heeded by Truss. Very poor judgement for such an important post https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62805268 Coffey to go? Inevitable in the next few months.

Her Britannia Unchained chapter, along with Raab C Nesbit (who she tries to blame it on) make a perfect own goal to bring up for any occasion. There’s the cheese speech, the Lib Dem platform abolishing monarchy speech. She can’t even be true to being a Remainer. Thatcher was consistent in the main, whether you agreed with the rhetoric or not, Truss has tried copying the iconography there in front of the Westland Union Jack doors. Truss is for turning, any which way the wind is blowing.

The tax cuts are going to accelerate inflation further, I agree with Sunak on that but she doesn’t have a brain and addled with ideological dogma. Could be the shortest political honeymoon on record. I’ll benefit from the tax cuts but if the economy tanks further with her crazy ideas the gains will be short-lived.

Hit. Nail. Head. The only way football will have full integrity in the PL - on the pitch at least - is to remove the likes of Mason, Dean, Riley (retired last year from PGMOL) from the officials system altogether including VAR. Gillett recently the first PL referee from Australia and decent so far, this is the way to go, and build around younger referees gaining experience like Michael Oliver. The technology isn’t the issue, English refereeing (as Scotland better during my lifetime) has been very poor in my lifetime overall and it’s introduction has made this so obvious it can’t be brushed under the carpet any longer. Howard Webb can’t sort it all out on his own.

On a lighter note (including the goalkeepers’ bladder) a bizarre sending off in the preliminary rounds of the FA Cup at Blackfield & Langley https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62783917

Wallace and Clark the only ones with brains on that list if true. The human fossil hasn’t got one - one of the few specifics of Brexit was to increase numbers of non EU visitors but his archaic ideological views are even halting that. Dickhead https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/03/jacob-rees-mogg-blocking-major-uk-tourism-campaign

Looks like this thread not finished quite yet. Redmond could have a couple of good years for one of the bigger Turkish sides, play some more European football and then finish back at Birmingham. If Saints don’t ask for much of a fee, the wage differentials might be OK. I’m happy to trust the club on Barkley - if they feel he still has appetite to play top level football and can help a young squad then he could add a lot further forward in midfield and contribute goals. No question of his quality or ability. Depends how fit he has kept at Chelsea before the compromise agreement was reached. His behaviour has allegedly been questionable in the past and there were rumours that some of Les Reed’s signings led youngsters like Obafemi off the rails so the club would have to be convinced that Barkley has turned a corner and wants to leave the bars and clubs alone.

Pretty much how I see the window - very positive overall but a big risk if Adams gets injured or goes off the boil. Hopefully with only 13 games until January we avoid that and the strengthened defence should help. We look tighter at the back than last season and before that.

As the club really wanted James Maddison and Quincy Promes. All I’m saying is that transfer activity has been miles better under SR and that the Les Reed ‘oh well, we tried’ I don’t think will be the outcome either way. If we have alternative/s which adds some pace, half a dozen goals in that position it keeps us in the league for a good fee then hopefully the farm isn’t resting on recruiting one player in that key area. It might be that PSV get an offer for Sangare and don’t sell Gapko. It doesn’t suit the SR business model being in a public auction but Gapko might have made a connection with Shields or Ralph and decide to join despite Leeds seeming interest.

I don’t know, SR have carried on the Saints way (one of the better ones) of doing things in more of a quiet way and I can’t see them finding PSV’s auction tactics to raise immediate funds very edifying. I wouldn’t be surprised if it suits them as a smokscreen behind which to be working on another advanced big winger/striker/10 deal in the background or to have personal terms agreed with a few players in that space. The new DoF operates differently and SR will know that not recruiting that area is a huge risk as the chance creation/finishing is still not fully PL standard.