Lord Duckhunter

The more I think about it, the more questions arise. I can’t for the life of me believe his agent will advise playing in the World Cup as a free agent, not with his injury record. Of course he could could score 2 or 3 goals and boost his options off the back of it, but seriously, that maybe worth the risk if he’s Larin or Ivan Toney, but FFS, surely he won’t take that risk. Based on that, he’s either playing hardball to squeeze some more from us, or he’s got a watertight contract signed elsewhere, but not announced yet. What is the score with a medical, will he need one to get a new deal from us, I presume not. I can’t see Steve Clarke wanting him to go off for a medical, or the fall out if he fails it. Therefore based on this logic, and the fact there’s been no hint of interest elsewhere or no rumours of a medical, my confident prediction is a new Saints deal will be announced/ signed prior to Scotlands first game.

That was the point I was making dopey.

Clearly not the clubs fault (if you take the spying bit away). From what I understand it wasn’t an open ended “you can extend the contract anytime up until 5 days after the last game”. It was a specific “in the 5 days following the last game”. The only way we could have resigned him before we were chucked out, would have been on different terms. It’s pretty hard to get a deal done when you don’t know which league you’re be in, & by the time we knew, the deadline had passed.

It’s a pony hipster phrase, but I’ll use it. His “ceiling” is what we’ll be losing, rather than what he’s actually producing week in week out. He’s not a guaranteed starter, was left out of big games, and personally I find him a bit too lackadaisical sometimes. But there’s no doubt there’s a talent in there. As disappointing as it will be to lose him, we’re strong in that area and Flynn Downes, despite being less talented, would probably be more of a miss. If he won’t sign a new contract, and we need to shift someone on, it makes sense it’s him.

Disappointing if he leaves, especially as we had a clause, I guess we were waiting until we knew which league we’d be in. Can’t blame him or his agents, it’s business and we’d have binned him at the end of the season if we wanted to. I liked Ross, think he’s a quality player….. when fit. And that’s the issue, we didn’t have a lot of choice, we had to manage him and his minutes through our great run. We have a choice now, we have time to get a replacement in. Somebody who can play 3 games a week if needed (say Larin got sent off & 3 game ban/ injury). We got lucky really, in that we could manage his minutes, we may not be so lucky next season. Whilst I’d rather we kept him, it’s not the end of the world if he moves on.

I had some drying paint that needed watching instead. It’s a load of old pony, was bad enough when Dimbleby was presenting, it’s unwatchable with the dopey 6 Pinter from Antique’s roadshow. It’s question time, the clue is in the name. The audience should ask questions and then STFU. It’s as bad as those Vox pops the broadcasters are obsessed with. Who cares what Sally from Barnet thinks about the budget or how it will affect her family life? So no, I didn’t.

I don’t think watching question time is quite the intellectual measure you think it is. It hasn’t been a serious political programme for years. Horrendous host, no mark politicians, and a bunch of middle class twats in the audience. The fact the BBC seem to think it’s a flagship programme says it all.

Soggy & his lunchtime buddies will be…

Stop trying to make out we’re fickle and are always criticising keepers. Baz is damn lucky he played for us rather than some other clubs whose supporters would have turned on him a lot earlier and with a lot more clog. He’s pony. He is by far the worse keeper I’ve seen who has played more than a dozen games, and that’s any keeper not just Saints ones. If Stoke sign him their supporters will be livid, that’s how atrocious he is. People who were banging the “he’s good enough for the championship drum, will now be banging the “he’s good enough as back up” drum. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now. He’s as out of his depth and useless as Damion Downs, you wouldn’t want him as your backup striker, and we don’t want Baz as our back up keeper.

This is a big big statement. Not so much to other clubs supporters , but to our fan base. I genuinely thought if we didn’t go up we’d see Baz, or some journeyman in nets next season. Even if spygate didn’t happen, I couldn’t see this bloke hanging around the championship, he’s better than that. To some extent THB, Jander, even Leo, are replaceable, but a keeper of his quality isn’t unless we were going to keep Ramsdale onboard. The fact that most would prefer him over Ramsdale, tells you how good he is. Now let’s get a solid number 2 in, because Baz has proved over and over that he’s not at the required level. We need an average championship keeper as back up to a great one (as in great for that league) , it won’t cost a lot and should be easy to get onboard. Ship Baz out, although I doubt anyone will touch him above league 2 level, or he’ll be an adequate number 3

That’ll depend on who stays/signs. I’ll be amazed if we’re favourites, it’s going to be a tough tough league next season. One thing I’ll guarantee, there won’t be pony sides like Millwall, Boro or Hull in the play offs. This season was a massive opportunity, which we fucked right up.

The triple lock was brought in to rebalance it back to where it was before Maggie abolished the link to average earnings in 1980. No Government since reversed that decision, and combined with Brown’s destruction of DB private sector pensions, meant a lot of pensioners were poor and getting worse. For all the criticism of the triple lock, it did what was intended, which was to bring it back to where it would have been had, Maggie not changed it. One of the coalitions better policies imo. I’d now link it to the tax threshold. Make it £1,2570 and peg it to the threshold you start paying tax. There’s no way any Government won’t increase the pension, but by doing so they will have to abandon the worst thing in our horrendous tax policy, fiscal drag. It’s utterly immoral that someone is so poor they don’t pay tax one year, but due to a cost of living pay rise, they pay tax the following one. They’re still just as poor in real terms. Link the pension to that figure , and it’s a win win.

Who got a £200m sanction?

This will be the 2026 version of the “no money” note.

I imagine the 2 we copped to were provable. The alternative view is. Everybody is doing it, and Tonda didn’t know it was illegal. Being a man of detail, a man obsessed with small tactical opportunities & plans, I’m surprised if he thought it was totally legal he only did it against 3 teams, especially if everyone else is doing it. That’s why I think he’s spouting pony and not being 100% truthful . If he genuinely thought it was allowed, he’d have done it more than 3 friggin times.