rallyboy

I'm not a rabid Ralph Out sort of guy, but questions now have to be asked. The squad looks stronger and we've played well in games and got nothing, which is okay for a couple, but if you're judged to be playing well and still dropping like a stone there is clearly a problem. Yep, your season doesn't get decided by games against Chelsea and Man City, but it fucking does if you lose at home to teams as poor as Wolves. There is an unsavoury hint of Claude about some of our play now, add in the lack of goalscoring threat and trouble is ahead. Simple plan - we must win the next game. No excuses about missing players or being unlucky or playing well - three points is all that counts. Please Ralph, turn it round.

There should be a mature debate about whether Brexit is working and if the current situation is just short term pain, or if anyone feels this was not what they believed they were voting for. I've seen a couple of Leavers regretting it, but there seems to be a huge majority of them that believe for their own reasons that what we have now has made Great Britain a better place. Others might politely suggest that the facts indicate otherwise and our skies are currently filled with chickens coming home.

A big day for Ralph, if we get a thumping he must be in big trouble. Something has to change - formation, line-up, luck, manager, or all four. But he has been here before after the first 9-0. I'd have been one game from sacking him back then and he turned it around, if he can do it again, it needs to start now.

Who would have thought that building your defence around Vestergaard and Bertrand could lead to problems? Easy mistake to make. Once.

Surely we didn't put that much in the buckets?

Have we Built Back Better yet?

Talking of MPs not telling it like it is, people don't want to hear reality, they want to be told about unicorns and sunny uplands. Remember when leadership candidate Rory Stewart told the party that he felt the country needed to be careful about any fallout from the world economy because we were still in difficult times, and that it was no time to reduce taxes? - they fucking hated hearing reality and went for the floppy-balding Joker with his cheerfully mad talk of us being first in line for the easiest trade deals in history and holding all the cards because we lead the world in every field of human endeavour....batshit crazy nonesense.

Most political campaigns, be they for Brexit or an election, are often in reality only aimed at maybe half of the electorate. Take the next election, there could be approx 20% of people who will always vote one way and another 20% who will always vote the other. Very little will change these people's minds, the PM could be murdering puppies or Starmer could be tossing off farm animals and the two sets of entrenched supporters will still find a way to blame the other party. So the likes of Cummings and other campaign managers don't bother messaging that 40-50% as it's a waste of time, those voters are already in the bag or lost, the real target is the less-informed and less engaged voter in the middle, the casual easily-led. Show enough of them a shiny bus of mad shit and your work is done - this demographic don't really do politics, have no real interest, and often can't grasp the connection between their vote and their lives, hence the self-harm of some industries like fishing and farming. And if you think that sounds patronising, you need to get out more and meet the public, or read their social media. There are people out there who don't know anything about the issues but their vote is equal to yours, which is fine, but some of them use it like a fucking hand grenade and then walk away, often not even realising that the damage was done by them. The bus was aimed at those people, and whether you liked it or not, it was a stroke of marketing genius, big letters, simple message, dismissed by anyone with half a brain, but gleefully gobbled down by the disinterested. The sad new way to win elections is to promise crazy stuff which you can never deliver, but make sure have an oven-ready excuse to sell to the key 50% of voters when you inevitably fail. They will forgive you, because they've probably forgotten what you promised anyway.

That chat did look good-natured, but the referee engaging in debate with Walker and allowing the player to join in during the decision-making process was out of order.

This Moss defence seems to be that if a defender trips a forward, the forward is to blame as he has shinned the defender's foot...or in this case, Armstrong hipped Walker's thigh while obstructing the city defender from getting anywhere near the ball, a ball he was attempting to shield from behind Armstrong..... So Moss is no clown, he's just introduced the concept of distanced-shielding when not in possession, and he's reinventing the concept of foul play. The guy is a trailblazer, one of the great thinkers of the modern game. Definitely not a clown.

A neutral observer could even suggest there was no great reason for reviewing the red card - did that really look like a genuine attempt to play the ball? It had all the hallmarks of there's a player through on the keeper, I'll desperately lunge at him from behind just to prevent a goal and take my chances with the ref. I wasn't especially impressed with Moss making time to discuss it with the already-dismissed Walker before he went to the monitor either.

What a player, scoring goals in an era of awful pitches and leg-breaking tackles.

On the bright side, Boris has finally broken up the worst performing, integrity-free, over-promoted, corruption-riddled, sycophantic UK cabinet in living memory. You have to feel sorry for the PM, he must have been seething at whoever the dithering simpleton was who appointed them all, but with top quality performers like Truss now in control of really important stuff, I'm sure things will improve. Her performance on trade deals has certainly highlighted how good she is.

He has a point about Nige's reign, it was depressing. I remember everyone angrily storming the pitch to attack the team, two seasons running. The players had to hide in the stand to avoid the angry mob chanting abuse. Terrible times.

I keep hearing how Antonio is the strongest forward about and will bully defenders - well he came to the wrong place today! We roughed him up, muscled him off the ball, played him out of the game and eventually off the pitch. Nice job. Organised, strong, so much better than last season.

No point, some twat would crash into it.

I had the misfortune of witnessing Yorkshire batting yesterday, it went on forever, way beyond what was required as everyone knew they needed 300 maximum to win the game. Delaying that declaration cost them a simple victory, it was bonkers. That picture in reality is the fielders gathering around the captain to ask him how on earth he converted total dominance into a draw. Oh dear, how sad, never mind. 🤡

a studded lunge missing the ball - not covered by normal penalty awards so should have been a red card as well?

It's a good read - I learned some interesting stuff about a couple of players in particular, and managers....and Cortese! 😲

It was worth the refunded entry money alone just to see him clatter into that soppy whinger and rob him for our goal. Left him in a little sobbing heap.

I didn't notice Ole or the United players highlighting the half a dozen refereeing mistakes in one game that enabled them to score nine. When they occasionally get an official who doesn't give them every single decision, it must come as a bit of a shock. Bless. Welcome to our fucking world.

It's always good to hear the thoughts of Jason King. And I miss On the Buses.

That league is over bar the shouting, they'd better order up the open-top bus now and get a ground extension with dedicated overland train station and integrated conference centre hotel facility sorted asap! Eisner's pledge to be competing with Man City, Barcelona and Juventus in nine years time has finally launched and looks ahead of schedule.

Two individual errors meets failure to change tactics? Salisu will not make that mistake again in a hurry, but Stephens has been around long enough not to go to sleep in that situation. They need to wake up or we're in for another season of playing Spot the Three Shitter Teams. Even without Mike Dean running the show United will be a proper test...

He offers a goal threat in both boxes.