melmacian_saint

If Brighton get promoted, that will be three South Coast clubs in the Premier League- a record no doubt! It's remarkable just how much they have fallen down the coastal footballing pyramid- from only team capable of having a sniff at our dominance to League Two nobodies via a spectacular fall from grace. On another note, the PL's shift south has become quite impressive in the last few years. I know London skews the numbers but surely there has never been a time where there have been this many clubs south of Nottingham?

What are Plymouth playing at?

Don't know about child neglect, but obstruction to justice (not sure of the legal language around it) and contempt should definitely be part of the list.

This is pretty accurate, though it is comparable in the sense that right now it is a homegrown problem, like those evolved to become. The damage is done and really as long as certain countries are powerful economically it will be impossible to really deal with the problem, which is why I'm rather pessimistic about the future, in the EU or not. It's not like our "close allies" in the region that fund these movements in the most spectacular, long-standing geopolitical backstabbing in history will cease being so if we leave. If we move to suppress that economic power, or humiliate them, we can certainly expect attacks like this on a close to monthly basis. Then again, it will always become more violent before things improve.

Lovren has found his way at Liverpool but not at a better standard than when he was with us. Undeniably, after a couple of years it's becoming clear that selling all this players was not that bad after all.

Amazing stuff!!! COYS Probably the best 2nd half in St.Mary's existence.

The EFTA would be a great project to reactivate. Back in the day it was a competitor to the EC, and indeed produced excellent results for about 15 years. It was a curious alliance as well. Aside from Norway & Switzerland, and Ireland which was in economic union with the UK anyway, there was also Portugal, Sweden, Denmark & Austria. I know for a fact it was responsible for Portugal becoming one of the fastest-growing nations in the 60s. However, it seems to have become obsolete with the Single European Act and Maastricht (and the creation of the EEA). It has very little legislative power (free trade deals, which are subject to massive EU market restrictions and own trade agreement rules anyway) and I can honestly see the EU forcing its members to join at some point.

It was very telling of the future of the EU to see Merkel sitting at a throne in Istanbul alongside that traitor Erdogan, speaking in the name of the whole of the EU but with a German flag on the table next to the Turkish one. As it was to see the leader of its coalition partners visit Putin. Even more telling when you see Greece, bankrupt and demonized beyond reasonability, being given deadlines to sort out the longest, maritime yet continental border but Turkey, a powerful economy, is given €3bn with no guarantee of implementation other than expelling refugees in its camps using rubber bullets. If the UK leaves, the EU will turn to Moscow and Istanbul. Groups, ethnicities and nationalities will be prioritized over others and there will be tears like always. Europe's only hope may be that Russia, like in the past, turns their back on the other two.

The Commonwealth talk is a bit misguided IMO. People forget that, in 1975, this wonderful association of true Anglos that we led was in fact a massive, increasing burden for the UK, one that we had decided to fund whatever the weather post-WWII as other nations recovered and invested heavily in fostering their economic tissue. As global trade increased, maintaining Commonwealth agreements over more economically-sensible ones was destroying the competitiveness of the British economy and of key industries and massively hindering consumer spending, irrationally driving wages up (which was facilitated by the strong trade unions of then). People also forget that we took out an IMF bailout loan in 1976 (Yeup- like those dirty Irish, or Greeks) because we were effectively going bust from keeping the whole show going. Then, there wasn't much good to say about the Commonwealth- public opinion was perhaps influenced by decolonization movements across the world, but really the most developed territories (ANZ, Canada) were effectively subsidized provinces, and the remainder was falling into political and economic turmoil. The pound was in terrible shape. The Commonwealth now might sound appealing, but how much of it was to do with the commodities boom we've experienced in the 2000s? And even then, how much power will the UK actually have in these countries. We a service-based, net importer while most are natural resource, net exporters...

The EFTA is doomed to cease to exist, sooner or later. Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and the little tax heaven are de facto members of the EU, and are bullied accordingly by its institutions. Having said this, the signing of the TTIP (which will definitely by accelerated after this) will probably erase the rationale for many of the EU institutions, and the existence of the EU itself for most members, especially those outside of the monetary/financial union.

Speaking of, I think I've missed, but what is wrong with Davis?

Bompey would make sense if Bournemouth were an elevator club. Given the period when the name came about, it does not make sense. Having said that, I hope Bournemouth demolish them. Anything less than 3-0 at half-time is keeping them alive.

Ohh look who's back. Bad luck for Cork junior, that looked like a foul in the run up for Oxford's 3rd...

I remember Chambers having a few wobbly games before starting to ask questions of Clyne. It's a matter of approach, and manager mentality- Pochettino, for all our dull possession game, is just more brave and dynamic than Koeman. And there's no better reflection of that than the fact that we signed one player who had already been under MP, who funnily enough couldn't make it to the starting 11 and left soon, while with Koeman we have been signing his own ex-players plus others from a league he knows, and they play every week. We were a better side when MP left than when he joined. I'm not sure we are going to be better when RK leaves than when he joined. And if you start tracking these little things, it's easy to see why, and it's not just about selling players.

He is a good player, but he does not have the intensity or physicality to take on a role similar to Schneiderlin's.

So Clasie (who you go on to praise, I'm assuming because there's no one else) can't run with the ball past the midfield line, yet Davis (only midfielder who can) is a liability. He lost the ball yesterday, but how many players did we have behind him and in front of Puncheon?? We were playing with FIVE defenders, none of whom were out of position. And what kind of defender passes a ball straight down the middle with the front 3 of the opposition closing down? I know it's the obvious mistake that gets punished the most and rightly so, but let's be honest about this and see that the whole minute building up to the goal is a perfect show of how the team really does not work under this abhorrent Dutch obsession of 5-3-2.

Good but with no potential to improve. I think it's safe to say we have seen the best of all of them.

We would have to know what is the situation around scouting right now. If Mane, Tadic and Pelle were the best we could find (I somehow doubt it), then something is wrong. If the manager decided to go for some signings over others, then something is also wrong, as it shows that there are people in the club that don't trust some of its staff.

People say he has a good sense of humor, but it seems to me that he is rather toxic. Looking for excuses as to why he (and only he) can't do his job, complaining about the academy, Mane and Wanyama... I don't think he has any future past June.

He is not a good manager and I'm glad this forum has quickly dumped the idea that it was the board's fault that he would leave us for something better, which according to some was only a matter of time. Instead, it is the board's fault to have signed him and worse, to have trusted him, a sub-par coach with a mediocre curriculum, with managerial roles such as signings. Now we have the PL Eredivisie society plus a number of futures with potential to become average players, and an academy that is officially not trusted by its most important gatekeeper.

Is that 71 pounds to sit on the away end of an IKEA-designed box of matches in a sordid little grief hole in deepest darkest Denmark? Football is dead.

I still think we have an OK squad, but the truth is that we have not improved, and our previous water-carriers and team-making "gel" are being asked to be the stars, something they are not. Our signings under RK, most of which are already playing at the top of their game, aren't really top 10 level. Most of them have had a total of about 6 months worth of impact and have shown no signs of being able to improve on past performances. To top that off, we are struggling to keep discipline and players now see us as a steeping stone to better things more than a club to progress. It's not that we weren't always going to be the former, but the latter was also true of Lovrens, Clynes and Schneiderlins. Somehow I don't think Mane sees us like that, and Wanyama is no longer the same. Not only he is clearly desperate for a move away, the absence of Schneiderlin's defensive collaboration has made him much less disciplined and he is making many more rash decisions. The sending off yesterday is a sign of both tiredness, loss of tactical awareness and recklessness, and it was crucial to the outcome. Before that, and after we had missed a couple of sitters and they had missed their chances, the game was sleepwalking to a 0-0 draw and the sending of our DM encouraged Norwich on again. I don't think we are in a relegation battle, but our form suggests we will always be one bad result away from being dragged into a position where we start worrying about those behind us, and that is a dangerous position, especially if away games like this one don't go our way. I'm particularly worried about trips to Swansea and Bournemouth. Those are the kind of games that will move us away from trouble or push us into it, where intensity dominates over quality or tactics, and we don't seem to be very good at them. I don't think we are in a relegation battle- our form suggests we can have a season

See this is not new. Koeman did not have it easy at Valencia or Benfica, but soon after things started going badly there he often turned against someone, either the press or some players. And he also got very furious publicly. I think this can be very poisonous for everyone who he is working with. It seems to me that he feels more comfortable with showing out that he is trying his best and no else is than just staying calm and adopting a more protective stance, and being a bit assertive. This shows that he is constantly more concerned with protecting himself above everyone else, which really isn't the best thing a leader can do. I was never too much of a fan of him, and as time goes by, I realize that his task really was to assure some continuity to a project that while more modest in ambitions, showed no signs of decline. Time is showing that his performance was better when his hand in things was yet to be visible, and while he may not have had much to do with the departure of many players, I think we are realising that there is a reason why we don't attract more than potentially average talent and his ex-players. I think Koeman really needs us more than we may end up needing him.

Considering they won the league for the first time last season, hardly a tragedy!

Didn't their owner at the time run into some money troubles and hence their demise?