Richard

I wasn’t particularly thinking about jobs more about a society which is systemically biased towards heterosexual white males. Whether positive discrimination (or negative discrimination against aforementioned) would counteract that I don’t know

Positive discrimination in favour of non-white males is needed because throughout everyday life white men gain numerous small advantages (so-called white privilege/male privilege) compared to others. An example would be not being immediately judged by someone based on your appearance like a woman may, or having someone assume you are in a position of inferiority because of your gender or ethnicity. I think it’s often very difficult to notice these things as a white man (myself included) because you aren’t used to such everyday discrimination. Anyway ironically I actually came in this thread to say that Thierry Henry is a vastly overrated pundit who rarely says anything of worth

A Manchester city esq 4-3-3 with Matty James in the de bruyne role

I’d guess we expected stoke to get the ball into box a lot towards Diouf hence Morgan for his superior aerial ability and a Simpson for his back post defending. James and a N’didi to sit and protect against the counter hoping gray/Mahrez/albrighton/Vardy to create something. With hindsight it’s clear there wasn’t enough creativity in that side and were desperate for a proper no.10 who can get on the ball and create further up the pitch. That would be my attempt at rationalising our setup. Also credit where it’s due stoke set up well and did their jobs perfectly. They could have won if it wasn’t for a goalkeeping clanger. Lambert’s them well organised and working hard, they’re a different prospect to Stoke under Hughes

Kasper’s one of the worst for this

Neville’s commentary of the final was ludicrous. “You don’t walk at Wembley”? Absolute shit. I’m sure if you had the time/resources you’d find plenty of instances of Neville walking on the halfway line when Giggs had the ball in the opposite corner. Hes is not gonna be running around in circles because he darent stop because he’s at Wembley. And he did that stupid debate few months back with Henry Winter et al about how poor football journalism is and Winter rightly put him in his place.

To me if it were to be implemented it should be solely at the referees discretion. If a referee or linesman aren’t 100% sure of something for example offiside or contact in the box, they can refer the decision to the 4th official who could have access to a tv/iPad/whatever, have a quick look and then feedback to the referee. It should be another ‘tool’ the referee uses (like spray and Hawkeye) to try and get the right decision. No appeals process open to manipulation, no mystery omnipotent person hidden away in some studio, it just gives the referee a chance to ‘check’ if they are aren’t sure like the ref wanted to in the Liverpool v Tottenham few weeks back. And referees should be given the chance to give a statement after the game if they’ve made a mistake.

Perhaps we should follow the West Ham model, clearly all these African players are disrupting the great band of English brothers

Absolutely. Now there is video technology there’s an expectation that every single decision has to be ‘correct’ - I use inverted commas here because often there is no objective correct decision. Referees are are under even more pressure to get everything right and as such if there’s even .1% doubt in their mind they’ll consult VAR, it’s definitely been used for more types of decisions than it should have done already

For any meaningful comparison you should really compare the 2 players at similar stages of their development. At age 21 (He’s almost exactly 4 years older than Chilwell) Schlupp was a rotational player at left back with Paul Konchesky and at left midfield with Lloyd Dyer in the Championship winning season. By the end of that season Schlupp had made 75 senior appearances, none of them coming at Premier League level having a made 1 sub appearance with Ghana. At age 21, Ben Chilwell is a rotational player with Christian Fuchs for a top 8 premier league side. He’s made 35 senior appearances, 27 of which coming in the Premier League and 8 England u21 caps. Im not making any case here either way just pointing out it’s unfair to compare 2016 premier league winner Jeff Schlupp with today’s Ben Chilwell. At the same age, Schlupp had never played a premier league match, which is not the be all and end all of a players quality but still needs to be considered. All stats taken from Wikipedia.

Not so much a crap player but I went to a Swedish mates house last year and he was wearing a t-shirt with nils-Eric johansson’s face on it. Couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Apparently on leaving us he became a cult hero at AIK

Kevin Ellison, guy branston we we had a midfielder late 90s called Wilson too? edit: yep Stuart Wilson and my Wikipedia trawling came up with this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sascha_Lenhart

I could see Mendy getting a chance in pre season. Played with Puel before, and nobody will be willing to pay the £13m we paid If if anyone wants them could see Musa, slimani, ulloa, king, James, benalouane, kapustka, mendy, jakupovic going. Unlikely to get offers for all of them though. Huth will retire, Hamer won’t get a new deal, Morgan and Fuchs will see out their final year can’t see them getting new deals

I await David Conn's opinion on this

I spent some time in Argentina back end of last year and the general consensus there was that yes Messi is an outstanding player but he's not considered on the same level as Maradona, and never will be unless he wins the world cup this year. Maradona, at least in the eyes of the Argentinians I spoke with, won't be surpassed and is almost a demigod

A quick wiki search shows he’s 1 year ahead development wise than Danny Rose was at his age. Definitely has a lot to work on but the potential is there

Is that really an environment you would like to send your kids to though? It would just normalise the use of guns in everyday life even more

Just at a basic level, money that is being raised/donated to further women’s rights/gender equality/combatting gender based violence being spent on prostitues is frankly disgusting. As said above, I don’t particularly think charity execs are paid too much. They have a very difficult and stressful job and compared to salaries of private companies it’s pittance. Yes it is somewhat expected to earn less in this sector, but there’s still a baseline pay required to attract people - it can’t just rely on altruism.

http://www.marca.com/en/football/spanish-football/2018/02/13/5a835f6de2704ed7658b45cb.html 2 years prison (usually suspended for first time offenders in Spain) and 6 yearban. Ander Herrera and Gabi also involved

It’s pretty incredible how he’s developed these players over such a short space of time, making only 1 signing himself.

Do any other countries have 2 domestic cups? I know Copa del Rey is 2 legged but don’t think that’s so competitive as the FA cup for example. I assumed that was why we need to play more games over the festive period.

Never seen a pro so honoured to be made captain of the u23s #yb29pablopicasso

Since the Kante debacle seems the owners are keen to show we won't be messed around. Clubs will know not to piss around with low-ball offers because we aren't going to entertain them. Still can't see Mahrez being worth less than £55m in the summer anyway

It's £65m which includes a player of Man City's valuation, which the City forums seem to think is Patrick Roberts. I would guess that means £50-55m cash plus Patrick Roberts Edit: Now Merc saying it's 65m + a player

tbf so do Derby and he's definitely a basket case