st albans fox

Psr actually encourages clubs to go out and get the best young kids at 16/17. It’s a business plan. Those who are good enough can be sold on at 100% profit (see Man City and Chelsea over recent years) and those who are exceptional will get to the first team squad. Those who aren’t good enough will just be ‘chucked away’ and find their way to the lower leagues. we presumably do the same to championship and league 1 academies ?? It’s the food chain but PSR has made it worse cos the big six have realised how much money can be made from it.

I’d agree, but at the moment, I don’t believe europe has the supplies to take it on now. (And would any country in Europe take on a war with Russia - there is no political will to do so from what I’ve seen).

My ‘don’t know’ revolved around whether the alternative was a full on switch to support putin. Trumps bully boy blackmail tactics are pretty obvious. What isn’t is how far he actually goes to ensure he gets them. we’ve seen him row back a bit on a couple things already - and then swing back again on others. He’s extremely unpredictable which also helps his negs tactics in a diplomatic world which isn’t used to that approach from the no 1 world power.

Well we don’t know for sure it’s all about the deal and it’s clear that trump will do pretty much anything to ensure he gets his way when he’s ‘holding the cards’ The minerals deal has been agreed for a couple of weeks apparently - the security guarantees are the issue. we will see just how far putin is being asked to move when serious negs begin over a ceasefire and subsequent peace deal. I would think it won’t be very far! But that’s also where time comes into the equation and if Europe is willing to spend what’s necessary to be a viable guarantor then maybe that’s why trump won’t commit to becoming a backstop at this stage. If he did then he’s playing a card he doesn’t want to - especially at this stage.

Dunno - doubt it’s quite as stark as latter but they wouldn’t say it isn’t in order to blackmail them into signing it with time absolutely but ukraine doesn’t have that. Whilst they will say in public that they have sufficient stocks to carry six months, I’ve seen various reports yesterday that say this will have an effect within a week in some areas of the conflict. I’d say that the response of Kyiv within 24 hours of trump announcing the pause says everything

We don’t have the collective military strength to support ukraine - and despite the public message of taking the strain , I think the Europeans are clearly not willing to force trump to dump NATO you can’t just turn on a tap to produce masses of arms and defence systems.

Zelenskyy posted earlier that he’s ready to sign it asap - it’s said that he would have done so on Friday if he hadn’t been shown the door in Washington. I think it’s a formality unless he tries to link it to security guarantees again.

Rumours that trump wants the minerals deal signed before 2am gmt so he can announce it in his address to congress this evening

And a ten euro fine from Switzerland…..

Trudeau states that reciprocal tarrifs will apply trump tweets that in that case, the tarrifs into the us will increase by the reciprocal tarrif can’t wait for it to be our turn ! what do we actually export to the states that they don’t really need cos they could make there ??

Didn’t starmer/macron speak about a 20k force of peace keepers ??

We’ll it certainly asks the question that why would he be discussing a peace keeping force when he’s already started that the minerals deal offers all the security that ukraine needs with US workers there (history shows enough occasions when both US civilians and troops have been killed without any effective response from the US govt) and also that putin should be trusted to keep his word. if that’s true then what difference who is there to observe the peace ??

Perhaps this reveals that the US administration has already accepted that nato troops won’t be allowed there and it would have to be some UN force.

I wonder what happens to Vance if trump sees a better option to take on his crown - I could see Vance being chucked under the bus at some point. I’m thinking he’s raising his profile as much as he can (where it matters) to try and make that too tricky for trump to do.

Observation on what is happening shouldn’t be confused with personal views

India perhaps China - nope usa is still a democracy and that counts for a lot. The trump approach to diplomacy is a big problem here - it’s just not how things are done. all at a hundred miles an hour and in public. if this was all being said behind closed doors as used to be the case then how different would things seem ? that doesn’t affect the apparent scenario where it seems Moscow is not being asked to make any concessions of note - but again, we wouldn’t know about that until after the event and after the bar had moved back from where it currently sits. (The polish border!) I reckon trump is wanting everything on the table before negs start. Pretty much nothing is off the table (apart from russian territorial integrity and Ukraine not in nato) cos that affects his ability to move things around to get putin to say yes. Washington wants to do business in Russia to try and move them away from Beijing - ukraine is in the way of that and the 4 oblasts + crimea will be sacrificed to that end. about a year ago I posted that zelensky should think about some realpolitik and perhaps make a peace settlement on the basis of losing some of the eastern areas and a small land bridge to crimea (also lost) because no one knew what might happen if trump was to win. did he basically bet on the democrats winning ? If so that could be one of the biggest losing bets in history.

I assume that goes without saying but discussions on here from a strategic perspective shouldn’t need to add these caveats. geo politics is a generally a pretty ethically grim place. If you speak to an educated Chinese person then they’ll likely tell you that nato is an aggressive entity. We see it as defensive. Evidence isn't totally clear is it? it’s time for a grown up discussion across Europe about raising taxation to spend on defence.

Are the Americans (trump) just making a call that they’ve decided to move their attention (and resources) to the indo pacific region because they think europe is wealthy enough to protect itself. They’ll dump ukraine as collateral damage - trump only cares about the deal - not the fairness of the deal. He’s moving the bar so far pre negs that a deal now that leaves the battle lines pretty much as they are will seem acceptable to many. Suspect he’ll get Russia to agree to pull back in some areas that don’t matter strategically or financially to make it seem like they’re giving something. I think the Europeans (and previous administration) have always told zelensky that he shouldn’t agree to any negs that gives an inch of ground to Russia from the starting point. That was probably his demeanour last Friday pre the press sit down which led to bill and Ben engineering that scene in the Oval Office.

Is it a myth that we used to see more players coming into pro football in their late teens/early twenties from non league ? We know the famous ones but I wonder if the numbers are similar to what they’ve always been or if the academies scouting networks are so well organised nowadays that it’s pretty much impossible for someone to slip through the grass roots net (unless they’ve suffered a chronic injury issue up 15/16 y o which has stunted their development)

Who would be seriously concerned about an attack from Finland or Sweden ?

Surprised that he wasn’t picked up by Watford, Luton, Stevenage/ MK academies. Assume arsenal and spurs passed on him. The scouting around south Herts is very extensive given the number of pl/chamlionship academies within twenty miles.

We don’t want to lose American tourism - we need every penny we can get. We’d be better taxing people who want to go there on holiday (more than we already do)

I’m guessing we deleted his contact details in a fit of pique !

Big Sam would take one look at our defenders and stay retired

Walnuts! Could have started somewhere easy like my iPhone ……