Chelmofox

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As did the mighty Barry Bannon 1st game of the season. Fatawu should have been sent off for his first game against us but the ref was far more lenient with him that day. It happens. Hes good enough. Straight back in the squad please and give him minute from the first game.

That's assuming that the current pathway gets us to AGI. I'm yet to be convinced. Even the best models fail at the simplest tasks (try and get one to translate content at scale but demand it cant go over certain character limits - its hell). The newest Generative models get more interesting for sure. For all the sycophantic posting what you see for Gemini 3, GPT5+ etc, they are largely doing the same things slightly better (geting sick of seeing a 'Ive just created a Netflix clone' post!). I was vibe coding a throw away project today using 2 LLMs, and both only got key things right on the 3rd/4th attempt (i actually gave up with Gemini). It wasnt a simple scenario, but each time they both initially called deprecated methods in libraries that were owned by the LLM's vendors. Anything that has level of system integration or interdependencies is pretty hard for GenAI. I cant imagine just giving that task to anyone for a long time. I am working closely with a Google team building out an Agentic solution for our business. Its been a fascinating project and we are working with alpha versions of agentic toolkits. Some of what we can do absolutely shocks me. Some of what the agents can appear to understand has left me gobsmacked. We've produced things in minutes that has taken our teams days to put together, and we are only just starting. But, you cannot stop these things going into what we call 'Darren mode', or Hallucinating and being absolutely dumb. I've sat with the Google team whilst we witnessed an Agent (using the latest and greatest) just make any old data up and pretend to run code, even though its core prompts forbid it and the framework caught it. When we interacted with it is completely bullsh**ted us. We then spun up a new instance of the Agent and it ran perfectly. Guys from Google just shrugged their shoulders. We have to build non GenAI guardrails around this, which is fine, but is to some degree defeating the purpose. Im not sure i want GenAI agents managing my banking transactions. Even using the very latest (best ever!) model Google has made available, I still cant see this all running without people running the shop, and this just being something that helps things run faster. People will have to pick up the slack for a long time in my opinion. The next versions of the same models are likely going to be bigger / bolder / costlier versions of the same thing. And i think that is going to carry on until either something goes pop (maybe OpenAI is the first to drop?) meaning efficiency becomes the key driver, or someone has something new which renders GenAI obsolete and the pathway to AGI redirects (im not sure there is any evidence of this). The problem then is all the investment in GenAI has likely been a gigantic white elephant, and many will be looking to get their money back. I suppose that's a long way of me saying 'i don't know'. What i can say, for all the impressive outputs we've been able to do with this project, it's been the least satisfying thing ive ever worked on, and certainly stressed me out the most. I don't think im alone in thinking that. Playing around with it is fun, trying to get it to be a reliable asset for your business - tough.

All they need to do is press Vestergaard and Winks. For some reason Stoke didnt. All play will go through those 2 and they will give the ball away giving plenty of times giving lots of chances.

Love the fact i cant get a signal at the KP.

Surely if he has any integrity his first job is to sack Lance Stroll?

Russell f****g Martin. And you know full well they would do it.

Im not grumbling about Enzo - i didnt want him sacked at the time. Wish he had stayed to see how it could have progressed, and was dismayed with his replacement. Im merely pointing out that when you look at things, our rot starting during his season. We won the league because of the fantastic start but we very nearly blew it as we stumbled across the line. I dont think we have really recovered from that slump, which was largely due to teams working out how to play against us.

For a long stretch our form was lower mid table. Lots calling for him to get the sack. How quickly that was all forgotten.

I actually think Marti wants to attack more. We were doing this against Southampton and were the far more aggressive team until they went ahead. Then the players just retreat into their shells. With lurch at the center of our backline, attacking with a higher line means we are going to get screwed. Faes is a good blocker of the ball but poor when tracking back as well, as you saw for their 2nd goal. If we get a manager who is going to go all out attack, i think we will get massacred until we can rebuild the squad. I dont know what the answer is, but id rather not get rid of Marti and just go for more of the same.

Yes, my non data driven gut feel is that our keepers this season have been worked far harder than Mads was 1st half of Enzo season. We have continued the pattern we set in the Premier League.

Did Hermansen save 10 more goals, or was out GD better by 10 ? Its a very important distinction, because in the first phase of the Enzo season everything clicked for the perspective of controlling the game, and we conceded very little. But i never attributed this to Mads making 10 more saves than Jakub. From memory, our stats this season have seen us create very little and concede a huge number of shots. We aren't controlling anything. 2nd half of the Enzo season was a very different story mind you.

Wonder if they have put the job spec together yet.

Where was Vestergaard. On his debut, the 18 year is tracking 2 attackers. Its also worth pointing up that when the attack starts Aluko is further up the pitch that Vestergaard. The high line was crackers, and Winks appears to pull out of lunging for the ball.

If the ref goes over and gives him a stern 'last one and you are out' talk, no one ever talks about the incident ever again.

I didnt watch the first half live. Just seen youtube replay. I think that 2nd yellow is harsh. The amount of times we have seen these not given when players are on yellows. I;ve seen some shit challenges against us over the years. Shouldn't have done it. He will learn from it. But i think another ref who isnt such a plonker uses his brain a little more and has a word.

Cooper dropped him, and then played his strange system where Fatawu and Mavididi rotated with each other. Cynic in me says his head has gone.

Probably because his passing stats look 'ok' on stats websites, and people get blind sided but whats going on. The type of game he provides is no good to us, and at 33 he isnt changing and certainly not getting any quicker. He has to go when Okoli and Nelson are back.

I missed the first half because of train delays getting home. Saw a very depressed 2nd half. Towards the end, 2 moments summed up the Marti experience for me. 3-0 down and Begovic is playing out the back to Winks and co. Short passes to each over, Winks then plays a lame pass in midfield and we lose possession. Southampton counter quickly. Just pathetic. Then later, Bobby gets the ball and runs up field. As he approaches the final third he stops, turns, passes sideways to someone who then passes back to Vestergaard who is just behind the halfway line. We then proceed to do what i call the 'Vestergaard manoeuvre', which is a combination of small triangular passes to and from Vestergaard, presumably so everyones passing stats look better. We then lose the ball and Southampton counter quickly. Its pathetic, soulless stuff. I cant believe anyone with a professional bone in their body wants to be doing this (apart from those trying to make their passing stats look good). People didnt train through academies to play this way, and coaches did get their badges to play this way. When Middlesborough went down to 10 men they pressed and went direct and chased the draw. We do nothing. Im done. Its time for him to go.

Aluko should be straight back in that side after his suspension, and given minutes in his first game back. Worst thing we can do is dump him back into the U21s and forget about him. He's not the first player to get sent off for trying to impress. Ramsey did it as well and was straight back in the side. Its important everyone makes sure that this sending off doesnt define him,

Trains knackered getting in to Harborough and i had no signal. Did i miss much?

In fairness (and its a stretch) Skipp was Ok (average) against Stoke, and played a very nice pass for the 2nd goal. Whether he can do that for 2 games in a row, im not sure.

Bobby can't play a full 90 though and always seems better coming on as impact. Marti has to play pragamtism.

I feel old seeing Begovic was born in 1987 and everyone calling him a veteran.

He can be good, often when not played for a while. Fingers crossed today is one of those days.