BigGibbo

Yea, I was offered work in Qatar and the UAE several years ago and turned it down as I was planning to get a mortgage and settle down here, but in that time the houses, (not to mention utilities and taxes) have gone up by as much as I've saved and the standard of services and general safety has gone down equally as dramatically. I'm thinking about reaching back out now. Still undecided and will shit or get off the pot in the next 12 months I think. Fair play to her, she should give it a go whilst a UK education is still considered valuable internationally. I definitely wish I had tried it before now.

Yeah, I think we're dealing with political entropy. Whoever gets in doesn't address the primary issues (inequality/cost of living/stagnation/poorly resourced/badly managed immigration, etc), they just try and manage what we have. For the most part they are essentially midwit middle managers because they are paid the wage of midwit middle managers and are only qualified as midwit middle managers. It probably gets worse before it gets better when Reform win unfortunately. I'm not that hopeful for the future here and the amount I have to save to get a mortgage on a house worth a piss, without too much leverage, is enough to live comfortably abroad, which is what I and most others lucky enough like me are probably going to do/already are doing.

Wild. Kind of impressive levels of incompetence. No one gets fired any more. Low standards have been accepted as the norm, so at worst they'll just move those responsible around, like peado priests. 😆

I'm talking about starting from scratch now. I imagine you could manage it if you timed it right buying a house over 5 years ago or had the bank of mum and dad to help, but if you're stuck renting a house at 3 times what a mortgage would have been 5/10 years ago and dont already have assets behind you to reduce your outgoings you'd be surprised how hard it is to climb the ladder. I could afford a family life if I was willing to live precariously at the whims of increasingly incompetent government and working family tax credits, but I'm not. I also know I'm one of the very lucky ones and that's what's scary. I'm the canary in the coal mine of what comes next. (Just to clarify I'm talking specifically about the wife at home family life you were advocating as still possible for the young today - obviously someone else on my salary would suddenly put us in the top 10%)

You have to laugh or you'll cry. I dread to think how it gets any worse from here with the caliber of people now running everything in this country. 🙈

It's borderline impossible to afford a family with one parent staying at home these days and 'luxuries' in terms of TVs & Tech are cheap enough 2nd hand to get even if you were on benefits. The necessary costs of living are much higher than ever though. I'm a surveyor/civil engineer that can't afford a family without leveraging myself to a stupid degree (like most now do), whereas I have a family member that did the same job in the 90s & could afford 2 families and a chateau in France on the same salary that has barely risen since, and it's only getting worse for those younger than me. It's going to be full on Dickens just with more cheap tech inside the next decade or two without violent change. The idea that it's possible for parents to just sacrifice a bit more and all will be well like in ye olden days is pure out of touch boomer fantasy I'm afraid.

Sure 🤷‍♂️

A source close to Keir Starmer said "This is the one thing we didn't want to happen". https://youtu.be/_U-7L1tmBAo?si=Nsi9zovObw2ewSEM

Free hit inside the penalty area. Our defence doesnt get enough contempt for me.

No. We dont have any. At best we will have to play a false 9, but there needs to be a lot more movement from the others in and around the box to get away with that.

Has the defensive positioning of a labrador and rolls over and gets his belly tickled just as often.

Another weakling picking the perceived safe options that dont even want to be at the club. Desperately disappointing so far.

The chances of him being ready to start week in week out in the Championship are ridiculously slim. Even at League One or Two level he'd probably not quite be ready to be a regular starter. I'd prefer him on the bench to Daka though and would be nice for him to get plenty of game time off the bench.

Meh! Just play him for a dozen games regardless, even just to make sure he is shit, as we have no other strikers.

Danny Ward status achieved today for me. Marti can go with him if he persists with him.

At this point I would rather keep Ben Nelson than King Power, let alone Faes and Vestergaard.

Well... when you dont have a striker, scoring from outside the box is the best bet I guess.

This feels like one of those season defining games. Win and we go up, lose and we dont, draw and we'll be in or around the playoffs...

We better already have the price agreed and option in place to sign James up. He's got Maddison levels.

Has to be given a proper chance. Faes doesn't even want to be here, aside from the fact he is a skittish calamity merchant FFS!

Really hope he gives Nelson and Page a start with another Monga super sub performance. Couldn't cope with this same line-up again.

More cracks barely papered over. If we can just limp our way to January in the top 6, then buy the striker that we should have already bought, we still have a decent chance of promotion. Probably says more about the league than us though.

Oh no! What's Monga doing? Can we be charitable and say he was trying to dodge a bang? 🤦‍♂️

I thought that was kind of the point. There is supposed to be a lot of movement and some amount of interchangeability between Mav, Fats, Carranza and Ayew. It's just not happening.

Our defenders are routinely being left for dead by mediocre players. I still cannot fathom how are we over 5 years into having the worst defense imaginable with no signs of improvement 😩