DJ Barry Hammond

Do you think Gareth has a multiple set of those white polo jumper things, or does he wear the same one and wash it?

Have you seen him? He’s sexy as ****!

Aye, it’s only at the 5th pint you start questioning things.

Come on, I know it’s difficult but… positive vibes from now until at least the 10th minute. After all - Koeman’s a tulip loving ****

If it brings about the same results from his previous predictability… that makes sense, no?

It’s like someone in the press pack was reading my posts this morning!

Well let’s consider here; Trump is head of a fiercely tribal and loyal Republican Party - to many it doesn’t matter who leads their party of choice, they get their votes 100% of the time. To date he has stood against Hillary Clinton - a divisive candidate herself - and Joe Biden. He is one for two from those elections - the election he won featured Hilary constantly referencing him as X, Y, Z - there was very little push back on policies. Trump also created a carnival atmosphere around his candidacy at that time - it was box office entertainment. He then gets into power, gets the economy performing pretty well, yet loses as the incumbent - no doubt because the crucial floating voters saw more of him and his cheerleaders including the likes of MTG and Giuliani and just decided - “nah, can’t be part of that.” Of course, he could possibly win this time around - but this probably says more about the Democrats and they’re ridiculous Biden situation than anything Trump has done.

Look - sideline Farage, it suddenly looks a lot less attractive!

Here is an example of the sort of thing I’m suggesting to combat Fromage. Ok this is related to ‘PopCon’ but it can translate - get the grass roots talking and you realise they’re all nuts!

Not really, because it’s Farage that’s been getting the vast majority air time. If you start publicising the grass routes and his acolytes a bit more and let them carry on talking into conspiracy theory territory, following Nigel’s bandwagon suddenly seems a lot less attractive.

I was curious about the milkshake this time around - however, I couldn’t be sure because the left can’t but help fall for the Farage trap by engaged in the areas he wants them to. The way to combat Farage is to; • shine a bigger light on the people that support his party and their views - see if people would like to be stuck in a lift with them? • Debate the policy areas he doesn’t really want to discuss - NHS being one of them, Russia another and ironically, Brexit. Indeed I think his comments on Putin were a rare misstep from Farage and cost the party some votes.

Strange for Ashworth to so publicly committee contempt of court.

Probably not - he’s an ex banker so will know how to handle his finances to ensure as little scrutiny as possible (and even if something is found he can declare it a “establishment stitch-up.” A lot of these type of points are made out of hope from those directly opposed to Farage - there’s little grounding of reality in them.

But the comparison of someone like Lucas - who genuinely wanted to effect policy change - to Farage is not a good one. All the Reform guys will want is an opportunity to say “Labour, you’re crap!” and have it shown on TV later in the evening - and they will get plenty of opportunity to do just that. They don’t want or need to set an agenda in Parliament. Being seen to be in opposition is enough (this was how the SNP grew initial support before ****ing themselves).

This is also nonsense. Farage is a leader of a party and his party received a considerable number of votes. He is also a back bench MP - and it is part of The Speakers job to look after the interests of back bench MP’s. It is therefore highly likely that during PMQ’s if Farage (or fellow MP’s) wants to catch the speakers eye… he will catch it. Ok, he (or fellow MP’s) will only get one question as opposed to the six the official opposition get - but one’s enough for a sound bite. And to clarify - the same will no doubt apply to the Green’s. But of course PMQ’s is just one part of Parliamentary business. As a party leader, Farage will get the right to respond to set-piece events like the King’s Speech and Budgets - he’ll be further down the line, but again, he’ll get the opportunity to make a sound bite. Then they’ll be plenty of other debates across the Parliamentary term - where opportunity largely rests on whether you turn up… and across the 5 of them, I imagine one of them will because their goal will be to gain wider exposure and to be shown to be holding the government to account. The other area I expect Farage will become active in is one of the many scrutiny committees - which again, will guarantee him exposure, TV time, column inches. Finally - just being in the House of Commons puts you in a position to court the Lobby journalists - who will interview him because like him or loath him, he gets views, clicks and reaction (and a large part of our press leans towards the right). Therefore, you know - don’t fool yourself in thinking Farage won’t get attention. Lots of MP’s have made a reputation for themselves from the bank benches in the past and Farage has the added ‘legitimacy’ of being a party leader under pinned by 4 million votes.

He is a good example of why the “only male ex-pros should do this job” argument is a fallacy. Co-commenting is not just about knowledge of the game but also presenting skill.

I think memories of 96 cloud your judgment Stan… but I think everyone would like you to be spot on!

It’s not as if I’m asking for these by tomorrow. An early ask to get people thinking - and of course people can make a start and come back to it.

Overall Predictions 1.) Premier League Winner 2.) FA Cup Winner 3.) League Cup Winner 4.) To be relegated (3 choices) 5.) Best over-performing team (based on start of season odds) 6.) Worst under-performing team (based on start of season odds) 7.) Total value of points deductions handed out across the season! 8.) Top goalscorer 9.) PFA Player of the year 10.) PFA Young player of the year 11.) Manager of the season 12.) Sack race - first manager to leave job (Premier League) Leicester Predictions 1.) Final league position 2.) Final points tally 3.) FA Cup performance (round of exit) 4.) League Cup performance (round of exit) 5.) To finish higher in the table - Leicester City or Nottingham Forest!?! 6.) Total value of point deductions handed to Leicester City across the season? 7.) Top goalscorer 8.) Players of the Season 9.) Young player of the season 10.) Vardy - number of goals scored 11.) First player to get a red card 12.) Will Steve Cooper still be Leicester manager at the end of the season (Yes/No)? Bonus Predictions 1.) Champions League Winner 2.) Europa League Winner 3.) Conference League Winner 4.) Golden Boot (Europe) Winner 5.) Ballon d’Or Winner 6.) Will Leeds get promoted (yes/no)? 7.) Will that Enzo bloke still be Chelsea Manager at the end of the season (yes/no)? AND - give us one freestyle prediction of your choice below! 8.)

Ok, they’re back in training, so let’s have some pre-season predictions from you! I’ve put a list of 32 areas I want your predictions on for the season ahead in the second post - so you can easily copy and paste your responses to each one. By all means start your predictions now and come back to them before the start of the season - but no cheating after that! If this proves popular, I may record a spreadsheet of the guesses and report back with some sort of end-of-season scores - but no prizes, this is purely to show your ball knowledge clout!

I get that, but there’s wide players you wouldn’t play inside (eg Saka) because that takes away the space that allows him to be so dangerous - whereas this guy looks to have the ability to play in tight spaces / back to goal etc and have an all-round skillset that would be much more dangerous in central areas.

Long-term - he’s a central attacking player wouldn’t you say rather than a winger? Him and Vardy could be an amazing partnership.

Rishi doesn’t like this idea

To be fair… this is probably the right approach for the press to take. There’s nothing gained by slating the team / manager from here - and plenty of time and column inches for criticism afterwards.

If I remember correctly, Gazza scored that night… directly from an in-direct freekick