ClaphamFox

We could be playing the last game of the season and have a minute to score the goal that would secure automatic promotion, and we'd still be methodically passing it around in triangles in the middle of the pitch.

Given that their fans already seem to think we’re a bunch of right-wing ultra capitalists, suing them for £100m would certainly bring an added frisson when we next play them in December and some of our fans decide to treat them to a light-hearted festive rendition of ‘Feed the scousers’…

I consciously avoid ever starting sentences with the words “As a parent…” because it seems so meaningless and patronising - as if parents have a monopoly on empathy. In my many years as a non-parent I would always be very upset by stories like this, as would any decent human being. But it does take on a different dimension when you are a parent. It’s because you immediately think of your own living, breathing child succumbing to the same fate. It’s horrible but that’s the way the brain works. And it really hits you hard - right in the guts, as you say.

Horrible outcome. Just awful for the parents 😢

Four teenage boys missing in north Wales... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-wales-67484258

Possibly. I thought he was referring to who replaces Winks as my original question related to that. If the likes of Ndidi, Praet and Akgun are available again, I can't see Albrighton starting no matter who plays in the Winks role.

I suspect KDH or Choudhury would get it over Albrighton.

Do we have anybody who can replicate what Winks can do? It's a relief that we're on the home straight to the resumption of domestic football after the international break. Two dead rubber England games don't provide much of a fix.

I suspect we’ll be persuaded not to pursue legal action for these reasons.

This is exactly what they’d do. They won’t surrender because they are not a conventional military force with negotiable political aims. Their objective is the total destruction of Israel and the mass murder of Jewish people. They’re a medieval death cult in the way that ISIS. Such groups tend to prefer death to surrender.

This article in the Economist captures the issue pretty well. The full article is behind a paywall, but the last two paragraphs are quite succinct: "Security for Israel and a better future for Gazans will not happen under Hamas’s rule. The IDF has now achieved some of its narrow military goals. It is in effective command of northern Gaza. Yet over 11,000 Gazans have died, according to the Hamas-run authorities. In the south over 2m people face appalling conditions. For Israel’s campaign to be legitimate and even partially succeed, two other tests must be met: civilians need a safety net and there must be a resumption of the peace process. "A crucial step is to open its border point at Kerem Shalom to let in aid and fuel deliveries. Israel should also create emergency medical facilities, take patients to Israeli hospitals, and be prepared to set up temporary refugee camps in Israeli territory in the Negev desert. Israel is entitled to go to war with Hamas. But it must do more to rebut the charge that it is going to war against the Palestinian people."

This is the issue. Hamas deliberately embeds itself in places like hospitals and other civilian areas because it knows that if Israel attacks those places, there will be an international outcry (of course it also helps that Hamas couldn't care less about ordinary Palestinians). So Israel has the choice of: a) Not attacking those places to avoid international condemnation, but basically letting Hamas get away with a horrendous genocide and allowing them to do the same again; or b) Attacking those places where Hamas has embedded itself and accepting that it will invoke horror and revulsion because innocent people - including children, babies, the elderly - will inevitably be killed in large numbers alongside the terrorists. I share both your sentiments in bold above. I haven't found a way to resolve them, though. The 'humanitarian pauses', as limited as they may be, seem like the only possible compromise on the table at the moment.

If it's 10 points per breach, it technically should be a 1150 points deduction, which may be trickier to overcome...

If Everton get 10 points for one breach, what will Man City get if found guilty of the 115 breaches they've been charged with? Oh I know: nothing probably.

We came third from bottom. Leeds and Southampton would have still been in the bottom three if Everton were there instead of us. We would have survived. Massive difference.

They absolutely did stay up at our expense.

Don't like Maresca' preferred style? Go and support Leeds instead, says the man himself. https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/enzo-maresca-tells-leicester-city-8910299

Massively. Hopefully Ackgun and Praet will be available too.

The vote was as pointless as it gets. Starmer whipped against it because he wanted to show that the idiocy of the Corbyn years are over and Labour is once again a serious party that isn’t interested in performative student union level politics. If John Ashworth’s constituents want him gone, they will have the opportunity to remove him at the next election.

A 1-1 draw in this game would concern me far more than either of the two losses against Leeds and Middlesbrough.

The stance our elected officials take on the Israel/Hamas war will have precisely zero influence on what happens there.

Which is precisely why these resignations may well work in Starmer's favour. Labour's stance on the Israel/Hamas issue will have zero bearing on the result of the next election, but the departure of the SCG MPs from the front bench will give Starmer a much firmer grip on the party. The likes of Jess Phillips, Naz Shah etc are a loss but they will be brought back into the fold in time. I suspect the SCG MPs will not be invited back to the front bench.

I've no idea how anybody can reasonably blame him for the first goal - it's just a brilliant finish. Even the penalty was a bit soft - Ikoné uses his arm to hold Kristiansen off, Kristiansen responds by grabbing a bit of Ikoné's shirt and Ikoné throws himself to the floor. They're sometimes given but often aren't. It was more a case of Ikoné buying the penalty than Kristiansen being particularly reckless.

The Conservative Party's problem at the moment is that it is struggling to disguise what a basket case it is. In its better moments, it is able to maintain at least a veneer of sanity, economic credibility and cold-hearted pragmatism by picking its least insane MPs for the top jobs and leaving the rest on the back benches. It may be only an illusion of competence, but it's often enough to get the Tories elected. It's always a fragile arrangement, though - all it takes is for there to be a major disagreement within the ranks for all the nutters to come pouring out of the woodwork. Rishi has been partially successful in banishing the sheer insanity of the Johnson era, but it's too little, too late as far as the next election is concerned. While this has been going on, Starmer has been slowly restoring Labour's credibility after the Corbyn years. His popularity probably won't last very long when he's prime minister and has to deal with the UK's enormous social and economic challenges, but he will at least get a shot at being prime minister.

Our next seven games, which will take us to the halfway point of the season, are all very winnable. I don't think we'll get 21 points from them, but I can see us getting 15-16 points easily. That would mean we'd be on 54-55 points after 23 games. It would take one hell of a balls-up to not get promoted from there.