The Doctor

it's a happy clapping hell hole

you watch Vardys Fleetwood games, the ability was there. What he was lacking in that first season was belief and self-confidence

I think it partly is but also is partly the culture within the club. ok the Austrian bundesliga is not the best division in the world but you don't spend time in the red bull system without at least having decent technical ability. The amount of players that have regressed here and then thrived upon leaving points to a deeper issue than just the player themselves

I'd say the point is more that to be an elite striker you need to be, to a certain degree, arrogant, to believe your own hype, that you are the best and should be playing every minute. Daka doesn't, he tries hard but doesn't have that self belief which means that misses like at leeds in Feb 24 or probably last Saturday absolutely kill his confidence. Now, this was Vardy in 2013 as well, the difference is not about work put in by the player off the pitch, it's that when vardy lost his self belief and considering quitting, he had a top class man manager building him up with the sports psychology network that manager had implemented for marginal gains. Daka hasn't had a Nigel Pearson, he's had Gucci belt rodgers throwing players under the bus to save his own skin, and Cooper/RvN/Cifuentes, all of whom were basically inept at every aspect of their job

it's actually not obvious, unless it's literally just reflexive hatred of labour because he's just a lot of nothing, bland centrist. He's not exactly a just stop oil type.

really weird that it's specifically for Starmer and not been done for many if any of his predecessors as PM (I remember a smackering about Diane Abbott and Corbyn back when they were relevant) though. Short of politics affecting us all, which is a bit of a cop-out, I don't really see how it is that Starmer affects football in a way that Sunak, Johnson, May (leaving Truss out given she lasted one international break) didn't.

it's not just bad players not getting better, it's players with potential squandering that and players with ability regressing. Like that summer 21 window, Soumare and Daka were, on paper, very smart signings - young with a strong record in European top flights, on the radar of big clubs. Neither came close to seeing that potential fulfilled, both in reality regressed. Can also look at players like Justin who move on and suddenly look a lot better. Seagraves facilities are top notch, but without coaches to make use of them they're sort of pointless, and it's very clear that we do not create an environment for players to improve and meet their potential

does it? effort is not what I'd characterise most of the men's team with

lot of effort but really low quality, scrappy stuff

villa have the worst defence in the league? spectacular, that zero goals scored gonna look even worse

genuinely struggling to work out that formation, Keeper and 4 defenders fine but then 1 cm, 4 wingers and a cam

the Jamaican winger and Bangladeshi midfielder both being called English threw me for a while, ended up just having to ignore the nationality and go through the entire squad at the time, but 66/66

send bobby off, please.

Congratulations Watford on keeping your play-off push alive.

Well, at least QPR and Southampton have turned up and done us a favour today.

What the **** was Aribo and Okoli doing there? Good job Jakub likes sprinting out like a mad man.

Can Strollin' Joe play up top? Has all the attributes of Ayew but isn't as insufferable yet.

genuinely, have we? To my knowledge only Page and Aluko have made their senior debuts, Page has barely played since August, and was only playing then because there were no other options. If Alukos played 90 minutes worth of football in the league I'd be surprised, and seems to be behind a drunk defensive midfielder at the right back position. Mongas basically vanished from discussion...

That this club does not trust kids at all?

did Bobby Reid just blast it into his own face?

bring back Alan Young. He'd have given up and started calling him Clive already.

oh Patson...

Divine Mukasa is coming on. That's good. For Jordan James. Thats bad. But Stephy Mavididi is also coming off. That's good. His replacement is BdCR. ... . That's bad. Can we be relegated now.

no goals in 6 hours, Dr Leicester turns up and they've got 7 in 180 minutes.

Luke Thomas has the physique of the milky bar kid, never known a professional player lose duels so consistently.