Sampson

Yep. As if people can’t see the irony of complaining about celebrities running their lives or obsessing over them on a football forum… We all do exactly the same thing and let some rich men who we don’t know, some of whom are half many of our ages, dictate our happiness and we let their performances on a football field dictate our mood and thoughts. As you said, everyone worships something or needs something to obsess over, it’s kind of build into us evolutionary as pack animals to get us to work together to survive. This discussion always reminds me of that Deus Ex scene Celebrities are one of the less dangerous things to worship..

Who is rewriting history? No one has said he hasn’t been excellent or important for us overall. I simply said I think people kind of overstate him as our best or most important player in comparison to KDH because Winks is new and still in the honeymoon period, whereas everyone is numb to KDH’s strengths and flaws by this point and expect him to have to drag the team forward which no player can do every game. Exactly the same thing happened a couple of seasons ago when KDH first broke into the side and people were claiming he was better and more important than Maddison because he was new so people overlooked his flaws. Not saying KDH wasn’t a good player or playing really well but he was never as good as important as Maddison was at the time.

I mean he’s clearly a very good player but not really convinced he’s our most important player. Only game we’ve genuinely played half decent in recently is the one he missed. Dewsbury-Hall gets way more stick but he’s the better and more important midfielder for us tbh, Winks still has that honeymoon period gloss where people overlook their flaws and only see their positives than Dewsbury-Hall had a couple of seasons ago when people were raving about him too.

Yep. It won’t take long until a second yellow is given by VAR in an instance where that decision is a clear yellow but when the first yellow was given unfairly and should not have been a yellow, which VAR can’t check for. At that point people realise it’s a ludicrous idea. VAR for 2 yellows only works if you can check both yellows, and that ultimately means checking every single foul or tackle to see if was a yellow or not.

Faes for me.

Nah, we didn’t miss him. If anything it was an improved performance on recent weeks. Not diminishing him as a player mind, but I also don’t think he’s “the one player we can’t replace” or that it’s the end of the world if he gets injured either like some on here often repeat, think the likes of Choudhury and Praet are more than capable players to come in at this level.

I agree rejoining the EU isn’t realistic until at least the 2040s. I think UK becoming a Norway/Switzerland/Iceland style state which is part of the common market but outside the EU is perfectly realistic though. UK would get no say on laws or policy and the EU would get an economy as large as the UK in its sphere with no influence, I doubt the eu would realistically turn that down. The UK-EU deal is already up for renegotiation every 5 years (next in 2025), part of me thinks behind the scenes, it’s already kind of baked in for the uk to drift towards a Norway style state to the EU

I know even Labour are burying their head in the sand about discussing the dreaded “b” word, but would’ve thought leaving the biggest market in the world and then sitting as a small island outside its borders might be playing more than a small role in our disastrous economic situation. The sooner we admit we were wrong and go crawling back to the EU with our tail between our legs, the better. Its inevitable within a generation anyway, why wait another 20 years when even Farage, the biggest driver behind it, admits it was a massive failiure?

What gets me is these debates are always about immigration numbers and never about population changes, birth rates and the mean average age changing. Demographic change is of course hugely important, but immigration is just a small part of that and definitely not the most significant demographic change in the western world going on right now. Yet the right wing press always jabber on about immigration numbers and barely ever mention birth rates, death rates, average ages, how many are 65+ where you both draw pension and start using the nhs vs the shrinking numbers of people of tax paying age. The fact so much of this stuff in the news is people going on about immigration numbers and not whole population numbers of countries or age distributions is pretty depressing, because it’s clear dog whistling that it’s that they don’t want foreigners here, especially when you see people rioting in France against rises to pension ages when it’s the massively increasing burden of the ageing population that’s the biggest drain on the public purse. Never mind policies about trying to improve the national birth rate or giving families more support so they *can* afford to have the 2.4 children needed to sustain the population demographics. I’ve posted about this before but I saw kurzgestadt do a video on it recently and they are generally good science communicators so I’ll post it here too

It’s not the same (and I don’t think that’s anywhere the real problems with the uk either - population ageing and the greater burden of health care abd pensions by a massively increasing percentage of the retired population and a massively decreasing population of tax payers is the much more fundamental problem - but that’s a debate for another time). Ireland’s problem is it became too rich too quickly so if you weren’t in the right place at the right time you got left behind in a huge way, so it’s probably one of the most unequal societies in Europe. Ireland went from the poorest western country in the early 90s to very likely becoming the single richest country in the world by gdp per capita within the next 5-10 years, since it decided to become a tech corporate tax haven. But all that money sits in the banks and high ups of a small few tech companies. So if you weren’t in the tech industry when all the money came flooding in and inflation naturally happens as certain groups had more money to spend you got left behind. And Ireland’s population now is smaller than it was a century ago. It’s one of the few countries in the world where that’s the case. Ireland has long been a country of emigration, that’s long been the problem, it’s only recently its population numbers have actually started stabilise and risingagain. Immigration numbers have never been the problem in Ireland, emigration numbers were always the problem

Yeah. I think it's obviously more bemusing when it comes to Ireland, because it's like the classic example of an emigration country where people left by the millions for better lives, because their economy and resources was being exploited by a bigger and richer nation. And because Ireland being a relatively poor country is still in living memory for plenty of people, it's only really 50 years ago or a couple of generations ago Ireland was considered the poor man of the western world and the Irish people who emigrated to the UK for a better life were treated abhorrently and banned from certain pubs, restaurants, toilets and access to jobs and housing in a type of apartheid in the British Isles. Now Ireland is a rich country, it's a rather sad indictment of human nature see many of the same people advocating for the same thing for non-native Irish people in Ireland.

I'm sorry but there's no way Fatawu "walks" into the 13-14 team ahead of Dyer, Knockaert or Mahrez. He'd be comfortably 4th choice winger. Great prospect, but nowhere near their level yet. Drinkwater also comfortably above Ndidi or KDH and Konchesky far more consistent than Justin. Mads also does not look "just as good" yet as prime Schmeichel. He's a great prospect, but people getting way too ahead of themselves thinking that Schmeichel vs Hermansson is even a debate.

I think he’s been a very good player for us over the years overall, and can never forget his performances in the FA Cup quarter and semi finals, but he is having an underwhelming season for sure. Just hope he can hit a real run of form at some point.

I think the wings in general is one part of the pitch where 13-14 were clearly better. It’s been one of our weaker areas so far this season and really all 3 of our wingers in 13-14 were a step above what we have now.

For me: Schmeichel Ricardo Morgan Faes Konchesky Winks Drinkwater Dewsbury-Hall Dyer Vardy (in his 13-14 form) Mahrez Or Schmeichel Ricardo Morgan Faes Konchesky Mahrez Drinkwater Winks Dyer 13-14 Vardy Nugent That’s 7-4 or 8-3 to 13/14 depending if you’re using the 13/14 or 23/24 formation

Think people are forgetting just how good Drinkwater was that season, he was hands down the best player in the division, had by far and away the most passes and touches iirc of any player in the division and completely ran games for us. He was definitely better than even Winks, although Winks has been great. It’s not an either/or though, there’s 2-3 midfield spots.

Opinions and all that but im not sure what you’re smoking if Drinkwater and 13/14 Vardy don’t make the combined XI, they were our best 2 players that season. Winks, Ndidi and KDH have all been great, but Drinkwater is 100% the first name in that combined midfield, he had the most passes in the Championship that season and we completely played through him. He won our POTY by a mile for a reason - because he was the best player in the championship that year. Also I’d definitely have Dyer over Mavidi for sure and i felt much safer with Konchesky than I do Justin.

Dyer was our best winger in 13-14, not Knockaert or Mahrez. Knockaert played right wing but was replaced by Mahrez in January. Also Liam Moore played more than Wasilewski from memory, although they rotated a lot.

Looks like Mr Burns (in profile looking from right to left) in that episode where Homer thinks he’s an alien

Yeah Faes and Dewsbury-Hall especially both getting stitched up here due to our crap finishing for 70 minutes. Thought both had great games.

He threw himself down but it was a foul and a penalty. You have to go down to get the foul when you shouldn’t need to sadly. Nacho realised that first half when one of their defenders should’ve been sent off for denying a goal scoring opportunity for pulling him back when he was through 1-on-1, but Nacho carried on so didn’t get the free kick .

177 goals and avoiding the slaughterhouse for another week.

Was the keeper booked earlier in the game? Seemed to be a 2nd yellow but I don’t remember it

Don’t send him to the slaughterhouse just yet!

Vardy!!!!!!