Sampson

I think that while a fair point and likely true of some of the richer leave voters and business owners. I don’t think it’s anything the average voter cared/knew anything about. I’ve only become more convinced in the years since that a frightening number of voters didn’t even know what the EU or freedom of movement for people goods and services was or did. Even Boris Johnson supposedly didn’t understand what the customs union was.

Personally I always thought it was more the view that when many romanticise the commonwealth they think of it as being the rich English speaking (and let’s be honest here - white) countries i.e. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and maybe the rich parts of East Asia I.e. Singapore, Hong Kong than people coming from India, Pakistan, the Caribbean or Africa which is where the vast majority of the population of the commonwealth actually is. I remember an interview with Farage how he was romanticising how people from Australia, Canada and New Zealand saw Britain as “the motherland”. There was also the talk of CANZUK during the referendum and if you see most polls from all 4 countries, they’re overwhelmingly in favour of freedom of movement between the UK, Australia, Canada and NZ. When it comes to India or Jamaica for example, nowhere near the same. Similarly, Farage himself in the lead up to the referendum said he nor UKIP wanted a referendum until 2004 when many Eastern European countries joined. If the EU was just the rich countries of west and central Europe I.e. UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Benelux, the Nordics, Switzerland and Austria and the sunny holiday/retirement countries in the Mediterranean of Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Malta I don’t think leaving the eu would’ve even been on anyone’s radar. Let’s not forget those distasteful campaigns in the lead up to the referendum of how Turkey was supposedly on the brink of joining (despite the fact EU had categorically said they can’t join with Erdogon in charge) and 80million Turks were about to enter the UK to escape Erdogan or something. I remember seeing several billboards around Warwick and Leamington Spa at the time of the referendum whipping up fear about Turkey joining Ultimately, people will claim they don’t but if it’s immigrants from other rich countries like Canada or Denmark very few care, immigrants from India or Romania are always used to drive the fear campaigns a lot more.

Yep. Farage himself was championing it for a while. “The people of India and Australia have more in common to Brits that the people of Poland” (paraphrasing) and similar quotes were a common amongst leavers. “Commwealth not common market” was also a slogan of many Brexiteers for many years. Don’t understand any Brexiteer would be annoyed by the explosion of immigration from former UK colonies, it was a big part of the leave campaign’s goals.

Yeah just seen it on bbc. Really sad news. Wouldn’t call him a Leicester legend but it was a weird and crazy time while he was manager and while he did spend a lot on rubbish, he did sign Schmeichel, Nugent and to a lesser extent Konchesky who ended up being worth many times more to us than his total transfer outlay combined.

I usually agree with you on most matters leicsmac and used to agree with you here, but since the Brexit debate, sadly I don't necessarily agree anymore. It's been clear to me since the Brexit debate that many use "it's just my opinion" and "we should allow civil debate" as a defence mechanism to hold clearly non-scientific, bigoted and objectively wrong views on an array of different subjects and that they actually don't want to debate them and so latch onto "it's just my opinion" and like to talk about how we should be having a civil debate as a way to disarm their opponents and end any discussion, when they themselves don't want any part in any actual evidence based civil debate on the subject. Civil debate as a genuine option for the betterment of society was shown pretty starkly to be quackery for me when anyone who tried to make any economic argument for staying in the EU was met with "project fear" and "you don't believe in Britain" duing the lead up to the election and then were all told after the result when Leave won, largely due to 2 word sloganeering and lowest-common denominator appeals to patriotism that the reason Remain lost was because "you didn't actually debate anyone and don't respect the opposite side's opinion" or som false equivalence "there was lying going on on both sides" when the truth was the Remain side constantly tried to engage in genuine economic and evidence based debate but were shot down by meaningless sloganeering and appeals to patriotism and meaningless and vague ideas of self-governing that no one ever wanted to define. Then we had Trump, Covid and wars in Ukraine and Gaza and these weird culture war, anti-"wokeness" stuff and I feel like things since have shown even more that "civilized debate" doesn't work. What the alternatives are I don't know. But "it should be just people's opinions, sitting down and having a civilized debate" is pretty clearly just a defence mechanism for trying to disarm the enemy and ignore any actual debate so that the status quo stays in tact at this point.

Goals up on the FA Cup YouTube channel for those who missed them.

Very good today I thought. Even though he's nowhere near as consistent as he once was, he's still great to watch when he puts out a battling performance like that.

Albrighton been fantastic. Really rolled back the years today.

It’s not going to. Think you’re burying your head in the sand if you think we’re signing anyone this month

May be wrong but I’m sure I remember the club announcing on its website Andy King would get a testimonial after covid (as he left during the time fans weren’t allowed in stadiums) but it never happened. Schmeichel nor Morgan got one either

Feel like Albrighton leaving at the end of the season will understandably get a bit overshadowed by Vardy leaving too, Marc deserves a huge send off by the fans and club as well

Eh. They were poor performences but you can’t genuinely say he looked disinterested, if anything it felt like he was trying to do everything himself and wanted the ball too much, whereas some of our other players genuinely didn’t look arsed. Will never understand the hate Maddison gets for last season either. He was one of the very few who put in performances that were good enough to keep us up over the span of last season and how he became public enemy number one in some people’s eyes when he should’ve been the last player who deserved that tag. I mean look at someone like Johnny Evans, he was the actual club captain who seemed to be take most of the season to get over a minor injury but suddenly be fit enough to play for Northern Ireland in the middle of that injury and meant we had to keep starting Daniel Amartey who tried fine but simply wasn’t good enough. Now there was our supposed leader who’s heart clearly wasn’t it who deserved to take way way more flak than Maddison but bizarrely hasn’t. And genuinely can’t believe how much grown men get worked up and offended over an extremely inoffensive and mundane post on social media, but they’d probably give him the same level of hate if he posted something against the team or was silent and didn’t post at all and that post definitively has become an excuse for people’s hate of Maddison rather than a reason for it.

Have to agree. I was also skeptical of him back in September, but he's really stepped up and become the main man this season after Maddison left and Vardy went past his best, he should be doing a clean sweep at POTS awards for both club and the division really. I get other players may be unsung or more consistant like Winks or Hermansson, but KDH is the difference maker in so many games.

Eh. It’s a dumb argument but to take the bait - Albrighton and Huth were both established PL players when we signed them. Fuchs and Okazaki were both established Bundesliga players at top half/European chasing clubs and internationals when we signed them. Simpson had years of PL experience when we signed him including in a Newcastle side that finished 5th. Drinkwater, De Laet and James were not Championship players but young ManUtd academy players who’d played in Europe when we signed them. Kante had just had a brilliant season in Ligue 1 when we signed him. Ulloa had had a season in La Liga, albeit got relegated and then was the top scorer in the Spanish second tier the following season. So that one’s debatable But still. These weren’t all Championship players when we signed them at all.

Schmeichel, Morgan, Drinkwater and Vardy were hands down the best players in the Championship already in their respective positions though tbf. I’m not convinced they were *that* far off their peak (Mahrez I do think was though), they just had never had the chance to prove it yet. That’s why I don’t think you can really answer the question until you’ve really seen how some of these players play in the top flight next season. Knockaert was one of the players I thought would step up most and he never really did, yet fringe players like Wood and Schlupp went on to be good Premier League players (Schlupp was still fairly young when we went up tbf).

All reads exactly like what people said of Burnley and Kompany last season though when they were running away with the league and on course to break the points record until they took their foot off the gas after already being promoted. I hope you’re right but way too soon to think we won’t be seriously up against it next season. Not convinced how anyone can already be confident enough to say the likes of Faes, Vestergaard, Justin, KDH, Ndidi, Daka etc. aren’t going to look just as lost at PL level next season assuming we got promoted as they did last season.

I don't get your point though. Half of this lot just got relegated because they showed they weren't good enough at PL level (and we probably would've fared even worse last season without Maddison and Barnes being our only remotely threatening players, neither of whom are here anymore) and the only one we've signed who was actually a proven PL player was Winks and many mocked that signing when we made it because his reputation was on the floor. I mean Ndidi as an example has been great this season and was a great PL player 4 years ago but he'd been completely rotten at PL level for a good 2.5 seasons, let's be honest. You may as well count Kevin Phillips and Gary Taylor-Flectcher in the 13-14 side as "Premier League" players in that case.

You think Schmeichel, Konchesky, Morgan, Drinkwater, Mahrez, Schlupp, Vardy and even Wood who couldn't get into that side weren't "Premier League players"? Wtf? Even Nugent, King and Wasilewski did good jobs for us in the PL even if not spectacular. De Laet and James were also perfectly ok bottom half PL players too. Personally, I this this side has more "very good" players across it's starting XI, but the best 4 or 5 players in the 14/15 side were better than the best 4 or 5 players in this side

Eh. I don't have a problem with preferring the current side but this post is clearly unfair. Fatawu against Konchesky, if you want, but Konchesky was a consistent top half PL full-back for years who kept far, far better wingers than Fatawu at bay and was unquestionably a better player than Justin is, especially defensively (who is probably our weakest starter) and you can't really argue that without arguing the same thing for Dyer, Mahrez and Knockaert all against Justin imo. Why are you comparing Ndidi to Dean Hammond as well? you're comparing a starter in one season to a player who was our 4th choice midfielder when we played a 2 man midfield, Drinkwater on the other hand completely ran and dominated that division and everything we did went through him, was miles ahead of any other player in the division that season when it came to passes iirc and was hands down the best player in the Championship that season and even better than Winks, KDH or Ndidi have been this season tbf. Think Morgan, Vardy and Nugent were also all clearly superior to any players we have in their position now too. Wasilewski likely too, although that's debatable I mean, you can say "the game has moved on" but Chris Wood was still a consistently good PL striker for Burnley who got into double figures in the level above this for 4 or 5 seasons straight until only a couple of seasons ago and he couldn't even get in that side because Vardy and Nugent were so good and kept him out. Not saying that side was definitely better overall (don't think we can decide that until the end of the season) and don't have a problem with people preferring the current side but at least be fair in your comparisons.

Any news on his injury? It seems to have gone quiet with him but we will definitely need him back for AFCON.

Didn't look like the keeper was anywhere near him, also looked like it was outside the box

That was a dive and outside the box, let's be honest

Finally

That's why players dive. It's a stonewall penalty but because he doesn't go down he doesn't get it