Kid Icarus

Denied a draw we were more than good value for because of 2 key decisions - 1 contenscious, 1 clear as day - going Chelsea's way, and a moment of imperfection in an otherwise flawless display from Dan Burn. Compounded by it being the player who could have easily gone off. Chelsea were poor and without the top 6 bias from the officials we'd have got another point imo. Dubravka - 6 Manquillo - 6 Schar - 7.5 Burn - 9.5 Targett - 8 Bruno - 7 Longstaff - 6 Murphy - 6 Wood - 6 Almiron - 6

Wow, another clear decision going in favour of a top 6 team. Coincimental.

Football's party pooper. Most boring footballer out there.

"Why were we shit? Why were we shiiiiit? Explain that one, daft cunts, why were we shit?"

Put it this way, the same post minus the thumbs up and, again maybe unfairly, from someone else, and the reaction is different.

It does matter, yeah. EDIT: What I mean is it's worthy of discussion, but it matters whether the person bringing it up is doing it to actually have a discussion with you or just doing it to wind you up.

Totally on the same page as you with all of this Triggs, I think whether it's a fair assumption or not (hopefully unfair), people might just have reservations about the motivations of the person in bringing it up.

Can't imagine anyone who's staunchly Messi or Ronaldo even giving an inch at this point tbh. I've always thought Ronaldo being involved in a comparison with Messi was a massive compliment to him if you dare to look beyond goals, but it's a waste of time trying to argue over it now I think.

Both things are true.

Regulon would get right on my nerves if I was a Spurs fan. Always seems to go to play it forward, then roll it back and play it backwards, or not into the stride of who he's passing to.

I'm totally lost over why Toney's penalties are supposedly unsaveable like. Always to the right, often at a good height for goalkeepers, and not always right in the corner doesn't sound as unsaveable as his record suggests.

It's nice knowing that every result from this fixture has its benefits.

Ah yeah of course it was, but because it wasn't just them and they were all at it, they could spin a believable story that way from a completely hypocritical standpoint. The remain campaign both unofficially and officially was a joke and did use bullying tactics along with talking down to the electorate - something that we were all guilty of at the time I think and which just made things worse. I supported remaining and think the country voted the wrong way, but it doesn't mean that a lot of the things said by Pilger and others about the EU and the remain campaign being elitist, neoliberal, and so on aren't true. I think many remainers would say the same thing about how bad the official and unofficial remain campaigns were.

I don't think there's anything inaccurate about his Brexit comments tbh. Leave wouldn't have been able to sell the lie of the EU being responsible for an underfunded NHS if we had one that hadn't been dismembered, for example. I haven't read Pilger's stuff extensively but his meat and drink seems to be "see! This is what happens when we..." which I think is fair enough considering the complete lack of any analysis of our own actions elsewhere in popular discourse. I think he gives the impression that he thinks our actions are the be-all-and-end-all though which is where I think he either gets it wrong or gets misinterpreted.

He's just saying what fueled the votes in the minds of those who voted leave. That it was a rejection of the a status quo that had failed them. I don't think he's so much applauding it as pointing it out. I can't say I know about the Skripal poisonings enough to comment on whether there's anything credible in what he's saying or whether it's the conspiratorial nonsense that it appears to be on the surface.

Aye they're definitely not pro-Trump. The Mearsheimer quote is similar to what I'd say about him with TPP (his ignorance or pettiness resulted in an unexpected net win) but it doesn't mean I support him or that I don't think that he's a dangerous megalomaniac who should be anywhere near power. The John Pilger comments are pretty standard fair on the left and fairly accurate imo.

The argument isn't that he isn't bad, it's that boiling situations (not necessarily this one, just in general) down to only good or bad people doing good or bad things, combined with a rejection of any factors outside of that framework - such as 'good' people doing bad things and 'bad' people doing good things - is overly-simplistic and can undermine objectivity. e.g. Historians generally agree that the treaty of Versailles was a contributing factor that lead to the rise of Hitler, it shouldn't be overlooked or rejected just because Hitler and the Nazis were also bad.

John Mearsheimer and John Pilger are not in any way shape or form pro-Trump. Greenwald lost the plot so much with the democrats that he, well, completely lost the plot, but he wasn't pro-Trump like, he supported Bernie Sanders IIRC.

No no I'm not saying it's mental gymnastics, I'm saying it's weird (though perhaps human nature) to suddenly feel outrage specifically towards Abramovich now when he hasn't actually changed or done anything differently and we've known who he is for 20 years really. Obviously people have highlighted the dodgy deals etc, but the narrative now seems to be 'oh well now it's crystal clear who he is' because of what Putin's done, which doesn't make much sense really.

Aye but then the problem is that anyone of any worth that makes similar arguments get lumped in with the grifters and their more hysterical conspiratorial nonsense. As we saw early on in the Ukraine thread where lifelong experts on the subject were dismissed because they made wider points about the context of how these situations can happen that didn't sit comfortably with some people. It's no surprise that there's an equally redundant response to that about how some refuse to think beyond good vs evil I think. I couldn't have put it better that time you talked about playing the man not the ball re the takeover Wullie, but it seems like we're all fucking at it.

The bad man theory of history is an actual theory though, not the facecous insult you're only taking it as. Not agreeing with his arguments by any means, but nothing whatsoever wrong with the points he's making about discussing it, or posting John Mearsheimer/citing John Pilger for that matter. Just seemed like you immediately went for the jugular and started playing the man and not the ball, if you don't mind me saying so.

This is canny childish like MD. Going massively over the top here imo.

It's a fair point about what Abramovich was doing mind. He wasn't suddenly bad news when Putin invaded Ukraine, he always was and we all just got on with it. He hasn't changed because of Ukraine and he wasn't doing anything differently at the point his assets were frozen. It's weird to reverse engineer ourselves into this faux outrage over Abramovich specifically when it's about 20 years too late. It's also probably a bit of a lesson for our fanbase to learn specifically as well. Some pretty serious cases of cognitive dissonance going on here.

Howe has a fairly decent record against Chelsea over the years I think.