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Reply | Ross Stewart Did He Want Cash Or Glory - The Answer Is Here
at 16:32 6 Aug 2026
"So it seems that the answer is Stewart prefers a season of mid table mediocrity with the Swans than a chance of promotion with Saints"
That's totally wrong. He's signed a 3 year deal at Swansea, rather than the 1 year deal we offered him. Anyone in their right mind would do the same in his circumstances. You can't blame him for that. Blame the club for not extending his contract when they had the chance.
Now we need to find a centre forward of at least the same quality. Seems like the costs of spying are still racking up... |
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Reply | DOM BALLARD SIGNS!!!!!!
at 11:47 6 Aug 2026
I wouldn't sign him. He's a good player, good finisher and lively around the box, but where would we play him? We need a centre forward to make Tonda's system work and Ballard isn't a centre forward. He's a second striker and we now have a long history of trying to get second strikers to play as centre forward - and failing every time. We could maybe play him instead of a no.10 but we have Azaz, Dobbin and maybe Matsuki in that role, do we want another one? We need to take every penny of transfer funds we have and land a centre forward.
One thing that a centre forward gives us is the ability to defend set pieces. We still have a small team and without a proper centre forward on the pitch we may be forced to go back to playing 3 CBs, which disrupts everything else.
Good luck to Ballard, he's a good player, but he's not what we need. |
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Reply | Farage and Rupert Lowe to do a deal?
at 15:30 3 Aug 2026
Binface has some good football related policies like
- Abolish VAR
- Corners to be refereed properly
- Rename Hammersmith Bridge to Wayne Bridge
plus
- Force cyclists who break the Highway Code to ride unicycles instead
- Nationalise model railways
- Cut your taxes. Raise everyone else’s.
I just wish they'd have a leaders debate between him and Farage. |
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Reply | Infantino
at 15:26 3 Aug 2026
He didn't just go along with it. He created it and tried to ram it through. According to the Financial Times, JP Morgan and other serious parties had been working on it for over a year in secret. They wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been a serious plan. None of this has been denied by Infantino or FIFA.
If he predicted the response, then why on earth did he do it? His reputation has been trashed, he may well lose his job, and if he doesn't lose his job, there are many people who will now be working against him every day until he goes. He put a lot on the line to get this through and he lost. |
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Reply | Infantino
at 16:30 30 Jul 2026
UEFA hold emergency meeting and threaten withdrawl from world cup:
“Uefa and its national associations will not participate in Fifa competitions. Uefa and its 55 member associations stand as one. We unanimously and unequivocally reject Fifa’s proposal to transfer ownership interests in the World Cup and other Fifa competitions to private investors. "
“As a result of today’s discussion, no Uefa national teams will participate in any Fifa competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that Fifa will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership."
Hopefully they mean it. |
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Reply | Onuachu to Fulham…..
at 13:04 30 Jul 2026
Said to be for £25m. From his time at Real Madrid, Fulham manager Arbeloa recognises a skilful player when he sees one. He's probably planning on using Paul in the Zidane role.
This seems ambitious for Paul, but he was criminally underused at Saints. Probably the way Nick slagged him off drove him away. |
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Reply | QPR Want £18M For Ronnie Edwards
at 10:06 30 Jul 2026
Jordan Henderson about to sign for Chelsea. Seems that clubs have moved on from wanting to only sign youngsters. Chelsea are after Danny Welbeck (35) and Henderson (94). |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 14:15 29 Jul 2026
GDP per capita (income per person) is now 50% higher in the US e.g. see here:
https://www.worldometers.info/
GDP per capita is the single biggest driver of "reported life satisfaction" (i.e. happiness) e.g. see here:
https://ourworldindata.org/dat
That is, in part, because it translates to higher living standards. Exactly how much is up for debate, but as an example see this from the left of centre Social Market Foundation:
https://www.smf.co.uk/publicat
The gap has become wider since they wrote that report, and I don't agree with all of their analysis, but I do agree with their conclusion: "Ultimately, as long as the UK’s productivity remains below peer countries, it is likely to continue to suffer from lower living standards." |
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Reply | 2nd kit - theory
at 13:24 29 Jul 2026
Having seen the kit, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason Ross hasn't signed is because he refuses to wear it. It looks like someone's been sick after drinking Blue Lagoons all night. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 12:00 29 Jul 2026
As I said above, there's no reason we can't have both the higher standard of living and the benefits of the UK. For example, the lower life expectancy in the US is caused by their gun laws, their unsafe roads, higher obesity rates and fentanyl addiction. There's no reason we should want any of those, or any reason we have to get them. But there are plenty of reasons we would want the average family to have a 50% higher standard of living. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 11:57 29 Jul 2026
Yes we need opportunities for young people, but they need to be genuine jobs. We can create those by taking the brakes off the private sector so that the economy goes back to its old growth rate.
But we also need to take away the incentives for people to be, as you say "happy to stay on benefits, getting sick notes from their GP when there is very little wrong with them". So long as that is a viable option people will choose to do that. We have a much higher percentage of people signed off as long term sick, compared to the rest of Europe. It's highly unlikely that we're really sicker. For example, smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and disability, and about 13% of people in the UK smoke, while the average for Europe is 25%. So it's highly unlikely that we're really sicker, we just make it too easy to claim sickness. Of total disability claims, 44% are for mental health. What used to be normal, and people just got on with their lives, is now treated as a reason to be off work and on the sick.
This week it was widely reported that Burnham was warned by Labour MPs not to make cuts to benefits or they would rebel, like they did against Starmer. Meanwhile the numbers of claimants and the level of spending keeps on increasing. It's unsustainable. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 12:44 25 Jul 2026
Sure, but Trump makes no difference to what we can learn form their economic system. Their system was working long before Trump came along and it will be working long after he's gone. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 14:00 24 Jul 2026
As I said above, my comment relates to the economy and how their system has resulted in significantly higher standard of living (using the internationally accepted meaning of that term e.g. by the UN). There are many things that the UK could learn from that system to make us better off.
That doesn't mean everything in the US is great. I think they could improve lives by changing gun laws, food standards, driving regulations and many other things which would have no impact on the economy but would increase life expectancy etc. There's no reason we couldn't combine our gun laws etc. with some of their economic policy.
But even with those problems in the US (and using your meaning of the term) there's no evidence to say that "the US is evidently a worse place to live for standard of living than the UK". The nearest we can get to what you're talking about is called reported life satisfaction. The figures for that are still better for the US than the UK, even with the levels of violence and insecurity in their country. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 10:38 24 Jul 2026
Those actions don't cost the BOE anything. The problem was that selling of government bonds caused more selling by pension funds. The BOE stopped by that by buying those bonds. It does that by giving banks "reserves" at their accounts at the BOE in exchange for the bonds. Those reserves cost the BOE nothing, so buying the bonds cost nothing.
The pain was caused by the spike in interest rates and the drop in the pound, not the cost of buying bonds. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 10:29 24 Jul 2026
Ah saintmark who likes to twist what I say. If you'd actually read what I said recently you'd have seen I was highly critical of the corrupt Trump regime and the way they perverted the world cup. But no, for saintmark, he declares I have a "persistent love in with all things America". As usual, he's wrong. I have lived in the US and chose to live here.
But I make no apology for admiring the US economy and the way that gives the average family a 30% to 50% higher living standard than here. It takes a real fool to not want to learn something from how they've achieved that. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 17:47 23 Jul 2026
All 3 of those policies are unfunded. It's easy to announce policies to spend other people's money. If he'd made spending cuts to pay for those things, that would be good, but taxing and spending does not make us better off.
Growing the economy is what makes us better off. Living standards for the average family in the US are about 30% to 50% higher than ours, depending on the exact measurement. UK living standards are now below even the poorest state in the US, Mississippi. And we'll be even worse off now we have to pay for our own defence. The reason they have a better standard of living is simple, the US has had strong economic growth and we haven't. If you talk to people in the US they understand that too. Most people in the UK haven't got a clue.
Starmer at least talked about the need for growth, but didn't deliver. Burnham just talks about taking us back to the policies of the 1970s, when we were an economic basket case and living standards were a hell of a lot lower than they are now. |
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Reply | Ross Stewart Not Completely Out Of The Picture Says Tonda Eckert
at 16:01 21 Jul 2026
Nowhere do I spit on the ground at the mention of his name, but plenty of fans do and I can understand why. My view is that it is highly unlikely he's radically transformed from what we saw last year into the type and quality of player we need. So I hope he gets his chance to come good somewhere else, because if he's still here he's taking up a place in the squad that could be used for someone else. Tonda works best with a small squad, so if Downs is here then someone else isn't.
I suspect that there is a difference of opinion on this between Spors and Tonda. Spors won't want to admit a recruitment error, but it's clear that Tonda doesn't see Downs included in the 2 strikers he has his eyes on. If the club force Tonda to keep him in the squad I think that will be a mistake. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 14:22 21 Jul 2026
What Truss and Kamikaze Kwarteng did was illegitimate, should never have been attempted and did have a negative impact on the economy.
But they were unlucky. The main problem was that gilt yields, i.e. long term interest rates, rose (because gilts were sold) and a key reason that happened was due to an automatic selling mechanism in pension funds (who are the main owners of gilts) called LDI. This was relatively untested in the real world at that time. Selling caused automatic selling in a self reinforcing cycle with no off-switch. This caused rates to rise much higher than they otherwise would have done. Aa a direct result of that episode, the rules around LDI were changed by the regulators so that the same thing could never happen again.
Truss got what she deserved, but if there is an equivalent episode today, the spike in gilt yields/interest rates would be nothing like as severe. The main beneficiary of that may turn out to be Andy Burnham. |
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Reply | Andy Burnham
at 13:04 21 Jul 2026
Tolkein didn't believe there should be any central government, or police at all. He was an anarchist who believed that the best society would come from "the abolition of control". Unfortunately, that's about as realistic as Hobbits. |
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