Rayvin

I hope we win, would be a watershed result in many ways.

My bad - I mean it's got me into such a rage that I've already punched several holes through my bedroom wall in sheer, unsuppressed masculine anger. I've calmed to the point of pacing around the house and beating my chest but I don't fancy having to redecorate another room

The Saudis are killing civilians in Yemen and Russia is killing them in Ukraine. That's all I was getting at really. I don't believe there's ever a good reason to kill innocent people. But I'm going to bow out of these topics now anyway as I'm emotionally drained from all of this.

Not going to get into a big discussion on it but I continue to believe he has been absolutely right in his views on Russia based on what I've seen. When Salisbury went down and everyone wanted immediate action, Corbyn wanted caution and adherence to international law and standards. We flouted that because it suited us. Little things like this make bigger things, like Russian invasions, easier. That said, I am struggling to think how he would have handled this. The press would have been calling for him to fire warheads by now ofc, and his own party would be lining up to testify against him for managing the crisis poorly, but it would be interesting to understand how he would tackle it.

I will say like, I continue to have nothing against Southampton. They build some decent teams now and then. But as others have said, I don't understand why this game wound so many Southampton fans up.. at the most charitable interpretation of both teams, in my head, we're midtable. So one midtable team beats another. Not exactly hugely unexpected. And tbf Howay is right - everyone and their dog bitches on about our fanbase, team, club and city while knowing next to fuck all about it. It does get old.

From Southampton's forum, post-match: I’ve seen some nasty teams over my time but they must be the shittiest, most despicable bunch of cheats I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. The main positive I took from tonight was that Newcastle's destined journey to the summit of European football is going to take about 200 years on that showing. For the money spent, they are all over the show. Cunts cunts cunts cunts cunts cunts cunts. Dirty fucking cheating cunts. So y'know, they took it well The second comment there is interesting though as there were a few variations of it, and it got me thinking that clearly a number of fans of other clubs really pay no attention to us at all. That's fine, I couldn't name most of Southampton's first team either tbh - but a lot of them genuinely do seem to think we went out and spent £90m to buy a completely new team that is meant to be playing like a side competing for CL places - and that we have therefore failed, because "we look pretty shite". They're in for a rude awakening next season I think.

Fair enough, I don't know enough of the detail to push back on that.

I didn't so much give up as conclude that the west has in some form actually learned something from Iraq. As I said elsewhere, I'm not sure I could see those circumstances repeating now. Cameron was stopped with respect of Syria, etc.

Spot on. And to be fair to the mackems, you can copy and paste that conclusion to pretty much every other fan (from any club) who has bitched on about it too.

I would support the sanctioning of KSA, including any damage to NUFC, if it stopped people's lives being lost in Yemen. I can't see how it is fundamentally different to the Ukraine situation. It won't happen though - but for the sake consistency and the value of human lives, it probably should. EDIT - to be clear though, I'd expect those sanctions to apply outside of just NUFC as well. We'd be talking every link they had anywhere.

This is the thing though, right- they're hoping Saudi Arabia gets sanctioned because of the impact it'll have on us. Not because of the Yemeni people suffering and dying - who they clearly couldn't give a shit about - but because of football. The fucking cunts man So classy though..

I was just reading the Guardian's match report on this, or the comments at least, and the sheer number of removed comments from Southampton fans is actually quite stunning. We have no long lasting grudge with Southampton do we? I don't understand why everyone has gotten so worked up about this game, other than that they've all been drinking the same koolaid as their manager. Would we give a shit about this if the tables were turned? Honestly I do think that there are a lot of clubs and fans in the league who aren't mentally prepared for us to be a good team again. It's going to be fun to watch

I'm glad you're enjoying this

Can you buy a frozen asset?

Fair enough but ffs you'd think they'd have some operational contingencies built into their accounts. Maybe they'll switch over to bank loans I suppose. How long this lasts is the real question in terms of the impact this has.

Shedend's thread on this is now viewable: https://www.theshedend.com/topic/32425-roman-abramovich-chelsea-fc-sanctioned/page/48/#comments They think they're fucked, is the tl;dr version.

They surely can't just have been living day to day out of his pocket though, they must generate enough money to actually be sustainable..?

Chelsea's forum has locked and hidden their thread on this so that only members can see it, and I think we can all probably imagine why.

If the collective Western world decided it was moved to act over Yemen and bring pressure to stop Saudi Arabia in that context, I would be more than happy for them to do to NUFC what they're doing to Chelsea. Whatever saves lives. For now though, the problem lies with our government rather than our football club.

I think there's more right in that article than I want there to be. Was reading a Monbiot piece in the guardian yesterday about how Germany has a huge gas reservoir that could supply 2m homes for a year... that they've left in the management of Gazprom who have systematically drained it to less than 10% capacity. No restrictions or controls in place to prevent this, no wariness about allowing a country as volatile as Russia ownership over such a key strategic asset. We have been caught with our pants down here, and no mistake. The laziness and incompetence of our politicians, in the west generally, is breathtaking. That said, where I disagree with the article is more in the future - this is going to rapidly expedite the move away from Russian energy, comfortably within 10 years IMO. What does Russia do then? How is that a big part of their master plan? I feel like that part of the article is agenda pushing tbh, I don't see the lasting logic around how this benefits Russia.

I assume the lad who actually did have experience was admitted. It's fair enough anyway.

Zelensky addressing the commons now via video link.

I always enjoy this guys videos - it's alternative history (the channel that is, not this particular video). It's a bit bitesize but it's a decent primer on the issue of NATO versus Russia.

One thing that always pisses me off with these pundits that tbh may be down to my own bias - Owen mentioned it in that clip - this notion that SJP is great when the team is flying but the polar opposite when things are going badly. As if the fans are very much a double edged sword. Granted, when it's going badly we'll have a quieter stadium as with any club - and granted, there was some loud and raucous protest under Ashley, aimed at Ashley. But I cannot for the life of me remember a match when the fans really got on the team's back and generated a really toxic atmosphere. Am I just looking at us with rose tinted glasses? I mean I've seen loads of other clubs do this - Sunderland fans got themselves relegated to League One as a consequence of doing it after all - but do we?

It'll be interesting to take our end of season points and see what it would have looked like over the full season, when the time comes. I honestly can't wait to start looking forward to next season.