Rayvin

That's not what I was getting at - I know he can't do that. I'm saying that the spirit of his condolences to her that he couldn't do that, made clear that he would do everything he could do to help. He can take in more than 50 Ukrainian refugees. I refuse to believe the country can't handle more than 50. I didn't give him a hard time over the no fly zone because I understand it, I fundamentally do not understand this - especially given what he has said. And from what you've said, you just be just as appalled as me - 10,000 applications and 50 taken. How can we justify that?

Well that's that then - If 10,000 people have applied and 50 have made it, we cannot possibly claim that we are making good on our commitments. Our government has in fact lied to the people of Ukraine, and indeed the world, in claiming to do everything in its power to help. Boris Johnson was apparently unmoved by the tears of the Ukrainian journalist who begged him for a no fly zone to save people's lives, he did not take the spirit of his condolence and assurance that he would do everything possible forward into reality. Imagine if it was any of us in that position ffs - you have to tell this woman that you can't help her countrymen, that they will die because action is too risky... and not only that, you then sign off on a policy that makes their attempts to be safe as difficult as possible - turning 10,000 desperate people away. I wouldn't be able to live with myself man. I wouldn't give a fuck whose decision it was by that point, I'd be right into Priti Patel's office demanding that she let people in or I'd go public about how difficult the home office was being. On the importance of moral leadership. They just do not give a shit, seriously. And that's because, ultimately, they've been elected not to give a shit.

Green energy is a threat to Putin's attempts to control and influence the West, Farage is openly a Russian stooge, so this had an inevitability to it. He's a traitor and the enemy within.

I mean we're talking about refugees rather than immigrants of course, which I do appreciate you know - but I'm not sure where this great fear of the Ukrainian far right is on the right leaning side of politics? Wouldn't the true nazis stay and fight for their country? Also we're talking at absolute best about less than 300,000 people in the whole of Ukraine who even voted for a far right party, let alone joined one. To put that into context, we had over half a million voting for the BNP back in 2010. If we were being invaded, would you think it reasonable that 60m British people were denied refuge on the basis of 500k twats voting for a nazi party? I would take men, women and children as well, frankly - although I assume since many men have been conscripted, it's not weighted in their favour anyway. Those points aside, would you agree that we are behaving shamefully and failing to live up to what we are saying, if we are indeed being deliberately obstructive just because we don't really want to take these people in? Irrespective of whether they're nazis, whether they're desperate or not, our policy isn't discriminating on any of those bases -it is simply difficult to complete, and therefore an active barrier. That's how it looks to me. We just don't want them because they're foreign. They're different. Surely you would agree that if this is true, it is a deplorable stance?

Yeah that was a fucking weird comment tbh. And Trippier seemed a bit stunned by it too. I think he probably meant in terms of 'you never know what he'll do next' but aye, eyebrow raising

In the interests of absolute balance, yes, I do agree we would have to know how many are trying to enter before we can fully judge it. Would you at least agree that if we're talking tens of thousands of people are trying, then we are being deliberately obstructive?

Asprilla, can we not surely all agree that taking 50 people is a pretty pathetic response? Either we should be honest and say we don't want any, or be genuine and take a real number. Don't sit there talking the talk and then do everything possible to prevent anyone coming in. As per the other posts people have made, we are clearly being obstructive.

Priti Patel... the immigrant hating daughter of an immigrant.

Utterly humiliating to see that. What Ukraine must think of us..

Is it full co-op? As in, can you play it front to back with a partner?

"Technology. Entrepreneur. Business". He's not even trying ffs How many successful businessmen hashtag 'business' in their tweets.

Yeah and since then we won a couple of games I didn't have us down to win. I'm not gonna be shamed on that prediction lads, I made peace with it being entirely wrong as soon as I posted it But I just thought it might be interesting to compare.

I see that side tbh but I'm always brought back down to earth a bit on imagining Russian competence when I think about how widespread corruption is there. Corruption breeds incompetence, in the end. And Putin, for all his history, has surrounded himself with inferior men - because, I suspect, it's the only way he holds onto power. I do think he is playing a game we haven't gotten our heads fully around yet, in terms of misinformation and sowing division in the West... but I also think that was supposed to render us inert at this point. And it hasn't. So I think he's miscalculated and assumed we were entirely broken when we were just in fact wounded. Brexit, Trump, everyone's strong views on these issues... none of that changes the reality that we still all basically agree on freedom and Western liberal democracy. I actually think he may well have undone a lot of his well poisoning. Not all, but some.

I think it's hard to call Everton yet because they have so many games in hand versus those around them. They get two wins from that and they're more or less on even footing with us. The main thing though is that we'd actually need 2 or 3 teams to put a run together for it to be any threat to us. We've done the hard work in clawing our way out - we don't need to keep it at this level, we just need to match the pack.

Well I gave a bit of a range there since there can always be surprising results, but I think 6 points from the home games and 7 from the away ones. Takes us to 41.

Russia seems to be saying it's the former. That post Tom made the other day referenced a statement that I believe was from the Kremlin outlining how Putin had taken on a 'historic duty' to solve the Ukraine problem once and for all, so that future generations didn't have to. That honestly sounds like a legacy consideration to me. I don't think fucking over Europe has legs beyond the next 10 years anyway - we'll be increasingly on renewables by that point anyway, based on this. The less dependency we have on them, the less power they have over us. I don't see how cutting us off there helps them longer term.

So that we can actually just relax I agree there, although I am pretty much certain that short of something truly bizarre, we're now fine.

I reckon we end up between 40 and 45 pts, which will obviously be more than enough.

The fact that he hasn't done this, and has only threatened to, is telling.

ASM will need to be managed in a particular way tbf. I trust Howe on that over the long term. As for the rest, great result. It says a lot about how difficult it is to climb from a bad start that we've taken 16 points from 6 games and are still not caught up to mid table. But that's actually a testament to the incredible work that has been done here - we needed to be incredibly strong to pull out of it, and we have been. Just superb.

As much as I'm glad Ukraine is defending itself, I'm not sure I'll ever get used to seeing people being killed like that. This is of course a tragedy for the 20 year old Russians Putin has sent to their deaths as well.

Not quite following that, what's gone on there?

It's possible but I don't see what Russia gains from it - they can't defeat NATO conventionally and losing to us would be a disaster for Putin. Similarly, for all he rattles on about nukes he'd get plenty right back down his throat if it ever came to it - so again, it's hard to see how that would benefit him. I think the grim and unpleasant truth is that the Russians don't think we'll do anything no matter what they do, because they have correctly determined that MAD allows both sides to do whatever the fuck they like as long as they don't attack each other.

Apparently a while longer yet. I fully believe we should go in there, but we aren't going to. We are going to watch this happen. I mean they haven't yet started executing people on the street but that'll be made public too so I think we're going to need to collectively brace for how bad things are going to get.

Great bit of knowledge there MF, cheers