Rayvin

If anything, greater transparency would have been more likely to result in the takeover going through - less straightforward to hide the cartel driven bullshit that was preventing it.

Well I see normality has been restored on here. Shaved Cow Monsters are an upgrade on what was going on previously, I suppose...

Why is it the French and not both sides? I don't really understand why it's happened other than the fact that they had a crappy boat. Is the contention that the French are now not trying so hard in terms of controlling for immigrants attempting to cross the channel, and therefore could have prevented this by dealing with the general issue more robustly?

: lol : without the spaces

True but the stats themselves can help develop the conversation between the people who do. I don't think they're a fundamental, but I do think they can add something.

Totally understand your view, as much as I enjoy data myself.

I think having someone in the discussion who has ready access to loads of stats and a willingness to dig them up could genuinely be a real asset on here tbf, it's a shame it's gone sideways. I'm tempted to make a final try at explaining to Clarko why this is so objectionable to the rest of us, but I can already imagine his reply and I've lost the will.

Yeah I think I'll agree with that one actually. Not sure one life should ever be put above another in terms of value (and moreover the guy who did it got 16 years for manslaughter - which doesn't seem like a light sentence to me?) Feels like the government just doing a bit of easy pointscoring. Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe it'll save lives of emergency workers.

Doesn't let you click the article anyway EU says no.

I feel personally attacked.

I think you've had a very different experience to Clarko Does speak volumes about the importance of having a bit of humility though.

You literally said "that doesn't sound like a great player to me" in one of your replies, in reference to all those quotes, thus directly aligning our points of reference and the basis for everything I said thereafter. But look, I'm done. You can have it. I once argued for two solid days about the whether the Tories were technically right about an announcement they made about nurses' pay, but I can't keep going with this. And moreover, I think if I do continue it's just going to piss everyone else off. You win, you're right about everything. I'm not clear on what, exactly, but I'm sure you are.

Alright so to clarify the position, ASM is a great player who has some flaws and may not fit into a high press style of play since that seems to require the whole team to contribute to the system and he seems to lack the desire/ability to do that - hopefully we'll still be able to accomodate him though because he brings an awful lot to the team in an attacking sense. He also seemed to be out of form for a few matches after Bruce left but seems to be back on it again based on the Brentford game. In summary though, he's shite.

You have determined that the quotes you took were equivalent to people saying that ASM wasn't a great player. I explained to you why that demonstrated an inability to handle the nuance of the comments, and even posited that the comments being made there could be made about any player, great or otherwise. You responded to this by doubling down on your position without contending directly with anything I said. Some of those comments even have the nuance explicitly stated ffs. I am left with no option but to believe that you're either an actual idiot, or you're being deliberately obtuse. Given that you don't come across as someone who is an actual idiot, I've gone for the latter.

I've concluded this myself from my own chain. The agenda seems to be pointscoring and creating a fuss rather than stimulating discussion.

So it is indeed the inability to handle nuance. My god indeed.

I mean, I'm not sure if any of Clarko's comments were things I said, maybe they were though because there are certainly opinions in there close to ones I've held - but I'm gonna point out that absolutely none of those posts indicated that he isn't a great player, which is precisely what I said. They're all talking about how he might not fit the system, how he's in poor form, how his approach to the game might cost us in certain situations. Ronaldo is a 'great player' in most people's definitions, but the same conversations are happening about him. And as far as I can remember, tend to happen for... all players? So I really don't understand the actual argument from Clarko here particularly, he's just strawmanned the whole forum. It is indeed as Fish says, either he's flawless or he's awful - that's the implication of the argument that's being made. You didn't outright say it, but that's the logical conclusion to the rationale behind this particular argument, since it takes all of the nuanced comments made on here and paints them as dismissive of the player in full.

Got it, thanks. By the sounds of it the fella will get one in the end.

I don't know the guy but Shearer refers to him as #sirkev and he seems to have an MBE. Is that not a knighthood? This is a genuine question, I've no idea which of the royal awards means what.

Yeah it definitely feels that way given the random nature of the battles being fought, but I suppose I'm curious if there's an overarching theme

This seems like a sensible appraisal of the situation that you can pretty much guarantee nobody in the government has given any thought to whatsoever.

What I don't get about Clarko in particular, is what his overall view of the club is - so like, we understand that ASM is a great player - something that literally no one disagreed with but nevermind - and we understand that his view is Ashley spent properly on the club and that he would have Shelvey's babies, but is his agenda here simply picking fights with people over specific points, i.e. another contrarian; or is it something else? The only other thing I can imagine is he's anti-takeover and trying to demonstrate to us that Ashley wasn't so bad cos look, he bought ASM and our Lord and Saviour Jonjo Shelvey. Would be good to just get those cards on the table so that we can at least understand the overall narrative behind the comments. What do you think of where we are as a club, @Clarko

If you keep saying stuff like that they're going to confiscate your pension. Learn which side your bread is buttered

This is horrifying but I can't look away