Rayvin

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

Here's the actual speech. Christ.

Believe it or not, I have been aware of him enough to know that he's not a total spanner, despite his attempts to come across as one. Although I did think he was meant to have "found Jesus" a little while ago, so not sure where that aligns with his 'dick slinging' and so on.

I guess Kidrock has released that to prepare for his run at the presidency? Or was he going for the senate, I don't remember. He might actually be a more compassionate individual than most of the republican senators and tbh, at this point, I think it would be amusing. The presidency would be something else though, we need to keep him the fuck away from that

I feel like that graph more or less reinforces what I just said, so I'm going to call it here The rate of growth is falling, it's just a typo from KCG that he's not added the word growth. It's clearly visible on the actual graph though.

I mean I do - I have a therapist. And consequently I've been able to develop my career in such a way that anxiety hasn't held me back. Good investment IMO. Given that China is working towards increasing wages across it's people, it'll be growing at similar levels to the rest of us in the end. It's booming cos it's cheap, not cos it's more driven.

China limits screentime because it has a nation of video game addicts. Moreover, your average Chinese young person has had a lifetime of coddling through being an only child, so much so that it has given rise to the label of 'little princes and princesses'. When I was out there I taught English to a few of them and while it's very anecdotal, they did not strike me as a particularly driven bunch. And while you may call the people we raise on the west 'pussies' I would prefer to see them as 'emotionally developed people who are able to look compassionately at the lives of others, and also attempt to deal with their own personal damage in order to make their lives better in the long run'. Yes there'll be some who go too far, but you don't actually meet very many of those, day to day, in my experience. It's more something that youtube channels get worked up about, rather than being real.

Self defence, surely? Were any plastic bags thrown?

It's not just about today's result mind. We have a string of what look to be unwinnable games in December against the strongest teams in the league. So by January we could be a way more than 5 points adrift and over halfway into the season. If we can't hold it together versus Brentford then we'll be punished by better teams too. If we can get a result against Arsenal somehow then we go back to being ok IMO but we have to start picking up wins from somewhere pretty damn urgently.

Not winning that game is the first moment that's really made me think we might go down here. That was a cast iron must win game given what we've got ahead of us, and failing to do so is worrying. Scoring 3 is great and encouraging but where are we going to get this defensive robustness from. Dubravka is going to have to come in hitting the ground running IMO. No reflection on Howe though - in fact it seems like he's had a positive impact in several areas which is great news really. Will he get on top of this quick enough though.

Why is Joelinton still being picked though? Do we really not have a superior option there?