Danny

I think there's mainly two types of racists, the first group gain some sort of power from it be it political or even just socially in a local setting and so use it for their own benefit. Then the second group generally grow up in impoverished areas, part of the white working class that generally don't do too well at school, and whilst they may not specifically hate or dislike anyone in person, they will repeat slurs and believe in wider conspiracies or stereotypes that are delivered to them by politicians, or by their friends/family network who will eventually get it from politicians/public figures. I grew up around people that would use the P word multiple times in a day and then at the same time were close friends with people of south Asian heritage, and then when they were alone again would go back to using the word. There doesn't really seem like much logic to that, but I think it's a collision of nature vs nurture where both sides seem to have a 50/50ish hold.

How can you talk about being a temporary custodian of a club and in the same breathe be chucking 4 billion around. Football is such a myth

Do you think that has something to do with the calibre of player you have now? Not so much from last year, and that was more an issue of poor planning a wider squad than anything, but Klopp had that thrown at him from day one at Anfield. Do you think if you give Klopp those players again the injury issues that used to occur still occur? But because he's brought in not just better footballers, but much better athletes, the injuries are now reduced with the same demands put on them? It's an issue I think about with Leeds though @Lucas might be able to say...their current manager mentioned the players had been overworked, but a lot of those players were generally Championship standard. Had Bielsa of been given more footballers who are high level athletes then would Leeds' season have been better managed with injuries? Or do you think it's difficult to improve on the athletic performance of the players at Leeds already? This makes me think about when we got promoted last season and our DoF was slated for saying that the quality difference between midtable Prem and top of Ligue 1 is fairly minimal, but what sets the players apart is how good an athlete they are. It's one of the reason we looked to sign high level athletes in the Championship and then again in the Premier League, and why we have settled into our first season with some comfortability, because we have a team with a good range of athletic performance on top of their playing ability.

A lot of big acts do something similar in America I believe, but generally big acts will just have onsite security who will take phones or people out of the venue.

Watched the fight at Wembley. Stadium fight basically means you’re watching the big screen, not live. Atmosphere was good for Sweet Caroline and the walk ins, otherwise very boring. Brawl broke out in front of me before the fight started, not particularly great to be surrounded by Conor McGregor wannabes but it is what it is. Vast majority well behaved. I think there’s a level of sad dick head achieved when you go to the boxing to fight specifically, even though there are people trained to fight literally in the ring and you’re just giving it billy big bollocks. There was a bloke shadow boxing and telling Tyson Fury what to do, in the top tier, but fair play he was having a good time. The fight wasn’t very entertaining, boring and I was hoping Whyte would come in with more body work. Neither boxer actually had to do a lot and Fury got a sweet KO. Got a new found respect for Fury tbh, put on a decent show when he was walking in and end of fight too. But also been fairly classy throughout most of the fight and you can tell he wants to retire, even if he doesn’t.

I get that replacing top wing backs with Alonso is bad, but considering you’ve spent £250m (according to transfermrkt) on attacking players since the transfer ban ended and you’re still so reliant on a home grown wing back and Ben Chilwell…that’s not great planning.

With how much money you’ve spent on forwards it’s mad that you were so reliant on him and James

I do get that but I just feel like you can replace big club for big club and oil club for oil club and nothing really changes

When is it ever competitive? Other than Leicester the only teams in with a chance of winning it are oil clubs or Man Utd/Liverpool. Tbh competitive should be the quality you can produce on somewhat of an equal playing field, not which team can spend half a billion to the title first.

Sydney and Melbourne are good in fairness, Aus had the tap and go payment system on bank cards before the UK had a widespread roll out so you have some technological advancements haha

In fairness I'm just taking the piss but it didn't seem like there was much of a card option when I was there. Anyway Perth's biggest problem is that there aren't enough flying rolly polly stations

Paper tickets on the train I will not get my head around in this day and age Beaches were lovely though

Ironically a WW3 based nuclear fallout would actually bring Perth into the 21st century, so a positive for them

Yeah there was a lot of international pressure to close it…which is why it’s baffling our government have looked at it and thought they should replicate it in one way or another

It's genuinely horrifying. I remember a few years ago when I first went to Australia (cough cough @Toinho) and I heard reports there about Manus Island. Was genuinely in shock that a country would take people trying to seek asylum etc and then stick them in a detention centre that caused and contributed to suicide, murder and child abuse. And the British government have seen that, taken inspiration from it and decided to not only replicate the plan but do it in a country where government opposition are apparently being silenced, killed etc? It's crazy how conditioned we all are to essentially just let things like this, the Windrush scandal etc happen.

Choosing war today Stanley

I'd like to think he'll never play in England again...but you see the case of Ronaldo and United fans ignoring a transcript of him admitting to rape. Away from rape but still on domestic abuse...Danny Simpson was convicted of beating his girlfriend and still played for Leicester during their title winning season. There needs to be a code of conduct implemented by the Premier League imo.

You can try and throw me under the bus but you will never get away from mentioning Japan in every other sentence

howys it goooowen

Fair play to Vieira, I had Palace down as relegation fodder when he took over. The scenario seemed a bit dire at the time, from afar he hadn't exactly set the world alight in France and seeing the turnover of players in the Summer it just seemed logical, but he's performed really well and midtable is a good position for Palace. The result against Arsenal a really good one that could help them end the season on a high. The rebuild will be interesting, especially if they lose Zaha, but we'll see how it goes. Any talk of Vieira at Arsenal is completely premature though, not proven at all.

I found Wheel of Time to be a bit meh, started well and then just seemed to do whatever it wanted without much reason. Didn’t finish it

It is a very Chelsea thing to say though so he has that on his side.

It is a very Chelsea thing to say though so he has that on his side.

Does the job. Chuck a bit of garlic and lemon into the mash and chuck an onion into the pan before you put the gravy on. Lovely jubbly

Little sympathy for Chelsea tbh, their fans have absolutely lapped up what Roman has done for the club the past decade and a bit. If this is a natural consequence of that then they can have no quarrels. Though I’m sure some billionaire will buy them soon anyway