Burning Gold

He doesn't mention offside once

They have this sort of thing in rugby and cricket here as well. I do think it would be good to have, but it still doesn't really help the fans in attendance.

This is a bit simplistic, isn't it? If they wanted to outlaw goalhanging, they could've written a rule in any number of different ways, but they didn't. They created the offside rule, which has always outlawed 'being offside' as we know it for all of its 150 year existence. It's been tweaked here and there, but it's always outlawed being between x number of opponents and their goal, never just goalhanging. People are worried that VAR is changing the game too much and yet now we're sat here questioning the wisdom of the bloody offside rule. Probably the one law that's shaped the game the most, other than maybe the one that says you can't use your hands. Welcome to the forum, by the way!

He's right that there's a margin of error which needs to be acknowledged. Either by investing in better cameras, or by having it so you have to be on- or offside in both frames for the decision to be overturned. But then we have two frames to analyse. Two lots of lines to draw. Ultimately I think the answer is just better cameras and better 3D imaging to reduce the margin of error and make it quicker to do the lines. Maybe a chip in the ball so you know when it's kicked. I can't get behind this luddite nonsense that you should only look at two replays with the naked eye. There have been countless examples of players being offside but they look comfortably on because of the camera angle. Maybe vice-versa, but I can't actually think of one. Whichever way you look at it, you need the lines, otherwise you're just deliberately making bad decisions. This just isn't true. It's always gone into specifics. The current wording, regarding parts of the body with which you can't play the ball, has been around for years before VAR. If anything, the problem is the exact opposite. It's so specific that we can go into fine margins and milimetre perfect determinations, so there's (in theory) no room for umpire's call. Now we can't really go back and change the rule to make it less specific, so here we are.

Isn't it because it's not played by the rules of competitive fixtures? Can make as many subs as you want, for instance

Hmm

Bloody hell mate if I knew the answer to that In my lifetime, Labour have done best by sticking close to the centre. It's the only way they've won. I am curious, though, as to whether a Corbyn-style agenda would do the trick if it were attached to a better, more palatable leader. Take away the Brexit issue (it won't be sorted, but won't be a massive issue in the election in 5 years) and the Corbyn issue, and how different does the picture look? How does it look after another 5 years of Conservative government? There are issues that need to be addressed, but I think those two one-off issues make the picture look bleaker than it actually is for Labour. @Inverted will be able to speak more to the Scotland thing, but I get the impression Labour is pretty much done there anyway. They can rely on Scotland voting to the left, but not for them. For anti-Tory coalition purposes, that's good, but not for a Labour majority if that's what you want. I think they'll be around next time because I can't see Johnson granting them another referendum. Why would he?

Would've shifted things towards the Tories if anything. Labour might've lost a handful fewer votes to them and the Brexit Party, but they would've absolutely haemorrhaged votes to the Lib Dems and Green. Even with a realistic remain option on the table, people still voted for "proper Remain" parties because they were so keen to pat themselves on the back. Imagine how it would've gone if there were no other choice. Ultimately you have to remember most Brexit voters are closer to Conservative than they are to Labour. They were always going to vote that way once Boris Johnson won the leadership and committed to Brexit. With the state of play as it was, I really don't think there was a way for Labour to win.

Well we can fly out whoever we want, just that anyone joining late can't be included in the playing squad (unless we've agreed special arrangements, which admittedly I hadn't heard about). I thought that would've been the way to do it; have a few of the fringe senior players steward the reserves through the Villa game, then get them to Qatar to join MadLad's warm weather training

It's a fair point, but I would've thought they'd be on board with getting minutes in the Villa game, while they might not in the CWC, then being flown out to join the squad for the tournament. Hopefully the idea is that they play in the tournament to give the likes of Salah and Mane the full 12 days off before returning to PL action on boxing day. I very much want to win it, but a second string squad should be enough to do that. I don't think the FA have got anywhere near enough criticism for this. It's a total mess caused by the actual champions of Europe winning two fucking League Cup games. How has no one seen this coming and dealt with it in advance? It's absolutely shocking. Can't get my head around this, to be honest. Not arsed one bit? It may not be the league or the Champions League, but we have a chance to be World Champions here. Surely that's got to excite you a little bit?

Alisson, Van Dijk, Wijnaldum, Milner, Keita, Firmino, Mane, Salah, Gomez, Adrian, Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lallana, Lonergan, Shaqiri, Robertson, Origi, Jones, Alexander-Arnold, Williams. Thought they might leave some of the first team squad at home for the Villa game, but looks like they've got everyone. Even Jones, Lonergan and Williams are travelling. That game could get ugly, which will do nothing for those players' development

Usually I'd balk at the idea of paying a man until he's 36, but Milner consistently wins the fitness challenges in preseason and he's a wise old head. Really good to have around when you need a bit of control, as well as being able to cover loads of different positions Really good couple of days for Liverpool Football Club

I think you're half right. It was Brexit that decided this election in the main, but not Labour's policy on it. Their hands were tied. The voter base was too split for them to either go full Remain or full Leave, while all the Tories had to do was commit to Leave to rally theirs and pick up the extra votes they needed. Look how the polls change when "proper Brexit" Boris Johnson becomes leader, compared to the zero change when Labour announced their Brexit policy in September. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/11/election-opinion-polls-uk-2019-latest-poll-tracker-tories-labour I have no doubt that a better, more popular, less toxic leader than Jeremy Corbyn would've won more votes and probably more seats for Labour, but a Tory majority was probably unavoidable.

Labour are 2-0 up! Dangerous lead that

Their voter base was too divided for that. This was really the only option for them I think, but not good enough. I don't know if Labour could've won with someone else, but Corbyn is too toxic. He's got too much ugly, exploitable history

I've never believed the "Brexit is a Tory plot to fuck the little guy" thing, primarily because they didn't take their chance to vote it through under May, and because they don't need to leave the EU to do that anyway. But they've turned a general low-level Euroscepticism into 14 consecutive years of Conservative government, 7 with a majority. If that was the plan, then it's gone brilliantly for them. Blimey

Eh. Maybe I'm being too charitable, but it's not like she's deleted the original picture from existence, and it's quite clearly a gag not intended to mislead. I doubt the sincerity of her concern over antisemitism, to be honest, but in this particular instance... Also, I edited out the rest of your post because of its length (not trying to prove a point ), but... nicely put

Rachel Riley wore a t-shirt with some words. I'm really, really at a loss as to what she's supposed to have done wrong

To be fair, Brendan's been winding @Dr. Gonzo up all year by well and truly putting this "carried by Suarez" stuff to bed

I think the argument is that it's not about Mendy taking offence, it's about Bernardo Silva promoting harmful stereotypes. The FA should be doing more to publicise that reasoning, because right now it looks a bit silly and fuels the "It's PC gone mad! Can't say nothing anymore" stuff It's a shame Bernardo Silva doesn't share a dressing room with someone strongly opposed to racism. I'm sure if he did, that person would've had a word about why posts like that are bad, and certainly wouldn't have publicly defended it

Yeah, I do mean them. I think they've been pretty desperate to back him at every opportunity to come out on the right side of the Sterling vs Daily Mail thing. He deserves praise, of course he does, but it's also led to some quite silly takes. Also because the Manchester and London-based media hate Liverpool "Now Sterling is forced to defend himself from keyboard warriors" for acting like a child and doing something clearly unacceptable. Poor old Raheem I don't think Southgate dictated that it be leaked to the media, to be fair.

There's a scuffle on the pitch when you've just been cleaned out, and there's physically and verbally assaulting someone, unprovoked, in the canteen because you're still salty about a loss. No man behaves like that Bit weird how all the coverage of this has been "poor old Raheem". Wonder why that could be

I actually think Labour have played it about right on Brexit for this election. They're the only realistic option for Remain, but they're also still an option for the famous working class Leave voters in Labour heartlands we hear so much about. You could argue the balance of the Brexit debate might be different if they'd been stronger on Remain in the last 3 and a bit years, but we are where we are and they have to shoot down the middle. Don't forget Leave won the referendum in part by refusing to be drawn into detail on what Brexit would look like, thereby maintaining broad appeal. The champagne socialist types in London and Brighton might split the vote by opting for Green or Lib Dem, but they're always liable to do that.

Shocking that there's not a plan in place for this already. How have they been completely blindsided by us winning two League Cup ties?

It's already clear. A goal can be disallowed for any contact with the hand or arm; for anything else, the other criteria apply. You might not like it, but it's quite clear