Brilliant news OMOH.

Congratulations OMOH!

Congratulations on the wonderful news OMOH.

Congrats OMOH!

Jota has started brilliantly for Liverpool. It is strange because whilst it was obvious he had talent at Wolves he did seem to blow hot and cold. Usually going on a good run at the end of the season but could go 10 games in a row doing nothing.
Sometimes putting good players with brilliant players brings out their greatness as well. Liverpool did a similar thing with Mané.

There must be some very good players at lesser clubs who are effectively being held back by the ceiling of achievement of the club. Drop them in with other top class players and they push on.

Belated congratulations omoh.

And from me Hoy. Many congratulations.

Congrats OMOH.

Haven't seen Oxlade-Chamberlain on the pitch for a while. Nothing against him, I quite like him as a player when he's fit but we did a very good deal to get £35-40m for him. He seems destined to just have a career blighted by injuries
He's started 31 times in a potential 121 league games for Liverpool in his 3 and a bit seasons with them
He made 42 starts with us out of 114 league games in his final 3 seasons.

No result yet AG. Bit like waiting on the results of an STD test isn't it ?

You strongly suspect what it is and just waiting for official confirmation.

Subscriber Trunk Dialling?

Demba Ba has just scored a goal against Man U. The sort of goal that you might see in an under 10s match. No defence whatsoever as all the Utd players were up the other end trying to score. Great fun to watch.

OGS may not last the season.

Thanks for that. Any further, possibly less obvious insights that you can give us? Maybe the average temperature today at the North Pole was lower than today’s average temperature at the centre of the Sahara Desert?

MAY have been lower

Did you see against Chelsea (puh!) the Renne defender get a second yellow for a handball from a shot that ricocheted off his own leg!? It was ludicrous. Penalty and a sending off from someone blocking a shot with their leg. As many a wise old codger has said this season, the game’s gone.

The Man U highlights are worth watching, the defending for the 2 goals they conceded is up there with some of the worst I’ve ever seen at the top level.
The first goal Man U take a short corner and somehow end up with all 10 outfield players within 35 yards of the opposition goal, with Demba Ba simply standing 20 odd yards clear of any Man U defender just waiting for a big hoof downfield to them run 60 yards completely unopposed to score. Amazing

Bit like watching the arsenal, or going to the dentist.

Not sure what your post is about. I started the sentence with ‘Maybe’ and finished it with a question mark.

Anyway, I had a look for today’s average temperatures in the North Pole and Sahara Desert and couldn’t find it. What I could find was the temperature across November at the North Pole which is a high of -13 and a low of -22 degrees centigrade. The mean temperature in the Sahara Desert is 30 degrees centigrade, albeit I couldn’t see the exact period. But it was a lot higher for the summer, so my guess would be the full year.

I remember when it was being discussed that we weren't good enough for top 4 or even top 6. That we didn't have enough quality (yet) to get there this season. I mentioned what may happen was Man Utd, Tottenham and other clubs who finished ahead of us, dropped in quality basically a combination of us being better than last season overall and a few of the top six sides sliding down.

It still come to fruition.

I actually went into self imposed media isolation during the election. It appears Biden will win as expected, his party will not regain the Senate, the House of Representatives will remain in Dem power but they lost seats.

The closeness of the election in terms of popular vote proved what I already knew (similar to Warrior's descriptive analogy). America is irrevocably damaged. It's 4th century Rome. Dying, economy stagnant, corrupt, unable to project the power it once had. Living more off its glory years than off its actual power and prestige. No longer respected, barbarians (Chinese, Russians) at the gate. Biding their time, testing the ideological, military, cultural and economic borders.

An excuse, weak as it may be can be made to vote for Trump in 2016. In fact, thousands of voters who voted for Obama twice, held their nose and voted for Trump. Trump actually campaigned left of Hillary Clinton on the economy, healthcare, etc. But in 2020, there is no cover. Not after 4 years. What he is was even worse than some of us imagined, myself included. With the possible exception of family members (and I've witnessed several families split over him and become estranged), I've never seen so many people 'cancel' another over a president. People have remained friends over the OJ Simpson trial, over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, over Bush, over Obama but this was different. It's been reported that its by far, by some distance, the leading reason people are 'unfriended' on Facebook. I had an interview in December. Completely out of order and shocked me was that she said "So, you are in California, at least your state will do the right thing. We have a small, close knit group, we all get along, everyone is on the same page work wise, socially, politically". I am thinking to myself, its gone to this? Hiring is now political? In LA you can risk a lawsuit with that comment. I'll admit to unfriending people (for political reasons, not for Arsenal forum related matters..hehehehe ). HS classmates being the majority of them. I'm scratching my head "What happened to my 11th grade lab partner for advanced Chemistry and we struggled together to decipher the differences between benzene compounds?" I don't recognize this person?

The economy was no where as great as Trump said it was but he repeated ad nauseum to the point you questioned your own reality. The only allies we have are other strongmen, authoritarian leanings...Modi, Netanyahu, Brazil's Bolsonaro, Erdogan, and at one point Putin, Xi and Kim.

It is impossible to have a functioning Republic, when just under half of the knowingly, zealously, and proudly supports a person who openly lies, demands his administration officials to break the law or be replaced. They either excuse the xenophibia, bigotry, racism at best, applaud it at worst. See no issue in calling for the arrest and conviction of political allies. Washington DC would be no different than Ankara and roughly 48 percent of Americans would brave the rebuke of the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France even thumb their collective noses if it happened.

Put a fork in it. We're done. It's over. It's not going to end well. My guess? Eventually, shootings will be even more normalized. The national debt, already well pass totall GDP, 25 trillion, will be insolvent and the government will simply say 'we're not paying it, what are you going to do about it?"

I'm not quite as pessimistic about the longer term prognosis for America, if Trump loses. At some point things will line up and it will be possible reduce the influence of the yokels by fixing or getting rid of the electoral college system and senate un-representivity.

But the short term is looking worrying again. Seems Arizona was called too early. Trump unsurprisingly is not making noise about late results there

Just seen it on the highlights. Truly appalling and desperately unfair. If that’s what the laws of the game now decree then the regulatory bodies have lost the plot.

Just as worrying is that players will appeal for the decision. No honour left at all.

I thought VAR and extra scrutiny was supposed to remove the 'human error' element of officiating?

I'd love for us to put our group to bed and keep chalking up wins. That way we can play the younger players for the games that don't have any bearing on the group standings. I'm expecting 3 points which I shouldn't do.

Nailed it, AG.

This is why I love the forum. The opinions posted on it really make you think.

Supposed to. Just like democracy is supposed to remove tyrant and crooks from power.

We just have to cling to the faith that having such systems is better than the alternatives.

Just catching a bit of the Benfica vs Rangers game. The stadium looks eerily familiar, especially in its current non-spectator mode.

Mind you it was us who copied them.

1-0 down. Felt like pure complacency all round there

Well that’s ironic. Conceding a goal by not playing our way out of defence.

We are building attacks like a Subbuteo team.

Just one active player at any time.

Always that element of frustration that we just don’t shoot enough against teams who stick 10 men behind the ball.
We don’t seem to have players who can get the ball, make half a yard and fire an accurate shot at goal

Half an hour of absolute rubbish so far.

Karen Carney. Urgh, not that I like many comms but she really is awful. Arsenal rivalling her in stinking the place out.

Just like virtually all of the Dundalk game. Tedious, unexciting with no real penetration or threat.

Hopefully the rested players will do a job on Villa.

Consistency in focus and urgency not there still.

Missing what Nelson gave us v Dundalk, just someone willing to run at them. Pépé is infuriating at his lack of desire to actually try and beat his man. He does a few step overs, keeps the ball close, stops and plays it backwards

At least she offers a reasonable commentary, unlike the judgemental and superior attitude of Steve McManaman.

Horrible slow motion attacks.