Really? I would LOVE to visit Belfast. As soon as this covid19 mess is over, I'm heading to games. It's interesting, the pandemic has made me feel a certain way of not being able to make games that I didn't make a great enough effort to go to prior.

I'm definitely going to some when we're able to go to it live. PS: I'll be wearing the Mustafi shirt.

The shorter the better. If we could make it a T20 cricket match or a coin toss, I'd take that. United are pretty scary at the moment. They haven't lost in the league or Europe since January (and that was a freak loss against Sheffield United.

I suppose the question has to be whether ‘taking the knee’ does anything to reduce racism? I presume that cannot have been proven one way or the other considering the only player I’m aware of who has stopped doing it is Crystal Palace’s Wilfred Zaha, who is obviously black himself.

I think it’s noticeable that with every single live game shown on telly, as far as those I’ve seen the start of anyway, the commentators always make a point of saying why it’s being done. They must have been told to do so, I’m guessing to stop people forgetting why players are doing it. Without commentators doing that, would I have forgotten why it ever started? I’d like to think my memory isn’t quite so bad to have no idea at all why it started, but in years to come it would probably be no more than something in the ‘back of my mind’.

I’m not saying ‘taking the knee’ should be stopped, but I’m not convinced it does anything useful to stop racism either. It does sometimes strike me as football doing a flimsy bit of pretending to do something worthwhile, when I’m not sure it is. I feel there are measures that are immeasurably more important that could be done such as in children’s education and stopping online racial abuse, for just two examples.

I think the main thing football has done is make black players heroes to white kids and vice versa. What white kid who supported Arsenal at the time couldn’t have seen Henry, Vieira and Campbell as heroes; and what black kid who supported Arsenal couldn’t have seen Bergkamp, Petit and Adams as heroes? Hopefully exactly the same thing applies to modern white kids with Saka and black kids with Smith Rowe. The same thing will apply with young fans at other clubs.

He conducted himself in a professional, and I think, inspiring way.

Take a close look at this.

Sorry what am I looking for ?

TG,
One black player. Not sure if he was the only one.

Take a close look at this.

Austin is a unique city. It's not the just state capital of Texas. It's progressive. There is Texas and there is Austin. It's the San Francisco of Texas so to speak. I'm happy for them and I'm cheering for the team and sport to succeed there. I have friends there as well.

....and similar well wishes for Becks in Miami. I owe football a lot. Because its a global sport, I've been able to have a ready topic for small talk to just about any man world wide and most women. It's probably the biggest unifier of random people I ever seen.

https://www.statesman.com/story/sports/2021/04/14/austin-fc-matthew-mcconaughey-talks-mls-season-celebrating-austin/7212321002/

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/sports/2021/04/16/matthew-mcconaughey-austin-fc-mls-texas-longhorns-football-spt-intl.cnn

Shame on you .....the answer is someone who went on be deputy CEO of the PFA

That doesn't help me, unfortunately. Viv and Paul Davis played when I was young. And I've just remembered the name Raphael Meade from somewhere. That was a great recall if I say so myself

If we get past Villarreal I dont think my nerves /health could handle a final against Utd.
Losing to Chelsea in Baku was bad enough but losing to those tossers would be excruciating.
I'm praying Roma can knock them out but are they strong enough to? I have my doubts.
Can only hope and pray.
Utd are a very good team but so are we on our day.
But first Villarreal......

Austin. Home to the man who won seven Tour de France in a row. Or was it zero?

Brendan Batson

Just seen tomc beat me to it. Wasn’t on the forum all afternoon and while out my battery expired.

Well who would have expected that? He’s gone up even further in my estimation.

https://www.kosovari.net/steven-gerrard ... 18SF6qbZRI

Could've been worse David. It could have been Tottenham in a two leg semi final. Now that would have had your blood pressure rising. And mine.

I'd look no farther than Villarreal for now. Far from the foregone conclusion that some in the media seem to think. Roma won't lie down for Man U either.

Good result for us if spurs everton stays at 2 2.
Beat Fulham and we are 2 behind Spurs and 1 behind Everton.
Would have a real chance of nicking 7th.
Think it goes down to 7th if city win the caraboa and city or Chelsea win the fa cup
Need a back up plan if Europa goes tits up.......

Rangers have invited Arsenal to play a friendly at Ibrox to celebrate their 150th anniversary.

I’ve seen it said (I’m sure by me as well at some point) that ‘how lucky we are to have smith-Rowe and saka, and this isn’t having a go at anyone who has said it but in reality producing two youth players through our academy since they were both maybe 8 or so years old, and getting them to a level good enough to not only play in but be shining stars for our first team is an incredible feat by the club. I’d say it is far, far harder for the club to produce the likes of smith Rowe and Saka than it is to go and identify and sign a player of similar quality.
The current group having just come through the academy is pretty exceptional, even if some of them are not quite good enough for our first team I’d back all of them to have careers in the premier league.

Just rewatching some of the Sparta game. I don’t often praise referees but he was pretty good and was very calm when it got a bit tense between players.

Should AW be getting credit for this? He was in charge of Arsenal when these kids were starting out. He would have seen through their progress as well. I'm wondering.

Good result for us if spurs everton stays at 2 2.
Beat Fulham and we are 2 behind Spurs and 1 behind Everton.
Would have a real chance of nicking 7th.
Think it goes down to 7th if city win the caraboa and city or Chelsea win the fa cup
Need a back up plan if Europa goes tits up.......

I’ve seen it said (I’m sure by me as well at some point) that ‘how lucky we are to have smith-Rowe and saka, and this isn’t having a go at anyone who has said it but in reality producing two youth players through our academy since they were both maybe 8 or so years old, and getting them to a level good enough to not only play in but be shining stars for our first team is an incredible feat by the club. I’d say it is far, far harder for the club to produce the likes of smith Rowe and Saka than it is to go and identify and sign a player of similar quality.
The current group having just come through the academy is pretty exceptional, even if some of them are not quite good enough for our first team I’d back all of them to have careers in the premier league.

In 22 years AW only came to Hale End once, and that was to officially open the David Rocastle dome
He was great at promoting players from the 18’s and 23’s, but had pretty much zero input before that
Liam Brady would have been academy director when most of the current crop were signed