CliftonCliff

Don’t you mean Disny?

Not sure what your point is. Who are you thinking of, specifically?

Absolutely spot-on. It was an opportunist deal in response to an unexpected and financially attractive offer. My impression at the time was that the player did not want to leave the club, nor did LJ particularly want to lose him. It had Ashton's finger prints all over it. Improved the bank balance, near-fatally weakened the midfield, especially when the other departures mentioned above are taken into consideration.

I assume no live coverage, as there has been for some games recently?

I had forgotten about the rather unseemly wrangling over whose player he was, legally, at the time of his tragic death. Thanks for reminding us. it will be interesting to see how that one plays out.

Exactly. And it's equally unfair to Paterson, who gets some quite outrageous stick on here. He's a regular starter for Swansea and has already had a series of good performances to his credit, to judge from the reports I've read. An outstanding goal and two assists on Saturday. What does he have to do before some people will recognise his abilities and give him credit for being the talented player that he is - walk on water? While he was here, regardless of whether he was fit or in form, he was, for me, probably the best footballer at the club and I am not in the least surprised that he's had a successful beginning to his time with his new club. We've lost four big players from our midfield in the last couple of years. Brownhill was always going to a higher level and there was nothing we could do to prevent that, but we chose to move on Pack, Smith and now Pato and, whilst I'm not necessarily saying I'd have them back now, I did disagree with every one of those decisions at the time they were made.

... and to the mods or whoever merged this with the original thread.

Thank you to the more tech-savvy posters who have come to my aid with the links to this story. ?

Can't do the link-thing, and didn't want to spend ages looking for the original thread to update, but for anyone who was following this very sad story at the time, there is a report on BBC News website regarding the latest legal proceedings in the case. It does seem that some sort of justice will be done. Henderson, who - allegedly - arranged the flight (piloted by Ibbotson, whose licence to fly commercial passengers had expired), has pleaded guilty to a charge of (I think) "endangering an aircraft" - or something of that nature. Couldn't see it mentioned anywhere else on the forum, and I know the story was of interest to some members, so though I'd just draw attention to this development.

Right, only just saw this. That’ll be why the figures surprised me, then - they’re wrong. Oh well. Thanks Dave. Rather undermines my argument (though I’d maintain it doesn’t invalidate it entirely).

ON reflection, I should probably have posted that on the COD thread, but have no idea how to move it, or whether that's even possible.

That just caught my eye. That's quite a surprising statistic, or it is to me, at any rate. Leaving aside for the moment the finer points of which position he plays, the guy is, essentially, a winger and a goal in - on average - every sixth game, is actually pretty good going for a wide man. If he's done that over the course of his career so far (and I haven't checked the accuracy of the data - wouldn't know where to look, in fact), then given his issues with injury, that's really rather impressive. Doesn't quite fit the narrative about him being a waste of space, does it? (Which some people will find annoyingly inconvenient.) And on the subject of injury, I can't now remember the details, but when he had his very bad ankle damage and was out for a long period, it was at a time when there was a particularly heavy cloak of silence about players' injury status. However, it did eventually leak out that he had had some fairly heavy-duty surgery, with, I believe, some metal-work having to be done to the joint - pinning, or a plate inserted, I'm not sure exactly what. I also remember hints that it had looked a bit touch-and-go at one stage whether it might turn out to be a potential career-ending situation, which might help to explain why any knock to that area tends to cause anxiety and a lot of caution about how he's treated. It seems to have been largely forgotten that he's had to work his way back from that extremely serious problem, and has had setbacks along the way. For the record, I'm not a great fan of his, especially, but as ever on OTIB, we do see some disproportionate criticism of individual players. I notice, for example, that some posters have been coming to the defence of Chris Martin, and quite rightly so, following a series of unnecessarily abusive remarks about a very experienced and capable forward who is deservedly well respected in the game. O'Dowda still has a lot to prove, but he's a better player than some people on the forum would have us all believe.

And BBC website has now modified to what I suggested in my original post! I'll trust Owers.

I didn't know that, thanks. Gary Owers, who I respect, has just said on RB it's standard 442, with Williams on the right.

A back four seems more likely to me. I somehow can't see them going with a three, having Pring as the left-sided central defender. Perhaps four at the back, two deeper lying CMs in James and King, Weimann-Williams-O'Dowda ahead of them and Martin up top? Something like that. Seems a bit more credible to me. (The BBC website always shows the teams in a certain formation, whether it be 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 or whatever. I often wonder who decides that and where they get their information from, if indeed they have any. Or is it pure guesswork by some anonymous, minor sports journo? More interested to hear what a better informed BBC RB commentary team make it out to be.)

Selection a tad harsh on Wells, maybe? Thought he had a decent game v Fulham and looked ready for a start tonight. Also share Dave's slight confusion re COD, among other things. Did NP not refer to him back in the summer as a very important player for us in the coming season? And as for Semenyo, who knows? Not that I'm unhappy with the line-up. Just curious, really, as to the underlying thinking.

That is factually based, fair comment, and therefore it will probably not go down well on OTIB. More to the point is the reference (above) to the wild irrationality of the OP, with regard to his views on NP, which bears an unnerving resemblance to the attitude towards GJ of another notorious forum member, which surfaced again today - as somebody pointed out, a mere eleven years after Johnson Senior left the club. This particular kind of obsession can be stubbornly enduring. Don’t expect Bas to drop it any time soon.

Yes, and it's taken NP to recognise that and to make him a regular starter.

Speaking as someone with a certain amount of professional knowledge and experience in such matters, I suspect you may very well be right.

That went well, then...

Agree entirely with the general thrust of your argument. Just on the issue of the SNP MP, she was quite rightly publicly slated by Sturgeon and, as you say, immediately suspended from her party, but of course the greatest damage to public perceptions of people like her is done by her persistent refusal to resign as an elected MP, which she lacked the integrity to do. Not even Sturgeon has the power to remove her. Not sure of the exact process that would be required to do that, but presumably her own, local constituency party would have to deselect her and a by-election held in which the population vote for another candidate. You’re absolutely right that this sort of behaviour and abuse of privilege has significantly undermined public compliance with Covid regulations.

With respect, that response is patronising and dismissive. I'm sure Wendy is quite well aware, as we all are, but she makes a perfectly valid point and I would not call it sensationalist at all. Moreover, very little about Covid19 is "medically proven", as you put it. There is the scientific advice, which varies from expert to expert and is revised and refined as more research is done and more data becomes available. Much of it is good advice, but ultimately it is scientific opinion, not scientific fact. Safety in this context is a relative concept. Nowhere and nothing is completely safe at this stage in the pandemic - as localised surges in infections and the reintroduction of measures that had earlier been relaxed clearly demonstrates. And that's before you even get to the vexed subject of compliance. Some sections of the great British public have not exactly covered themselves in glory, as Bournemouth residents could readily confirm. I will take some convincing that it's possible to re-open stadiums with a degree of safety that would be acceptable to most people. And in the face of what looks disturbingly like complacency, Wendy is quite right, in my view, to remind us that this horrible and really very dangerous disease is potentially lethal, as the best part of 50,000 UK citizens have sadly discovered to their cost.

It’s been stated in media coverage on numerous occasions that Ibbotson was not qualified to fly at night or to carry paying passengers. We now know in addition that the aircraft had a potentially lethal fault. So, neither plane nor pilot were fit for purpose. Yes, it is unbearably sad and made arguably more so now by this confirmation of what has long been suspected, that the flight should never have left the ground. As well as sadness there should also be anger at the illegality and level of irresponsibility involved. Whether anyone is held to account remains to be seen. I imagine tracing the lines of legal responsibility could be a very complex process.

Since the tragedy, I have seen comments from people with inside knowledge of the aviation world claiming that this sort of thing is not that uncommon, which is disturbing if true, though perhaps not entirely surprising. It’s not that hard to legislate against but, like many things, it may be a whole lot harder to monitor and enforce. One wonders where the father and son football agents will stand in all this when the dust settles. Lots of newspaper reports at the time suggested a clear line of responsibility leading to them. I’m no lawyer, but even if, in moral terms, their fingerprints appear to be all over it, it seems doubtful that any criminality would stretch as far as them. I’m pretty sure we have some legal people on the forum. I wonder what their take would be on this?

Quite possibly, but it’s likely that safety and other regulations are much more stringent for passenger traffic than for freight, so an upgrade in that area might still be required.