Red-Robbo

Timewasting when you have a one goal lead can often rebound and bite you in the arse. Yet I have seen us (and visiting teams) do it frequently.

I wonder if he played with some sort of protective headgear, the risk might be mitigated? Just a thought, as you do see it elsewhere. Seems quite common in MLS.

The old rope-a-dope. Nige's instructions this morning at training: "OK lads, you can stop pretending you're mediocre. Second part of the plan starts now and I'm allowing you to dominate every match."

When I saw him at Bath City, I remarked to my mate that if he doesn't make it in football, there are plenty of clubs who'd like him to work the door. He was intimidating. A real unit. I'd have said he was a bit taller than me. About 6' 4" perhaps.

My sneaky plan of not following the match at all and not checking the score until 5:30 worked. Maybe the Lansdowns can pay me to go out every time we play away.

My mates - all Somerset lads - called in to see my auntie and uncle with me one match day. After a cuppa and some small talk we departed for the game and one friend turned to me and said: "I couldn't understand a word your auntie was saying. Was she born abroad?" No, I told him, Bedminster Down.

Got a few in my family who have! Mainly older guys though. To hear a right broad south Bristol accent you need to chat to people aged over 65. Credit to Ryley though for resisting the creeping Londonisation of West Country accents. When I lived in Bournemouth, it was sad to me to only hear Dorset accents among my generation and older. Younger folk had that indistinguishable Home counties voice that is the same in Reading, High Wycombe, Guildford or Basingstoke.

Thing is, the vast majority of their land is churchyards and cemeteries. Unsuitable for development. You only have to think how many parishes there are in England and think the C of E has churchyards in each one, often multiple churchyards, and you soon get to a huge total acreage.

I think Graham was addressing a hypothetical scenario. The poster he was answering had claimed Barton had got Rovers top 10 without spending on transfers.

In the EU, Monaco, Vitesse Arnhem and Club Brugges are all owned by sanctioned people.

Worth a read about why Roman didn't end up in Switzerland (where he wanted to move from London) but instead had to go to Israel, where an automatic right to citizenship is available to anyone with at least one Jewish parent. https://www.cityam.com/roman-abramovich-accused-money-laundering-and-crime-links/

A bit like the Kray Twins or Joseph Mobutu etc....

On my last trip to Stamford Bridge I saw someone wearing a cravat. No joke!

I think that's a very naïve explanation of how he went from market stallholder and jailbird to billionaire in two years. It's Abramovich's account, but it doesn't square with multiple other accounts. No one is being executed by the British home secretary over this. This man should not have been allowed into the UK in the first place. I'm hopeful that our rep as the dodgy money capital of Europe may be over.

I doubt Roman Abramovich's life will be ruined. He's worth $12bn and can probably afford to take the foot of the moneymaking for the next millennia or so without noticing much of a drop in lifestyle. When Russian taxi drivers in London start being sanctioned just because they are Russian, then I'll agree with you that it is in the thin end of the wedge. We might ask why were the NCA not involved before and of course the answer is most if not all of Abramovich's crimes were committed a long time ago and overseas and outside our jurisdiction, added to which it suited the powers-that-be to allow Russian dirty money to flow into London. City bankers made big money from it and lots of it flowed directly to the party in power. Now the Ukraine has made that link untenable, the party has to stop and the crooks are being evicted. From their Knightsbridge mansions anyway, it'll take longer to get them out of 10 Downing Street. You ask the difference between the Ukraine invasion and the 2014 Crimean annexation. Several points there. 1) Although recognised as illegal, it took place during a time of turmoil in Kyiv when the Crimea was barely defended. Casualties were minimal and almost entirely from within the military. 2) Unlike the invasion of the Ukrainian "mainland", the Crimea had a non-Ukrainian majority, many of whom welcomed and indeed took up arms in favour with the Russians. 3) Russia had a more legitimate claim to the peninsula. It had not ever been considered part of Ukraine throughout most of history, it's population was Tartar and then mainly Russian and it was only designated part of Ukraine in 1954 during the Soviet era by Khruschev, a politician who had grown up in and represented he Ukrainian Communist Party in the Stalinist regime. 4) The annexation didn't aim at wholesale regime change and/or incorporation of a neighbouring state. Russia stole a bit of Ukraine, in effect, but it didn't try to take the whole country.

The highlighted lines are the important ones. Neither you nor I know the exact intelligence the UK holds on Abramovich and his links to Putin's regime. It has been suggested that he is an important conduit via which Putin launders his own money from Russia. The entire regime can be characterised as a kleptocracy, run by, and on and behalf of, people who've stolen hitherto state-run assets. I doubt he'd be sanctioned just to get headlines though. Apart from upsetting Chelsea fans, he has or had money invested in this country. Easier to sanction a lot of folk who rarely set foot out of St Petersburg. Unless Britain's foreign policy is being run just to delight Arsenal fans, I'd suggest there would have to be fairly good reasons this action was taken. The way, Abramovich has been scaling back on his involvement with the UK for some time suggests he may have had the insider knowledge to anticipate this invasion and its fiscal aftermath. The ultimate lesson of all this, of course, is don't allow crooks with non-explainable revenue sources run British football clubs.

How precisely is his freedom being taken away, other than his freedom to sell Chelsea for megabucks then - checks notes - ah, yes, "donate" the money to war victims? ? He isn't being detained. He lives in unabashed luxury in Israel and Monte Carlo. See my other post on what a massive gangster he is. He should never have been allowed into the UK in the first place, let alone be passed a fit and proper person to own a major English football club. Still, he'll appreciate your concern.

It's OK mate. Present your question to the Foreign Office, MI6, the International Crime Bureau etc if you think the UK has been unfair to poor Roman. I'm sure they have evidence. They may not be able to disclose it to you for state security reasons, but I'm sure he wasn't selected at random. There are somewhere between 75,000 and 150,000 Russians in the UK. Only a couple of hundred worldwide have been sanctioned. The broad reasons for sanctioning are detailed on the government website. They are much more significant than "owning shares in a weapon company". If RA thinks he has been unfairly treated, there is an appeals procedure.

It certainly is murky. But the fact that Moshiri isn't Russian and doesn't live there may not protect him - or Everton. Moshiri derives all of his wealth, and is a direct employee of, Usmanov. Although he's sometimes referred to as his "business partner", he is in fact the CEO of his holding company and is effectively his "front man" while Usmanov sails about in his super-yacht. Or he used to, before the German's seized it. Usmanov is sanctioned as he's a key Putin ally and almost as dodgy as Abramovitch. He served 6 years for fraud and theft in the 80s, but was pardoned in the 90s by the corrupt Uzbek president after money from drug trafficking sources changed hands. See Craig Murray on his background. Being the CEO of a sanctioned company suggests you derive your wealth from said company and should surely be in consideration for sanctioning yourself. Either way, it doesn't look like Everton are going to receive any more funding either directly (via sponsorship) or indirectly (via Moshiri) from USM.

Possibly, but unlike Abramovitch I think much of his fortune comes as a trader in derivatives. As such, London was his natural base and I'm not even sure he owns property in Russia. I'd love to see that cheating club brought to account, but I don't think it'll happen.

I suggested that on the other Chelski thread, but subsequently read that Demin is a full UK citizen and is apolitical, so - sadly - it seems unlikely.

Perhaps Wes's dad can get back to us when his son plays in the top tier of a successful European league. Wes seems to be doing quite well, as I would have predicted he should, but in the third tier of the English game.

Won't happen. Bath City have far too much integrity.

Currently sourcing the world's smallest violin just for the Chelsea fans....