The Swan and Cemetery

Get that recency bias is a thing, but surely worst ref in a very long time.

Think we tend to look much more solid when he’s on the pitch (eg first half tonight), prefer him with James vs anyone but Williams. Daft mistake tonight, but won’t be first or last to do that.

Poor by King, but ref booked him for complaining about the penalty, which didn’t seem unreasonable given Scott non penalty. Only ref to have played professionally apparently, you wouldn’t know it.

Particularly a fire sale that requires buyers and presumably buyers willing to offer the players a reason to exit their pre Covid contracts with us. Not entirely clear who would want to pick up those missing tonight for a wage that the player would accept.

If 5-3-2 I quite like it. Reasonable for Bentley to be dropped given recent form, albeit not convinced O’Leary is standard, but fair to have a chance. Agree Vyner a worry, but Atkinson doesn’t seem right post injury and assume Cundy either not ready or not showing up well enough in training. Experience in midfield, decent width, pace up front and Scott for some flair. Other than Williams, not many I’d bring in ahead of this team. We’ll probably get spanked by seven, hey ho.

30 in 124 for us I think, wonder how many more if played as an out and out striker more often (notwithstanding DaveFevs’ point re scoring from midfield!)? The run he made for the first yesterday was a proper striker’s run - immediately on his bike, then pulling to the back post slightly - to give himself a sitter, very few at the club (anyone?) makes those types of runs.

Although he can spend quite a lot of time doing some simple things badly (first touch for example), he’s 7th highest scorer in the Championship, plus some assists and I don’t think for a minute that other teams enjoy playing against him. Strikes me as archetypally more valuable to us than we’d get for him - can’t see us replacing his goals, assists and work-rate for what we’d get for him, so wouldn’t be on my January to do list.

Agree, but therefore no sympathy if overturned. Think problem is that probably comes from the race result being voided, in which case Red Bull say “fine, Max is World Champion on most wins”, to which Mercedes say “we were winning that race comfortably, so shouldn’t be voided”. Can see it going to Court of Arbitration and hope it does, less for who wins 2021 season as feels hollow all round now, more to sort this cluster out for future.

Decent tie for Bridgwater.

And even if that argument can be waved at others in the same position, it somewhat reduces sympathy for them if it was overturned! Can’t believe many would be thinking “poor innocent Max/Christian/Red Bull, they’ve been robbed.”

Yep, if F1 - and it appears they have - can convince themselves that the end of that race is what should be expected, with a crash 5 or so laps from the end, then think they’ll have a serious credibility issue. Hamilton was on the same tyres (a few laps older due to Verstappen getting a cheap pitstop during the virtual safety car) as MV, with an 11/12 second lead before the safety car. At the end of the safety car, due to no great/terrible driving or dubious tactics by either, MV was on new soft tyres and right behind LH, but with no sign of Sainz being allowed to be in MV’s rear view mirrors, due to Masi picking and choosing who he let through. A massive net loss for LH that had nothing to do with the performance of him or MV and well beyond luck/racing incident/“let them race”. Think Mercedes need to push the appeal to the limit to try and sort things out for next season if nothing else, as based on today, no one can have a clue what rules will be applied when in future.

The uproar about this shows how unusual it is, there were lots of other incidents, eg Verstappen overtake and Hamilton retaining 1st (driven off by MV or gaining an advantage?), the virtual safety car after some terrible parking by Giovinazzi allowing MV a cheap pitstop, Perez being a far better wingman than Bottas. All of which fans accept as tough racing or good/bad luck, whereas how it ended was WWE writ large. One thing that’s increasingly clear is the disadvantages of being first when lots of safety cars. Whoever’s in 2nd gets to decide what to do, wonder if they’ll look at stopping tyre changes under a yellow flag.

Indeed, he unwrapped the present Masi gave him and couldn’t do any more, but hardly Senna in his pomp.

Perez was brilliant for Verstappen today, that was proper “let them race”, got Max about 10 seconds back.

Admit to being a bit surprised that they didn’t void the race, that would have allowed MV to win the title and Mercedes, whilst fully entitled to, would have looked more churlish in appealing. As it is Mercedes hardly have an option but to appeal, otherwise it’s the Wild West, which F1 appear to want, but pretty sure the real fans do not.

Good points, think as a minimum a rule that is (broadly) the race director can decide what he wants is unhelpful as gives no certainty. And whilst Wolff is hardly the most likeable character in sport, Horner implying it was a good decision as aligned with “let them race” is ridiculous. Maybe next year Masi will tell Mercedes to remove Hamilton’s right rear tyre and Horner will also see that as being in the spirit of great sport.

Horner giving “let them race” to Masi - would have been fairer to red flag and let them both change tyres and if MV won from there, unlucky for LH, but fair enough. The sequence of events that Masi allowed was nonsense.

Yeah, but they’re being disingenuous, if they were really interested in natural racing, LH would have 11 seconds and new tyres to go back to the equivalent position before the safety car. Or not have the safety car and have carnage. Giving MV an 11 second leg up and a tippity top set of soft tyres wasn’t anything to do with natural racing (not saying you’re saying this btw), just kicked LH twice and then 3 times with the 5 lapped cars. Reasonably extraordinary decision making all round, has a whiff of the F1 owners thinking more money to be made going WWE style, maybe they’re right, but pretty unsavoury.

Yep Horner said “the rules that you made up on the spot to let us win were fair” and the stewards said “Gosh, you agree, that’s great, that’s 2:1 in favour of Max, so majority rules. Case dismissed.”

Similar to a football referee deciding in the last minute of the Champions League final that the handball rule is abolished and allowing a goal carried into the net NFL style and afterwards UEFA saying referee’s decision is final. True that the referee’s decision is final, but most teams that won that way wouldn’t feel comfortable.

Yep, basically organised to get Verstappen on Hamilton’s back tyres, with new soft tyres vs knackered hard tyres, great racing… oh no, just marketing as you say.

They gave it to Red Bull on a plate, thought if you let lapped cars through, you have to let them catch up? Lapped cars allowed through and Verstappen able to get onto new soft tyres meant it was no contest final lap. 2 freebie pit stops won that.

And he should be gone by now… I was being sarcastic, in response to a somewhat odd thread.

Agree, no way Kalas and Dasilva were bad purchases at the time. Kalas remains a good one, just purchased at the wrong point in the market, but not sure many were predicting a global pandemic and for the fee, Dasilva might still come good, but clearly way behind Kalas in terms of delivering. Palmer looked a more dubious signing at the time as well as now, although even with him, we were crying out for some creativity and it wasn’t ludicrous to think he could have been the one, so a gamble rather than an obviously bad decision at the time.

A lorry has hit a bridge in the Cotswolds, Derby style tippy tappy around our own penalty area is all we can muster.