IAmNick

But did Toney go from scoring 1 or 2 a season to suddenly scoring 20? No. 8 in 14/15 (L2) 12 in 16/17 (L1) 12 in 17/18 (L1) 16 in 18/19 (L1) 24 in 19/20 (L1) 31 in 20/21 (Champ) There's a gradual increase there over the seasons you mention - granted Semenyo is younger but I'd be extremely surprised if he went from scoring 2 goals off his arse in around 40 appearances for us, to scoring 20 (our highest league scorer since Tammy) in one season. What makes you think he's capable of that exactly? You're expecting him to go from scoring 3 in L2 3 seasons ago, 2 in the Champ this year, then 20 in the Champ. We need to be realistic. I've heard this said so many times over the years about young players. People have a huge confirmation bias when it comes to them, forgetting all the ones who didn't make it they were backing. There's a reason you remember the names of them, but forget the other 3-5 young strikers at every club in L1 who haven't gone on to do what Toney has. I hope you're right of course and quoting me in a year! That'd make us all very happy.

I'd take the money and reinvest in a targeted way personally. I'd prefer a smaller, more elite squad with clearly defined/understood roles and after a year of watching him I'm not entirely sure where he fits in for us. Is he going to play regularly? If not, how are we going to play or develop him? A decent player with potential to perhaps be very good, but I don't want us to hang on to a load of players like that around the squad on that chance personally. For every "but look at Bolaise" there are ten more people said until they were blue in the face on here they were the next big thing we should be playing every week who disappeared completely. Taking risks on youngsters goes both ways - letting them go as well as playing them. I hope we keep him and he does it for us but that's what I'd do if I were making the decisions!

Not sure I'd agree. In the last 20 years we've spent 12 of them in the Championship. 12 of the last 15 years in fact. I'd argue our current relative place IS the Championship. Last time here we finished 4th, 10th, 10th, 15th, 20th, then 24th... So actually better than our current stint of 18th, 17th, 11th, 8th, 12th. I think we are where we should be, and where our expenditure should have us - which makes me ask what the rest is adding (coaches, setup, world class recruitment) if we're just doing what's expected?

I agree with people saying he needs time on the pitch and a bit of perseverance - but do you think the Championship is the right place for that? Ideally for me he'd be at a L1 club (top 6 preferably) and playing most games for them this season.

I think he's had a couple of very good performances, and a couple of average to decent ones. It's a few games in, against good but not great opposition. I'd place his better performances so far as a good higher level championship midfielder personally. If he kept his best performances up he'd get into most top 6 champ sides imo. But definitely too early to be saying any better and he'd be high end prem. That would make him our best player in how long, ten years? More probably. I'm really excited to see him develop but don't want to get too carried away as he's a young lad and will have poor games and dodgy form, which we have to accept.

He's certainly started the season very well but steady on.

So do you support smaller pubs going out of business as long as Wetherspoons can keep going? Local theatres as long as the next Avengers movie gets made? Local restaurants as long as Pizza Express is alright? Family B&Bs as long as Premier Inn are ok? Do you think all those large corporations don't/haven't benefitted from the smaller ones they bought up / took staff from / forcibly closed and replaced etc. along the way? Surely you should be advocating for them to do the same? It's not a football problem, it's a societal/capitalism problem!

To be honest he starts each game on a yellow anyway for that haircut, so it was bound to happen sooner or later

City have played well, but Forest are also used to not having the ball and countering. Don't think they'll be too upset with how the game has gone so far - we need to make our possession count and get a goal.

Yeah I'm only messing with you, hard not to get caught in the heat of the moment compared to having time to think afterwards for sure, nothing personal!

So much for the "Respectfulness and Acknowledgement" eh? Got you a lot of likes though

No. People are angry because while you say you can "choose" to do the responsible things if you want, the fact others DON'T choose to and aren't being made to has a direct impact on the rest of the country. It's not like you doing it and them not doing it means you're ok - they can still panic buy, spread a deadly disease, overwhelm our public services, and importantly infect elderly and vulnerable people just because they'll probably be ok and have "chosen" not to listen to the advice. It's a CHOICE that is selfish and will likely literally kill people. To say you can just do it is lazy thinking.

The fact it takes something of this magnitude to make ours (and other) countries actually put these things is place is so sad. We can have a bit of compassionate socialism, but only during a pandemic eh? Things like a universal basic income, employee protections for taking sick leave and on zero hour contracts (which are a separate issue), supporting local food banks, changing awful rental conditions and protecting renters etc. should be a basic part of a modern first would country in my mind, not something you roll out at times like this! Not sure that's a popular view though.

It's more complicated that just 30 players though isn't it. They train together daily along with many coaches, medical staff, dietitians and so on. They travel and stay in hotels, use different clubs training facilities etc. and the clubs and facilities themselves take a lot of people to run and manage. I'd guess that for one football match there would actually be a few hundred people involved in close contact each week to make it happen - It's not like they could just meet once a week for 90 mins then self isolate the rest of the time. Other workplaces are open yes but people are being encouraged to work from home or isolate if they have symptoms - if you have players training together and half the one squad gets infected over the course of a few weeks you'd end up with every other game cancelled, or the rest of the season being a joke with half the squad off ill every game.

The US are handling it awfully and will be one of the worst affected countries in my opinion. I'm certainly no fan of Boris Johnson or the Tories but I think we're actually doing the right thing so far. They're waiting to implement a full lockdown as I understand it at it's a massive step and you can't do it for long - if you do it too early you lose the positive effect of it as after a while people get restless, break it, and it spreads worse than before. It has to be carefully timed to hit around the start of the peak as far as I'm aware, if you're going to do it. The point isn't to stop new infections which is almost impossible, but to "flatten the curve" to spread infections out over a longer period so the services aren't hit as hard. A really interesting article about South Korea: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3074469/coronavirus-south-korea-cuts-infection-rate-without their cases have fallen for 5 days straight now. 500 a day for the last 2 weeks, now down to 131. The test more than anywhere else (10k / day) for free in drive-thrus. 200k tests done, 7.5k cases, 54 deaths. No lockdown as far as I'm aware there, but lots of people on their way in have to register and are monitored, people tested positive are tracked with mobile phone and credit card payment details to warn others who came in contact, masks on people in shops. From the article:

I though the R-0 rating was the average number of people who would catch the virus from a single person? i.e. a R-0 of two means one person will on average infect two more - I'm not sure how that translates into what you've written, unless you're somehow using the average number of people someone comes in contact with?

Live stream: https://www.vipbox.fi/watch-swansea-city-vs-bristol-city-stream-1

Can watch online here: http://streamhunters.top/soccer/queens-park-rangers-bristol-city-sht5a79a13?l=1378816926

Can only assume they wanted to maintain the standard distance between our midfield and forward lines.

Hard to decide what's more annoying, a few people having a moan after a game, or the same few suspects every bloody thread then endlessly moaning about the moaners. Pretty sure at this point those posts outweigh the actual doom and gloom merchants quite heavily at this point. And now I'm moaning about the people moaning about the moaners.

Remember a great game against Wolves a few years ago in the p*ssing wind and rain around Jan/Feb time I think it was - poor first half including a random cross ballooned over Basso in the wind and we were 0-2 down at half time. Dele Adebola came on at half time and absolutely ripped Wolves a new one, they couldn't handle him at all - finished 2-2. Certainly not a beautiful game of football by any stretch of the imagination but one that's stuck in my mind since! What a difference in attitude that was...

Nah, I disagree. For one game in isolation maybe but a season is obviously much more than that - and supporting a club you pay more attention than just to individual results, the pattern is just as important. We've been guilty of this all season, and if the goals had been the reverse (them 3-0 up, then us drawing) then it would be far more encouraging. How do you think the players will feel after this, and going in to the next game as a result - if we're 2-0 up next game? Of course it makes a difference what order they were scored in. I'm looking for a sign of improvement of us maybe being more tactically aware and the games being managed better, not just the number at the end.

Good one.

People doing this every time robbo even makes normal posts is far more annoying than his occasional anti Johnson remarks or whatever in my opinion. Give it a break...