Messages

Job done with a game still to go...these matches have kept the squad players sharp

While you'd of course miss not being in the CL, the Europa has been great for giving everyone starts. The likes of Diaz, Gakpo, Gravenberch, Elliott, Konate all would have been a bit disappointed not to start last weekend, but all straight into the starting team last night. Everyone getting opportunities to stake their claim.

Dunphy has had some good interviews on his The Stand podcast.

A few with Peter Oborne, who is excellent. He was in the West Bank for about 5 weeks post October 7, so could witness the goings on there which gets very little media attention.

He had one with a military strategist, which was pretty much ignoring right/wrong, but discussing tactics, etc. One interesting assertion he made was that the cell system used (i.e. an agreed overall objective but individual cells have the authority to go about things pretty much anyway they decide, and no interaction between cells, etc). Apparently the first recorded use in military history of the cell system was by Michael Collins.
They also talked about the Why now? (as opposed to why?) re Hamas and he believed it was because of the Israel-Saudi deal that was about to be signed, with others going to follow with similar deals.

Finally, well worth a listen is Episode 1836 with Avi Shlaim. An Arab Jew who served in the Israeli Defence Forces in the 1960s, and according to Oborne has the best books on the history of the Palestine/Israel issue.
40 mins is too short for the full history of course, but it touched on key events in 1917, 1948, the late 60s, 1995 and present day.

The weights don't seem to be too big a factor in women's boxing. Taylor is likely to lose, she doesn't seem to use her boxing as much as she should and is constantly slugging.

Why would you say that? I thought the weight difference was the key factor in the first fight. Chantelle looked a much bigger fighter. Katie's boxing skills couldn't negate the size difference. I agree she does get drawn into slugging, but I thought the fight was already gone at that stage.

At least Katie will have longer preparation to fill out at the weight this time, and looks in great shape, but Chantelle thinks Katie can't hurt her and I find it hard to disagree

Hoping for a reversal, well beaten last time, plenty of support hopefully no issues with protesters taking advantage of the attention around the place?

No calls on social media I take it?

This is higher than Katie's proper weight, and even if she loses she's still beWorld Champ at her proper weight.

I have a few quid on Chantelle to win inside the distance at 9/1. But with 2 min rounds, it's harder to get a stoppage, so most likely outcome is Chantelle on points. But would be amazing if Katie can turn it around against the bigger woman and get the decision.

City going to win this league easy, if they don't get a points deduction.
But it would make some league if they did get the points deduction they deserve. Arsenal and Liverpool would probably be joint favs,  but neither are overly good, so the likes of Spurs, Newcastle, even Villa and United would think they'd have a chance.

Sure could be a 32 county team by then!

 How many automatic spots are there for host teams? Be some embarrassment if we didnt get

Likely 2 for the top two that don't qualify. If it were on this campaign, England and Scotland would have qualified via groups, and Wales and NI would have got the two automatic spots.

Feck sake. Improvement needed so.

Not that it really matters at this stage as to who had the least worst record, but if this had been the Euro '28 qualifying, ROI would have qualified and NI would not (NI's 4-0 defeat v Finland would have clinched qualification for ROI!).

As NI were in a 6 team group, their results against 6th seeds San Marino would not have counted in comparing records in the group (while ROI had a really poor draw in terms of 1st, 2nd and 4th seeds, we did get the worst 5th seed in Gibraltar).

NI lost twice against each of Slovenia, Finland and Kazakstan, so would only have 3 points in a 5 team group, whereas ROI had 6 points.

Ireland U21s suffer from same problem as seniors, no midfield players worth talking about. Passing the ball aimlessly around at the back and then hoofing it up the channels.

No doubt some truth and learnings in that but I thought the 21s were a bit unlucky. Brilliant second goal to go 2-1 up, missed a few chances to go 3-1 up that would have killed the game, then an individual error to concede a ridiculous penalty and a sucker punch a minute or so later to go 3-2 down. A draw was the least they deserved, but don't always get what you deserve.

No way this sticks on appeal.  What they'd have to do to City and Chelsea...

The charge has to stick. Their own audited accounts shows in absolute black and white they broke the rules. They admit they broke the rules. And they knew exactly what was happening. They have a list of excuses as to why,  but that's all just 'hard luck', they needed to tighten the belt and they chose not to, probably because they thought the Premier League wouldn't actually implement the punishment.

So there has to be a points deduction, I've no idea though how they decide between 1 and 12 points, which was the range for this breach, it seems.

City is completely different as their accounts show they are not breaking any rules. They have Ethiad and related companies paying them hyper inflated commercial revenues. Proving that, especially with City having an endless fund for legal fees, not easy.

The playoffs section here shows how awful the BIG's current Nations League ranking is in group B after just 2 wins against Gibraltar.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2024_qualifying

Recent form has had no impact on the Nations League ranking. That was decided last summer.

It's the points dropped in 2022 against Ukraine and Armenia, rather than those recently dropped against Greece, that will see Ireland miss out on a playoff spot.

Yep, exactly right. The current groups decide who qualifies automatically, but it's the Nations League results that decides which remaining teams make the playoffs. If Greece had lost every single game in this qualifying campaign, they'd still be in the playoffs because they did well in their Nations League group. I hadn't realized how important those games were at the time, especially given the difficulty of the qualifying group.

We need to move up two places to get into the playoffs. So I think we need Israel to pass out Romania and Poland to qualify ahead of Albania in their group. At the moment we are behind Israel and Poland in the playoff rankings, but we would be ahead of Romania and Albania if they failed to qualify automatically.

The team looks like they have changed something in training to get the players faster. Trent looks like he has slimmed down from last year musclewise and ive noticed him seemingly sprinting faster the last few games. Jota also has a new turn of pace.

Dangerous comment about Trent with City up next! I would fear his relative lack of pace and other defensive frailties could be badly exposed by Doku ....

Much better performance, with Virgil and Darwin being the best two players on the pitch.

We were down to 13 first team players (one suspension and a list of injured players) so need some of our injuries to clear up, and definitely don't need anyone added to the injury list over the international break

Does anyone genuinely still believe Israel didn't bomb that first hospital?

I can't be bothered to go back to find out who, but we had a poster on here try to suggest that the Israelis were being 'open and honest' about it

After releasing about half a dozen doctored video and audio clips to 'prove' it was Hamas

I mean how absolutely f**king thick does someone have to be

The genocidal Israelis (and Nigerian Princes) depend on such fools

No reputable source (and there have been many many examinations of the information provided by Israel) suggested the video was in any way doctored. One of the main pieces of video evidence actually came from an Al Jazeera camera. None of the media examinations gave any weight to the audio.

Hamas exaggerated the number of deaths and were seen taken items from the car park rubble. Hamas provided no evidence of Israeli shrapnel.

Israel have admitted bombing numerous schools, universities and hospitals. The only excuse they need is that Hamas have used it for something. They have no need to deny one and not deny the rest. Plus the results from the actual Israeli bombings are usually very different to that first hospital car park.

We can't say for sure who did it, but balance of probabilities based on all reports I've read is that it was a misfiring Palestinian rocket.

Not sure why people want to keep bringing it up, when it has been completely overshadowed by atrocities actually carried out by Israel.

Does anyone genuinely still believe Israel didn't bomb that first hospital?

I can't be bothered to go back to find out who, but we had a poster on here try to suggest that the Israelis were being 'open and honest' about it

After releasing about half a dozen doctored video and audio clips to 'prove' it was Hamas

I mean how absolutely f**king thick does someone have to be

The genocidal Israelis (and Nigerian Princes) depend on such fools

No reputable source (and there have been many many examinations of the information provided by Israel) suggested the video was in any way doctored. One of the main pieces of video evidence actually came from an Al Jazeera camera. None of the media examinations gave any weight to the audio.

Hamas exaggerated the number of deaths and were seen taken items from the car park rubble. Hamas provided no evidence of Israeli shrapnel.

Israel have admitted bombing numerous schools, universities and hospitals. The only excuse they need is that Hamas have used it for something. They have no need to deny one and not deny the rest. Plus the results from the actual Israeli bombings are usually very different to that first hospital car park.

We can't say for sure who did it, but balance of probabilities based on all reports I've read is that it was a misfiring Palestinian rocket.

Not sure why people want to keep bringing it up, when it has been completely overshadowed by atrocities actually carried out by Israel.

I'm sorry but you are either taking the piss or you can't bear the idea of admitting you were wrong.

Israel threatened to bomb the hospital 3 times, it got bombed. They've since bombed other hospitals, ambulances and today snipers were firing into another. And still you think on balance of probabilities that Hamas misfired a rocket into it. Mental

Your comment 'can't bear the idea of admitting you were wrong.' must be the reason you keep bringing this up.

The hospital wasn't bombed, the car park was hit with something. If Israel wanted to bomb the hospital it wouldn't be still standing, it would look more like the ones it actually did bomb. It's not clear how many died in the hospital, but it's less than 50, could be less than 10. The bulk of the people who died were poor souls sheltering in the car park having moved out of their homes. Horrific. 

But again, the approx 200 who died in this is a drop in the ocean of the 10,000 to 20,000 the Israelis actually have killed.  But itchy wants to win the internet and talk about conspiracy theories.

But I'm done with this 'feud' itchy, mod might ban us, and it's very boring for everyone else. At this stage it really doesn't matter that a faulty Palestinian rocket landed in a hospital car park given all the actual atrocities, so I will not be reading your next posts

And you still won't answer. Such a hard question too. 

The post I quoted above (your full post, not a snippet) is easy to decipher. Despite the denials.

Not a chance I'm going to search through all your posts!! It would have been quicker for you to say it than the type the stuff about searching posts ffs! 

'It was most certainly heroic' the day after the attack is about the resistance in general and is not about the attack itself! Of course. That clears it up, many thanks.

[We can't say for sure who did it, but balance of probabilities based on all reports I've read is that it was a misfiring Palestinian rocket.]

Does anyone genuinely still believe Israel didn't bomb that first hospital?

I can't be bothered to go back to find out who, but we had a poster on here try to suggest that the Israelis were being 'open and honest' about it

After releasing about half a dozen doctored video and audio clips to 'prove' it was Hamas

I mean how absolutely f**king thick does someone have to be

The genocidal Israelis (and Nigerian Princes) depend on such fools

No reputable source (and there have been many many examinations of the information provided by Israel) suggested the video was in any way doctored. One of the main pieces of video evidence actually came from an Al Jazeera camera. None of the media examinations gave any weight to the audio.

Hamas exaggerated the number of deaths and were seen taken items from the car park rubble. Hamas provided no evidence of Israeli shrapnel.

Israel have admitted bombing numerous schools, universities and hospitals. The only excuse they need is that Hamas have used it for something. They have no need to deny one and not deny the rest. Plus the results from the actual Israeli bombings are usually very different to that first hospital car park.

We can't say for sure who did it, but balance of probabilities based on all reports I've read is that it was a misfiring Palestinian rocket.

Not sure why people want to keep bringing it up, when it has been completely overshadowed by atrocities actually carried out by Israel.

They are literally bombing the f**k out of hospitals day in day out , but yes, HAMAS misfired their one huge bomb... Balance of probabilities my hole!

If America doesn't reel these psychopaths in soon, christ knows where it'll end

Ah cmon JOG, everyone says it wasn't a big bomb that hit that car park. There is a chance it was a smaller Israeli weapon that they have very rarely used, but absolutely a misfired Palestinian rocket with its full fuel load could have done it.

The hospitals Israel did bomb have been properly (and despicably) hit and no denials.