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As a footnote to his career, Conor Meyler kind of sums up where the game had arrived at and why it needed to change.

He was a better than average baller and a better than average athlete. Which of course means he would have been a strong  player in any generation.

But the hallmarks of his playing days - hard work, diligence, and risk free football - they're not the things that should denote a player as a player of the year candidate. Yet he probably deserved the big award in 2021.

Thank God for the new rules. Here's hoping they work!

The 'Clifford' name is just a little bit OTT for my liking. They should have more confidence that the brand mark will seep into Irish consciousness without plastering his name in forty foot high words alongside.

It's very difficult to look past In the Air Tonight and Against All Odds. They'll still be listening to that distinctive pair of songs in 100 years time, before being underwhelmed by the accompanying back catalogue of easy listening schmaltz.

You're kind of ignoring a group of cultural changes there.

The first one being that any man who plays 5+ PL seasons should have little or no need for media work, especially not stuff that involves flights to Dublin.

The second one being that in these islands, the PL now dwarfs over international football in terms of importance, achievement and awareness.

The decision taken by Houghton, Aldridge, Cascarino et al, was made when the opposite was true. Back then, being recognised as an international standard player was the pathway to bigger clubs and bigger wages. Nowadays it matters not a bit.

So whilst young English men might still wish to feel the pride of playing for their country, there really isn't much incentive in playing for someone's elses. Hence one cap v Andorra, even if that's all he ever gets, it's still a dream come true.

I can't wait for March.

I realise that it has been known since the format was decided but having to wait until the end of March to plan a trip to the World Cup starting in June is not very fan friendly.

It's in the USA. You'd not be able to plan anything until the group draws are done.

I reckon AI will bring us closer to the 1984 vision of the world than the Terminator one.

Algorithms can do anything data-related or process-related much more efficiently than a human being. Indeed they can even teach themselves how to be better at processing. But it's not possible for an algorithm's outputs to exceed the value of its inputs. 

And this our Catch 22. Who is it that is going to keep improving the inputs? And how can we trust that they're improving those inputs rather than controlling them?

We can't and we won't.


History will never have been more quickly rewritten by the winners.

Mental.

Beyond help.

"Cult of the billionaire".

Lol f**k me.

As mentioned before, lads like yourself do harm than good for the left that you're so besotted with.

Another one.


You seriously need to ask yourself why you get so angry when billionaires are subject to scrutiny and criticism. Why are you so hostile to it? Simple question but continue shouting.

I don't get angry about. In fact I enjoy it.

You're just emphasising my point though, for just like the entire loony left, you seem to regard anything other than 100% audible compliance with the left, as being an attack on the left.

Yis are fucken mental.

"Cult of the billionaire".

Lol f**k me.

As mentioned before, lads like yourself do harm than good for the left that you're so besotted with.

Why is it that a man who spends several hours a week issuing lies from his pulpit, can sue others so readily for doing likewise?

Are we really in a position whereby a foreign leader holds so much sway with UK judges that these tables cannot be turned?

I had to break a long silence and say yours is the best argument I've seen in favour of the VAR decision. I was appalled at the VAR call (albeit it was immaterial to the game overall imo). But I can see what you're saying. Who knows what Donnarumma would have done if Robertson hadn't ducked.

I know what he would have done. He'd have continued his full stretch dive to his left corner in a vain attempt to try to save a header he had absolutely no chance of saving.

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The only valid argument for disallowing this goal is that if referees and PGMOL are consistent with how the do this, then it'll help encourage players not to loiter in offside positions and over time should mean they rarely if ever have to have this conversation.

But it's referees and PGMOL and next week they'll "interpret" it differently, especially if it's a mid table side on the receiving end.

What a load of tripe this thread has become.

When the best attacking side in England spends £300m+ in the same window on attacking players, and things then go to pot, it's hard not let out a Nelson Muntz style haha.

It would be absolutely trivial to achieve. Enda McGinley insinuated it was coordinated to stop quick restarts. As others point out it happened kilcoo kickout in second half, there was one where it was obvious first half lad threw ball in front of keeper.

Throw kids out of ground & maybe fine parents and itd stop fairly quick I would imagine.

So you're going to throw kids out of a ground for returning a football?

Are you going to have a team of stewards who can identify and isolate the "offenders" and provide each other back up for the inevitable nonsense that would follow whereby they can't lay hands on children? Or maybe you've a terminator style teenager of Eastern European descent in mind, who'll wade in and protect the sanctity of the game, without falling foul of child abuse allegations?

The mind boggles.

Outclassed by good bit as expected.

How difficult is it for officials to control the number of balls on field?

Every time a ball is kicked into the terrace, the keeper picks up another one to attempt a quick restart.

How you'd expect the officials to control when and where that ball is returned, I'm not sure.