David Hopps

5

There's fair criticism and there's the sort of totally unacceptable stuff that people have to suffer day after day on X.....

Also, a great Villa wall. He can see sod all until that ball comes dipping and swerving over the wall. Execute it well and it goes in.

Brilliant dipping free kick. Totally unsaveable. I'm with Joe Hart. There again, I let in some soft ones in Leeds Sunday Combination Division 6 so I'm very forgiving that way....

I agree we looked disorganised after the subs and change of formation. But you simply can't prep for an exceptional free kick like that. (Or blame Perri).

Fair about Harry Brook!

Tough luck has happened about 4 matches now? So is that just tough luck and we deserved much better? Or is character fate? (With apologies to Thomas Hardy students everywhere). I like Daniel Farke for the "Southgate reasons" but he needs a miracle now. Little individual brilliance to bale him out.

When, rarely, he did sub proactively (at 1-1, as you said) it didn't make sense. With Okafor a terrible defensive winger, Stach's injury had already exposed us on the left. Then going James for Tanaka made it worse surely? OK, Gudmundsson slipped, but a lot was being asked of him with that change?

I am reluctantly coming to that view. He is landed by a lack of creative players. But he has been so conservative in the Premier League and routinely tends to sub too late. Throwing on about 4 attacking players for the last 15 minutes - a favourite response - smacks more of desperation than tactics.

England to prepare with pink golf balls ahead of day-night Brisbane Test.

Nice to know at a time when Test cricket is barely recognisable that Yorkshire, at least, are keeping up traditions by having another row over Geoffrey Boycott. 🤣
archive.is/Pb1ID

I blame this Test match on mobile phones personally.

Nice. Macbeth particularly apt methinks.

Never too late

They can’t even quite sync their own commentary with the pictures!

The days when you remember how good Sky's cricket coverage is...

He had already retired 3 years earlier

That probably makes both of them then. 🤷

I’ve just watched Steve Smith’s excruciating pre-Ashes, smug sledge of Monty Panesar. OK, Monty’s appearance on Celebrity Mastermind was a guilty pleasure, but I reckon even Monty could answer the question about whether Smith was being a bit of a c***. #ashes

Yes, I realise I have just put up an anti-democratic argument, and the slippery slope concern is valid, but I just wish that some people were up to the task. There again, I have never forgiven people for Brexit or for a racist being 30% in the polls.

I've not got a problem with this. I don't have a huge amount of faith in juries. The couple I've sat on, too many people hadn't got a clue what was going on. The theory is a damn sight better than the practice.

New take on Covid. 🤣

Burnham refuses to rule out leadership challenge against Starmer Mayor of Manchester deflects questions on his ambitions after Labour MP offers to give up seat for him

I do find these sort of vacuous questions utterly tiresome. Why can't the BBC take a lead, underline its worth, and aim to be more intelligent?
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

I've compromised. I'm up at 5am and plan to whizz through the first 2 sessions with the fast forward button. I mean, who needs to watch people walking back to their mark? (Some people question my ability to get up at 5 anyway). Slightly more faith in England than the TNT commentary team. We'll see.

Here’s a good one for yer. Got up at 515am to clear all snow off daughter’s car for her. She was at work at 6.In me Dressing gown & trainers I was. Cleared it all off,she came out,got in car,thanked me & drove off, Went back to get int house. She’d fkin locked me out. Had to get out lass up. 😂😂

Oddly, I am weirdly grateful to know that 🤣🤣🤣

Well, I’ve finished The Hack, and, yes, the sub-plot is overly protracted in the early episodes, but I am still bewildered by The Guardian’s critical review of a series that lauds it for a necessary and lonely battle against phone hacking. Seriously, with all due respect, with friends like that…. 🤷‍♂️

POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

Qualifying reminding us why the World Cup is the greatest thing ever. If only there were…

www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Histo...

The survey also asked about refugees being able to apply to become citizens. A plurality (44%) agrees that “If someone was granted refugee status and lived legally in Britain for six years, they should be able to apply to become a British citizen, regardless of how they arrived in the UK to claim asylum,” while a third (33%) disagree. Six in ten Labour voters (62%) and Lib Dems (60%) are supportive of refugees being able to become citizens, regardless of how they arrived in the UK, while 20% of Labour voters disagree. Conservatives are split, with 40% agreeing that refugees should be able to apply to become a British citizen, regardless of how they arrived in the UK, while 42% disagree. Reform voters respond quite differently, with 68% disagreeing with the statement.

A problem with politicians - our Prime Minister Keir Starmer seems to be a paradigm example - trying to appeal to views they don't really understand or empathise with - that generates lurid overcompensation: so "control" becomes not control + decency + fairness but control as performative cruelty