Rayvin

As proven by the Telegraph and Oborne this week. As I said though, it is possible to develop a balanced view by reading news from conflicting sides. The issue with RT is that many of the people who read it in the West do so because they are either a) hugely deluded about it's factual accuracy or b ) consider it to be a means of 'fighting the power'/resisting propaganda in the West. I think a news source with an agenda for exposing Western political maneuverings that isn't entirely funded by an oligarchy with strong anti-West sentiments is probably a better source of information for the latter group - but reading RT is considered 'edgy', which is the only reason I can think of that people in group b continue to read it.

So that's Colo and Williamson for the foreseeable then... Collapsed lung was it?

RT - Russia Today. It's Russia's BBC/CNN equivalent. As with Chez, I've had some frustrating conversations with people over the years who felt that RT was some great bastion of factual accuracy and independent reporting. I think it's the hipster news channel to be honest. That said, they do cover stories that the Western press don't (about the West) so the argument works both ways. An awareness of a range of news sources is generally best, if time consuming...

Those are two very different kinds of war that you're talking about...although I don't actually think we'll have a seen a war like any that would come about from the West vs Russia Not sure any of us would survive it either. I think it's pretty easy to slate the American military, but they have been exceptionally clever in containment of Russia (look at where their military bases around the world are, from Osaka to Europe), and they've actually played a fucking good hand with the oil prices in the past couple of months. Yes the Afghan and Iraq wars were a shambles on the face of it, but they were never supposed to be examples of military precision - they were for political victories at home, and for the securing of oil - both of which were achieved. Putin is a hugely clever politician, but he succeeds because he does enough to make his point without doing so much that it forces Europe or the US into a position that they have to attack from. If Russia was so sure of itself in a fistfight with Europe, why hasn't it been more aggressive? It's because it's a charade. What is it about the Russian military's aging warplanes, ships, subs, and general lack of infrastructure that makes you think that they'd win a battle, head on, with the US or Europe? I don't even think Europe would need the US to become involved (although it'd get dragged in one way or another, and Russia would end up with a war on two fronts - a losing proposition from the outset). If Russia didn't have warheads, they'd have been taken out of the game years ago. Aside from all of this, Putin has much more to lose by continuing the aggression than Europe does. We've already moved/are moving to alternative fuel sources that make us less dependent on Russian oil. The Americans secured further reserves while getting 'mashed' in Afghanistan, and Russia was forced into an oil deal with the Chinese that they make a loss on for the next 15 years in an attempt to combat all of this. The Russian threat will die with Putin. It's the Chinese who will remake the world order. Using Russian resources, it would seem.

That's a really interesting article..! And has improved my opinion on Miliband considerably. I never thought I'd see the day.

I don't doubt it. I also don't think that the rest of the world would do anything (although I do think that the next thing Russia did would probably kick off an actual intervention) I would like to see an aging Russian military take on a competent modern force though. I suspect that they wouldn't be quite so bold...

Maybe we could shoot one of them down and blame the Ukrainians.

That is both inspired and unsettling.

I like Akbars but then I'm really easy to please with curry. Still consider it to be one of the best though.

Mate, it's the hope that's been killing us for years now... just let it go. Take heart in the fact that he's probably going to get you back to the CL though, unlike us with our mid-table obscurity.

Fair enough, but that might be why the club's policy is officially what it is though? Even if they can get round it, would they necessarily publicise that they're getting round it?

The gist, apparently, is that they shoved the guy off the train because he was French, not black. They then realised that, since the man was black, their actions could be construed as racist; and so 'ironically' sang about being racists as a taunt to the media, given that Chelsea have what their supporters believe to be an undeserved reputation for this. I fully agree that it's patently nonsense

Do we not need to be upgraded as a training centre before we can increase the size of our catchment area, or am I just making stuff up again...

I've seen some Chelsea fans claiming that it was ironic racism... Embarrassing though.

I really think he is though He seems very precious about criticism (as displayed against Southampton last year) and that wasn't even directed at him. I don't think we'll have to worry about him taking over long term since he won't have the mental fortitude to do so anyway.

The fact that this statement was needed suggests to me that Carver is struggling with the negativity. Not all it's cracked up to be this managing lark. He strikes me as the sort of guy who'd just start coming apart at the seams if the fans push it too hard, he's a really emotional guy.

Agreed, this is how it comes across for me as well. I can see what he thinks he was trying to say, but the way he's said it leaves very little room for misinterpretation.

He might well be their best forward though, save for Defoe. I suppose they're hoping he'll come good... I'll reckon he'll end up in the lower leagues, based on what we've seen so far. Probably with Sunderland though.

They managed it much more quickly than Ashley did though, admittedly with the bonus of Gareth Bale. I think he could stand to speculate further while remaining true to his principles.

See, I don't believe in any predetermined natural order of things with respect of football clubs. I think all clubs have the chance to move forward from the positions they find themselves in - look at Spurs who were, for the longest time, around the same level as us. There's absolutely nothing special about the way Spurs are run as a club, no great amount of money backing them, etc. They're just run more ambitiously than we are. Sure, that expenditure only claims 4 or 5 places over our heads each year, but they're really well positioned for opportunistic place grabs in the table. Looking at the table currently in fact, we only really have a top 2. The old top 4 is struggling to assert itself at all. As for Sunderland, they need to be relegated and to follow it up with a purge and reassessment of philosophy. They have too many crap cloggers to be able to transform the team from their current position, and that's why they fail to move on each year, regardless of the manager. I don't think we're in the same position as Sunderland though - we're always, frustratingly, one or two players away from being a team that can challenge in and around the top 4. Although we also now need a philosophy ourselves.

Thing is, how do you go about collapsing your lung? Surely that's the kind of injury that can only come about through some kind of gung ho (I'm looking at you Tiote) training ground challenge. It's not like we all walk around at risk of our lungs collapsing. Which is just unfortunate from the club's point of view. Doesn't sound like it's anything to do with his original injury.

Greece has a long running feud with Turkey of course, but I can't think of any other reasons why they would need military expenditure on that scale. That said, Turkey is well armed and Greece had decades of enslavement, or so I'm (perhaps not reliably) told by Greek people, at the hands of the Turkish, maybe that's contributive. Not saying that there isn't something screwy going on with Germany, but are the Greeks ever militaristically involved in the sorts of things that the rest of Europe gets embroiled in?

I think it makes it more interesting anyway - you get to see some of the smaller teams making a serious go of things. In Bradford's case, if their game is televised in the Quarters, they'll get a serious influx of money which will do them a lot of good. On the other hand, fielding weakened teams diminishes the quality of the competition, but looking at it honestly, the players at the really big clubs don't even bother trying even when they are fit.

If they beat us, they'll stay up. If not, I think they're 50:50 to go down. At the end of the day though, I don't think it makes much difference. Even with our period of stagnation, we can't compare to the lack of success and general crapness that has been on show at Sunderland for the past few years. Whether they're relegated or not, they'll continue to drift on in obscurity.