ArteSuave

There was a man within earshot of me at that game shouting about him being a waste of money and selling him back "to Holland". He was not a clever man. I don't like selling first team players for anything but a sum massively over their value. Obviously Lambert found one player of that quality for £1m but I assume the scouts had to watch a lot of games to find him and there must be quite a low number of unheralded players of that quality. We also got £20m for Downing.

I am Rico Suave's cooler, better looking brother. Either that or I was watching a documentary the day I signed up and I just stole the name. I forget which...

**** that noise, third highest scoring RB in European football? £20m and not a penny less.

I thought the general consensus was to use the Valsalva manoeuvre rather than inhaling for near max effort lifts? Like powerlifters do? Also I've found that constantly trying to improve my technique is more effective than waiting for plateaus, although that does mean that when you hit one you don't have anywhere to go. To add to Nigel's planted feet; squeeze the bar, push your shoulder blades together (or show your tits off) and keep your wrists straight.

I'm on my phone but you can probably just Google "how are possession stats calculated".

Last time I got stuck on bench I ordered some 0.5kg plates and made the increments smaller. That worked for another 12.5kg or so and I've just taken delivery of some 0.25kg plates to try and overcome my latest plateau. I'm pretty sure the clips I use weigh more than 0.125kg so I don't know what my next move will be.

??? Isn't that like saying the war had nothing to do with ze germans!? Either I'm too old and need to be told to sit down, or possession stats have everything to do with possesssion and how long you are in possession of the ball, and number of passes are called pass completion? Someone put me out of my misery! The method you propose would give a far more accurate picture of possession but its way harder to track so isn't used. They just do a ratio of total number of successful passes instead.

They'll have their CL 1st leg a few days after our game and RVP looks injured again.

Lol noob. You actually watch the matches? You know all the stats get put up online? What's the point of watching?

I don't think possession stats are based on time in possession, just number of passes. So you could dribble it up and down for 40 minutes and the other team could nick it and tap it around and have dominated "possession". Perhaps that's why Delph gets criticised by some, bloody dribbling up the field all the time and **** up our lovely stats.

It would be excellent commercially for one of the European giants to have an American in the team. I think it's best to just enjoy it while he's here, predicting which keepers will go where is difficult at the best of times.

Surely the sheer number of different formations and systems he's used in his time here illustrates how unlikely it is he'd want rid of a player purely because he doesn't fit "the system".

Excitement is relative. To me, every win in the PL is exciting, we're beating the best teams in the country. It's obviously less exciting than winning the league or playing CL but I'd certainly take that beige over the increasingly dark shades of brown Blues find themselves in. What is exciting about waiting to find out if your money laundering owner wins his appeal in court? The best possible outcome of this season is that they finish above Yeovil, Doncaster and Barnsley and avoid administration. Riveting stuff.

Andre Villas Bumface? He's just been taken. Michael Laudurrbrain maybe?

Absolutely spot on. People keep making excuses for him having to "babysit" the likes of Clark and Baker, when I don't think he's as good as either of them. Terrible player. Agree to disagree.

I think Limpid was referring to the fact that God is often credited with being / doing everything we don't know. Every time something else is discovered / explained the pool of stuff we don't know (or God) gets smaller. Its not "proof" but I don't really think that is required.

Stats: Goals: Villa 3, City 2 Obviously that is the only stat that gets points on the board and while we are ahead in that stat I would expect a team who cost £500m to beat us on other stats while trying to catch us on the important stat.

Yeah that City win was so shit. How the **** am I supposed to tell everyone how shit we are if we keep beating the best teams in the League. Typical selfish Lambert, undermining my criticisms with counter attacking wins.

It is a scientific fact that your post belongs in the religion thread.

Utter utter utter shite That's the beauty of living in the future though, you can listen to what ever the **** you want. Nowadays music can't get worse, the mass of shit music you don't listen to just gets bigger.

Yeah I completely understand that people don't like grappling. I've spent enough time trying to educate people who don't want to be interested in the intricacies of submission grappling for a thousand lifetimes. I've also had mirror image conversations with people who love grappling but think football is tedious and takes little skill. Some people think boxing is just two people punching each other as well. I try my best to leave them all to it. I'd have to disagree about boxers usually being well matched though. You need a big number in the W column (or a gold medal) to get any recognition in boxing which leads to a line of mechanics and builders being lined up for you to walk over. MMA hasn't been around long enough to have any data on brain injuries but I'm guessing it will be fairly similar to boxing in that regard, although I believe repeated knockdowns with 10 seconds to recover is at least as bad for long term brain health as ground strikes. I don't know if you've ever tried to punch at the floor but its difficult to get much power into it. Either way, sadly boxing is a shell of its former self in terms of public interest and MMA is dwarfed by that shell in almost every country in the world. But boxing has the significant advantage of social acceptability and in several cases even legality. The only advantage MMA has currently is that the best guys in each division are more likely to fight each other. PS - Where are these masses of TapouT shirt wearers? 2008?

9 from 29. Also more home wins than McLeish's season already.

591k for a tape delayed card with no titles or former champions is way more than I'd have expected. Also UFC 168 hit 1mil buys IIRC. Dana White would sell his own mother for mainstream publicity, I don't know why anyone would take his statements on things like that seriously. While I agree there are no household names in MMA, the world doesn't stop for boxing anymore either. I guarantee the average man on the street couldn't name many (any?) of Manny or Floyd's last 5 opponents. Neighbourhoods aren't crowding round a TV to watch these days. It feels like combat sports are dying a death, much to my annoyance. But at least boxing in the UK has mainstream acceptance which is something MMA will do well to have in the next 20 years, let alone now. Chisora Fury is on the front page of BBC sport, AFAIK there has never been a mention of MMA anywhere on the site. Obviously there's enough room for both, they hardly take up any room at all.

It's nice to see rarer submissions get hit but nobody should get VFd. Even if that choke wasn't possible, holding on to a guillotine when your opponent has passed to side control on the other side is just a waste of energy and basically occupies your arm for almost no benefit at all. Krylov is young but I'd still expect more, especially with the amount of sub wins he has.

Boxing is more popular than UFC everywhere to a certain extent. The week to week stuff might be tough to call but the world stops when there is a truly big prize fight and that hasn't happened in mixed martial arts yet. It probably never will. It certainly won't in the near future. MMA is still illegal in NY and lots of countries like France and Norway, can't be shown on TV in Germany and has only been under a unified set of rules since 2001 (even then promotions add extra rules). Most people in the UK literally still don't know what MMA is. James DeGale is an Olympic Gold medalist who had a close fight with Mr. Flavour of the month. The fact a UFC card on a time delay without any draws only got 200k less viewers (and considering the same card was also shown live on BT Sport) is miraculous. What were the totals for each Donnie?