Fazio and Stambouli Needed

[tw12yid]

Against Utd i believe Poch was naive is believing the team that had done well against Swansea and QPR would succeed against Utd. Old Trafford is one of the biggest pitches in the league and we have done well up there in the past. Both times Dembele has played as a big pitch allows him to use one of his best assests which is his running. Dembele playing from the start would have made us more compact. I'd also agree about playing Fazio as i posted the stats in the omt statistically fazio & vertonghen are out best cb pairing.

Updated CB Stats

 

[DubaiSpur]

why?? Look I see you are persisting with this "the Spurs managers never get the players they want" assumption and yes in some transfers that has been so, but i think this happens at many clubs. for a variety of reasons transfers break down. Im not the biggest Levy fan when it comes to transfers, but what can he do when AVB asks for Willian but Chelski come in a nab him at the last moment. Why would Willian want to join Spurs instead of Chelski from a footballing point of view, notwithstanding that his agent is a close pal and business partner of Roman Abramovch which makes the deal back then even shadier

AVB wanted Paulinho, he got him and look how that turned out. He seemed happy with the Soldado deal, well we are still waiting for Bob to show his Spanish form. We got Eriksen instead of Willian, id say that has worked out very well in the end.

AVB wanted Moutinho but it never happened. We will never know what really happened over that deal but from the outside it was very complicated with 3rd party ownership issues, his agent being Jorge Mendes who seems to be the one that decides where his players go, the high transfer fee coupled with huge wages. It didnt happen, so what we simply had to move on and get on with it.

Now onto Schneiderlin. Lets assume Poch really wanted him, told Levy so, player wanted to come, and so Levy and Baldini were left with the task of finalising the transfer with Southampton. Im sure Poch was told money is tight at Spurs (he has indicated this in a recent interview that he knows about the spending restrictions) that he can only spend what he raises from sales (as has been the case since Redknapp was in charge, we have a huge stadium project to complete after all). Apparently, Spurs believed they could get Schneiderlin for 12-15 mill but after a summer of selling 3 of their best players for immense sums Southampton decided not to sell Schneiderlin. Full stop. Even if we went in with a 25 mill offer they wouldnt have sold. What could Levy do, its just the same like when he refused to sell Modric to Chelski. The player sulked, but he had to stay and get on with it.

If Poch was so against the signings of Fazio and Stambouli he wouldnt have played them at all. Also why do you say he is against those signings and not Dier, or Davies. Maybe he wants to give Dier as much experience as possible because he feels in Dier there is a top class centre half in the making but the lad seriously needs game time. Anyway most of us understood this season was always going to be a write off with all the changes that needed to be made, just because we have done terrifically well in the meantime shouldnt make us forget that Poch and his team are laying down the foundations for success in the future, not for now. Dier is the future, just like Kane, Bentaleb, Mason, Rose, Eriksen are. Fazio has had game time, plenty of it, and has done ok in my opinion. However maybe Poch is not entirely satisfied and simply would rather persevere with the Dier/Vertonghen combo. Poch is well known for sticking by a group of players once they gain his trust. Its clear at the moment what he views as his best team and that is the one that has been selected for all our major games in recent weeks.

Stambouli? Simply Mason and Bentaleb work better together, and Poch plays two deep midfielders in a 4-2-3-1, its his system and he isnt going to change it. That doesnt mean Poch never wanted Stambouli, its just that Mason and Bentaleb have formed an excellent partnership and Stambouli at the moment cannot break it. Who knows in the future, Stambouli is still young, he has time to adjust to English football, to learn and get better, one day there may be an injury or two and he may get his chance and then its up to him to impress.

Poch knows he has a limited budget and he will simply work with Baldini, Mitchell and all the scouts to find the right players who want to play for him and Spurs. Some signings will work out, some wont. That is the same for every manager. Already Poch has shown what he is good at, working with young hungry players and making them better, this will continue and I for one am very excited by this approach. Before this season started i really fell out of love with football, last season was a joke for us and i couldnt see any hope for the future. I wasnt a big fan of Poch, I wanted De Boer instead, but I thought its only fair to give Poch a chance, like i said i was disillusioned anyway so i thought lets see what he can do. Well what has happened has completely surprised me and honestly Poch has created a side from virtually nothing, full of young homegrown talent, that for me is doing way way way better than any of us could have expected. We are vibrant, play decent football, have had some great moments and victories this season, simply Poch and his boys have made me fall back in love with football again. And i want it to continue like this, this approach, this philosophy. In a game all about expensive signings and money, we are doing it differently and i find it fascinating. Hey, even the neutrals are starting to like us again. How can anybody not

I've gone over this far too many times, Indian mate. suffice to say, a) you're off the mark on this, and b) you're using an impossibly broad argument to address a fairly specific topic. With regard to managers not getting the players they want, it went far, far beyond just Willian (Hulk, Moutinho, Villa and a bunch more) with AVB, and it went to the point where multitudes of managers have publically complained about this phenomenon, be it Ramos (who felt the rug was pulled out from under him in 2008) to Harry and beyond. And while Paulinho and Soldado may be flops, we'll never know how good they might have been had the original plan been followed: again, as per AVB, both players were bought with the idea that they would be playing with Bale, not replacing him. And finally, Schneiderlin....we made a single, solitary ten million pound bid for the guy (I posted the telegraph article which confirms this far too often to search for it again ), and then buggered off when that was refused. How that compares to the Modric situation, again, is utterly beyond me: Chelsea chased him throughout the summer, and eventually offered 40 million plus for him: they didn't fling a stupidly transparent, solitary ten million bid at him and then run away gleefully when Southampton, shocked at the cheap nature of it, turned it down.

We never made an effort to get Schneiderlin, and I can well imagine the same sorry chase was conducted with other 'primary' targets as well. We have a history of sabotaging our managers in this way, and it's no surprise that they come out bitterly and angrily in the papers after they walk out of club. So yeah, you are somewhat off the mark on this, IMO.

Secondly, you're using too broad an argument for this case. I love Poch, absolutely love the guy: I desperately wanted LvG all the way up to the time he shacked up at Old Trafford, and I then wanted Rafa all the way up to when Poch was appointed (although with hindsight, I doubt any trophy winning manager will repeat AVB's mistake and come to this club based solely on the promises of 'ambition' made by Levy and co.)....but once Poch was appointed, I was behind him 100 percent, and I've been enormously impressed by what he's done so far, with almost no support as usual from Levy and our owner. And I agree: I've always maintained that this season should be written off as a season for Poch to get his feet under the desk, and after the dismal summe window (and the no doubt similarly dismal one to come), I actually think we shouldn't judge him until January 2016 given what he's had to work with. But that's completely besides the point of this discussion, which is mainly whether or not Poch dislikes Fazio and Stambouli because they were the cheap bargain bin replacements for the players he really wanted. And in this regard, I don't see what other argument can be put down for their absence: yeah, it would have been justified if either of them had played badly, but they've performed reasonably well, well enough that they (in particular Fazio) deserve a place over poorer-performing regular starters (like Dier, for instance). Sure, perhaps Poch prefers a settled side, and trusts youth to grow into being the players he wants, etcetera.....but that can't explain why neither Fazio or Stambouli were even on the bench yesterday, despite being aeons better than both Chiriches and Paulinho. And their absence is again similarly baffling when you consider how often they've been needed within games over the last few weeks: we needed an aerial bully to deal with Fellaini, and a DM to plug the gap in midfield. We needed experience in the back against Chelski, we needed a DM against QOR (where we were being overrun)....and neither hide nor hair of those two were seen on the pitch.


Poch has claimed that they're fit: the only semi-plausible explanation for their consistent marginalization within the first-team squad (IMO) is that he doesn't really fancy them , as they're a) not his signings, or b) playing them consistently would give Levy an excuse to continue flinging cheap replacements for his first-choice targets under the assumption that the compromise-minded Poch would just sit quietly and take that strategy.

Either way, it is a bit strange, is all.

 

[DubaiSpur]

ah, so because Lamela cost 25 mill it means he is an absolute world beater, the same goes for Soldado who cost 26 mill, whereas Eriksen cost only 12 mill so he must be inferior as a result???

the cost of a player is not always indicative of the return you get from him.

how much did Schneiderlin cost Southampton?

Come now, don't be so pedantic about this. Stambouli was the DM in a team which won Ligue 1, and had its best and brightest picked off by the elite of Europe afterwards: despite that, not much interest was shown in him, and despite theoretically being in his prime as a player age-wise, he only went for the fee we paid for him, with Montpellier not particularly dismayed by his departure. Hardly a ringing endorsement of his abilities, and again, there is a reason he cost as little as he did. Not all cheap players are bad, not all expensive players are good: however, I'd wager that the cost to performance ratio is a fairly rock-solid, iron fact, and that more cheap players will turn out to be duds than expensive ones. We can't always beat the curve on that phenomenon, and we can't just point to cheap signings that came good and say 'see?': that is a road to ruin.

 

[Cochise]

I'm in agreement with GB on this, we needed some experienced heads out there and those two are some of the only ones we have. I also agree on the notion that we should convert to the 4321 in games such as this or maybe even completely. Our G/D and clean sheets count clearly indicate that we are not defensively solid and the first goal especially highlighted how easy it can be to pass through us if a team can bypass the advanced 3. We don't defend well and a lot of players are often trying to pre-empt a turn from a player and leaving spaces for said player to run into.

 

[indianspur]

I've gone over this far too many times, Indian mate. suffice to say, a) you're off the mark on this, and b) you're using an impossibly broad argument to address a fairly specific topic. With regard to managers not getting the players they want, it went far, far beyond just Willian (Hulk, Moutinho, Villa and a bunch more) with AVB, and it went to the point where multitudes of managers have publically complained about this phenomenon, be it Ramos (who felt the rug was pulled out from under him in 2008) to Harry and beyond. And while Paulinho and Soldado may be flops, we'll never know how good they might have been had the original plan been followed: again, as per AVB, both players were bought with the idea that they would be playing with Bale, not replacing him. And finally, Schneiderlin....we made a single, solitary ten million pound bid for the guy (I posted the telegraph article which confirms this far too often to search for it again ), and then buggered off when that was refused. How that compares to the Modric situation, again, is utterly beyond me: Chelsea chased him throughout the summer, and eventually offered 40 million plus for him: they didn't fling a stupidly transparent, solitary ten million bid at him and then run away gleefully when Southampton, shocked at the cheap nature of it, turned it down.

We never made an effort to get Schneiderlin, and I can well imagine the same sorry chase was conducted with other 'primary' targets as well. We have a history of sabotaging our managers in this way, and it's no surprise that they come out bitterly and angrily in the papers after they walk out of club. So yeah, you are somewhat off the mark on this, IMO.

Secondly, you're using too broad an argument for this case. I love Poch, absolutely love the guy: I desperately wanted LvG all the way up to the time he shacked up at Old Trafford, and I then wanted Rafa all the way up to when Poch was appointed (although with hindsight, I doubt any trophy winning manager will repeat AVB's mistake and come to this club based solely on the promises of 'ambition' made by Levy and co.)....but once Poch was appointed, I was behind him 100 percent, and I've been enormously impressed by what he's done so far, with almost no support as usual from Levy and our owner. And I agree: I've always maintained that this season should be written off as a season for Poch to get his feet under the desk, and after the dismal summe window (and the no doubt similarly dismal one to come), I actually think we shouldn't judge him until January 2016 given what he's had to work with. But that's completely besides the point of this discussion, which is mainly whether or not Poch dislikes Fazio and Stambouli because they were the cheap bargain bin replacements for the players he really wanted. And in this regard, I don't see what other argument can be put down for their absence: yeah, it would have been justified if either of them had played badly, but they've performed reasonably well, well enough that they (in particular Fazio) deserve a place over poorer-performing regular starters (like Dier, for instance). Sure, perhaps Poch prefers a settled side, and trusts youth to grow into being the players he wants, etcetera.....but that can't explain why neither Fazio or Stambouli were even on the bench yesterday, despite being aeons better than both Chiriches and Paulinho. And their absence is again similarly baffling when you consider how often they've been needed within games over the last few weeks: we needed an aerial bully to deal with Fellaini, and a DM to plug the gap in midfield. We needed experience in the back against Chelski, we needed a DM against QOR (where we were being overrun)....and neither hide nor hair of those two were seen on the pitch.


Poch has claimed that they're fit: the only semi-plausible explanation for their consistent marginalization within the first-team squad (IMO) is that he doesn't really fancy them , as they're a) not his signings, or b) playing them consistently would give Levy an excuse to continue flinging cheap replacements for his first-choice targets under the assumption that the compromise-minded Poch would just sit quietly and take that strategy.

Either way, it is a bit strange, is all.

Managers in general tend to get some players they really want, and some that are 2nd, 3rd, 4th choices on their list. In the case of Spurs, id say this was true for all the managers under Levy, for Hoddle, for, Jol, for Ramos, Redknapp, AVB, and the same will happen with Poch

you mention Hulk and Villa. Do you know how much Hulk is earning at Zenit? There is a wage structure at Spurs, a very sensible one, we are very restricted financially in comparison to clubs we are trying to compete with, how on earth can we pay the salary to buy players like Hulk? Villa chose to join A Madrid, he chose to stay in Spain, he chose to join a club in the CL, why do you want to blame Levy when a deal was all but agreed with Spurs. AVB, Levy and Spurs did their best but it wast enough as in the last minute a better option presented itself to the player as was the case with Willian

why cant you accept that Spurs were unable to buy two main Poch targets in Mussachio and Schneiderlin because of the 3rd party ownership issues with Mussachio, and with Schneiderlin because Southampton simply didnt want to sell, not to Spurs, not to Arsenal. So, instead of sulking and feeling hard done by, is it so impossible to think that Poch decided that he would buy two squad players, good talents in Fazio and Stambouli, in order to start the process of forming the squad he wants long term? By the way Poch has behaved i simply dont see how he can be perceived as not wanting these players. He has played them both this season in many games. They havent been pushed to one side and ignored just to prove a point to Levy.

As i pointed out before, Dier was also a summer signing, very very cheap too. Do you think he is also a player Poch never wanted?? By playing him is Poch giving Levy the "excuse to continue flinging cheap replacements for his first-choice targets under the assumption that the compromise-minded Poch would just sit quietly and take that strategy" as you so clearly believe?

Fazio and Stambouli were not selected in the squad for the UTd game despite as you say their qualities would have helped us. How about you question Pochs tactics then, his decision making on a football basis, rather then go down the route of believing its all a ploy to show Levy who is boss? Both Fazio and Stambouli recently started away to Fiorentina, a very important game, where were you then questioning who really signed them?

 

[indianspur]

Come now, don't be so pedantic about this. Stambouli was the DM in a team which won Ligue 1, and had its best and brightest picked off by the elite of Europe afterwards: despite that, not much interest was shown in him, and despite theoretically being in his prime as a player age-wise, he only went for the fee we paid for him, with Montpellier not particularly dismayed by his departure. Hardly a ringing endorsement of his abilities, and again, there is a reason he cost as little as he did. Not all cheap players are bad, not all expensive players are good: however, I'd wager that the cost to performance ratio is a fairly rock-solid, iron fact, and that more cheap players will turn out to be duds than expensive ones. We can't always beat the curve on that phenomenon, and we can't just point to cheap signings that came good and say 'see?': that is a road to ruin.

but we cannot afford to buy the more expensive players, we have a small stadium, our revenue is nowhere the level of our competitors. Is it so hard to comprehend that since 2007-2008 we have been buying players with money received from sales. Its a simple policy, very clear, and its a policy that every manager has to accept. We are not a club that will spend recklessly. Poch has already said he understands this, he took the job on with this policy being made clear to him, so he knows what and who he is working with. Until we sell a player for mega Bale like money, we will continue to get more Stamboulis, more Fazios, more Diers etc. Some might turn out to be gems, some might not. Anyway, the progression of the likes of Kane, Bentaleb, Mason shows that good coaching and faith in younger players can keep us in and around the top 6 until the time comes when we have a new stadium and the increase in revenue to compete for the more expensive players.

 

[braineclipse]

ah, so because Lamela cost 25 mill it means he is an absolute world beater, the same goes for Soldado who cost 26 mill, whereas Eriksen cost only 12 mill so he must be inferior as a result???

the cost of a player is not always indicative of the return you get from him.

how much did Schneiderlin cost Southampton?

I'm quite sure Southampton suffered through quite a bit of inconsistency developing Schneiderlin after that initial (small) transfer fee.

 

[indianspur]

I'm quite sure Southampton suffered through quite a bit of inconsistency developing Schneiderlin after that initial (small) transfer fee.

yes that is understandable. Thats why im saying there is no need for us to make instant judgments on Fazio or Stambouli and im sure Poch hasnt done that either. They have been given chances, they will be given time to fully adapt to a new league and culture and until then its normal they show inconsistencies in their performances.

They may turn out to be very astute purchases, lets give them time

I just dont see the need to insinuate that they werent Poch approved purchases, just because they were missing from the squad at the weekend, or for a few months Poch has preferred to stick with Dier and Mason in the first team and Fazio and Stambouli mostly on the bench.

 

[braineclipse]

yes that is understandable. Thats why im saying there is no need for us to make instant judgments on Fazio or Stambouli and im sure Poch hasnt done that either. They have been given chances, they will be given time to fully adapt to a new league and culture and until then its normal they show inconsistencies in their performances.

I just dont see the need to insinuate that they werent Poch approved purchases, just because they were missing from the squad at the weekend, or for a few months Poch has preferred to stick with Dier and Mason in the first team and Fazio and Stambouli mostly on the bench.

Agreed.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Managers in general tend to get some players they really want, and some that are 2nd, 3rd, 4th choices on their list. In the case of Spurs, id say this was true for all the managers under Levy, for Hoddle, for, Jol, for Ramos, Redknapp, AVB, and the same will happen with Poch

you mention Hulk and Villa. Do you know how much Hulk is earning at Zenit? There is a wage structure at Spurs, a very sensible one, we are very restricted financially in comparison to clubs we are trying to compete with, how on earth can we pay the salary to buy players like Hulk? Villa chose to join A Madrid, he chose to stay in Spain, he chose to join a club in the CL, why do you want to blame Levy when a deal was all but agreed with Spurs. AVB, Levy and Spurs did their best but it wast enough as in the last minute a better option presented itself to the player as was the case with Willian

why cant you accept that Spurs were unable to buy two main Poch targets in Mussachio and Schneiderlin because of the 3rd party ownership issues with Mussachio, and with Schneiderlin because Southampton simply didnt want to sell, not to Spurs, not to Arsenal. So, instead of sulking and feeling hard done by, is it so impossible to think that Poch decided that he would buy two squad players, good talents in Fazio and Stambouli, in order to start the process of forming the squad he wants long term? By the way Poch has behaved i simply dont see how he can be perceived as not wanting these players. He has played them both this season in many games. They havent been pushed to one side and ignored just to prove a point to Levy.

As i pointed out before, Dier was also a summer signing, very very cheap too. Do you think he is also a player Poch never wanted?? By playing him is Poch giving Levy the "excuse to continue flinging cheap replacements for his first-choice targets under the assumption that the compromise-minded Poch would just sit quietly and take that strategy" as you so clearly believe?

Fazio and Stambouli were not selected in the squad for the UTd game despite as you say their qualities would have helped us. How about you question Pochs tactics then, his decision making on a football basis, rather then go down the route of believing its all a ploy to show Levy who is boss? Both Fazio and Stambouli recently started away to Fiorentina, a very important game, where were you then questioning who really signed them?

A) Agreed, but when these managers have their best players sold out from under them and replaced with bargains and 'future value' players instead of the ones they want, it is patently unfair to then blame them when things inevitably go wrong. Ramos did a lot of interviews where he repeatedly stressed that he went into the summer of 2008 expecting some midfield reinforcements and not much else, and came out holding Pav, Bent and Frazier Campbell as replacements for our best strike pairing in ages- and then he had to endure all the taunting when he was sacked, as Levy gleefully flung him under the bus to hide his own failures. Harry went into January 2012 with the team flying in the league, poised to challenge for the damn title if things went our way and the right signings were made - one window of Nelsen and Saga later, he was kicked out as we slumped to fourth. AVB had the player he built his team around sold off to Real, and then expected that at least then he would get his first choices as a bit of compensation for that loss - well, we missed out to a point where he angrily explained afterwards that just two of the seven Bale signings were his. We happily throw our managers under the bus to protect Levy and his ways when it comes to transfers, and it's baffling how that fact is such a red rag to so many people.

And as for Schneiderlin, again, I urge to find that Telegraph article I mentioned: we never made more than one single bid of 10 million pounds for the guy. Did we even try before writing him off as unattainable? Did we try to give Poch the best start he could get, even as we moved to the near-bottom of the table in terms of PL net spending over the past five years, with a 12-15 million quid profit on player trading during that period to boot?

Yes, Poch has played Stambouli and Fazio a bit. No one's disputing that. The question is, when we were and are crying out for them, they were and are nowhere to be seen. I don't blame Poch for not playing them more or judge his tactics and selections to be insufficient, because I feel he hasn't been given enough support by our board and our chairman to justify being judged so soon into his time here - and that's likely to be the case this summer as well, which means I'm not sure we can judge him much next season either. I've taken Levy's side against our managers far too often to feel comfortable doing it again, especially when it's a manager like Poch who's genuinely won me over.

Fazio and Stambouli are being ignored for some reason that doesn't have to do with injury, form or their performances in training (Poch hasn't complained about any of these things), but it's sufficiently serious that even Chiriches and Paulinho were preferred over them against United. Unless Chiriches and Paulinho play like Maldini and Scholes in training, I'd suggest there's a deeper reason behind their exclusion, and personally given Levy's previous attempts to fob managers off with bargain buys even when we could have afforded better alternatives....I'm putting it down to Poch putting his foot down.

 

[DubaiSpur]

but we cannot afford to buy the more expensive players, we have a small stadium, our revenue is nowhere the level of our competitors. Is it so hard to comprehend that since 2007-2008 we have been buying players with money received from sales. Its a simple policy, very clear, and its a policy that every manager has to accept. We are not a club that will spend recklessly. Poch has already said he understands this, he took the job on with this policy being made clear to him, so he knows what and who he is working with. Until we sell a player for mega Bale like money, we will continue to get more Stamboulis, more Fazios, more Diers etc. Some might turn out to be gems, some might not. Anyway, the progression of the likes of Kane, Bentaleb, Mason shows that good coaching and faith in younger players can keep us in and around the top 6 until the time comes when we have a new stadium and the increase in revenue to compete for the more expensive players.

Spending more than 5 million on a position Poch highlighted as a priority in his first season at the club is 'spending recklessly'? This is the danger with a youth team as talented as ours evidently is: it is that any player the chairman doesn't like spending on can be tossed off the list of the 'transfer committee' because buying him would be 'reckless', and this move can be easily, easily justified by the chairman just asking the manager to use a youth teamer instead, even when it is clear that a better, more experienced player is needed. I think Poch would be a fool if he wasn't aware of this danger, and he'd be a bigger fool to trust Levy and make do with our youth talent under the assumption that Levy would back him when it comes to players he really needs.

 

[billyiddo]

How do you know that Pochettino highlighted anything as a priority in the summer?

 

[DubaiSpur]

Faith and begorrah, bill mate, we've had this conversation before. I wasn't sure if I'd had this debate with indianspur, but I definitely had it with you.

 

[braineclipse]

How do you know that Pochettino highlighted anything as a priority in the summer?

Same way he knows that Pochettino wanted us to spend £25m+ on Schneiderlin. And that the telegraph article claiming that we bid £10m once and then did nothing is right.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Same way he knows that Pochettino wanted us to spend £25m+ on Schneiderlin. And that the telegraph article claiming that we bid £10m once and then did nothing is right.

Yes, yes, the perfidious press at it again: damn, it must be enervating to be able to dismiss all evidence against our glorious infallible leader so very easily, be it words against him by former managers ('lies! Said with an agenda to cover up their own ineptness! Naargh!') or articles indicating the same ('lies! Press scheming to bring our glorious unquestionably great chairman into disrepute! Naargh!'). Patently lemming-like, but enervating nonetheless.

 

[billyiddo]

If i didn't like you so much Dubai id take offense

 

[imcallingbullsh*t]

Yes, yes, the perfidious press at it again: damn, it must be enervating to be able to dismiss all evidence against our glorious infallible leader so very easily, be it words against him by former managers ('lies! Said with an agenda to cover up their own ineptness! Naargh!') or articles indicating the same ('lies! Press scheming to bring our glorious unquestionably great chairman into disrepute! Naargh!'). Patently lemming-like, but enervating nonetheless.

Why are you so angry?

 

[DubaiSpur]

Why are you so angry?

Do I appear overly angry? I thought that smiley at the end was sufficient cover in that regard.

I'm not angry, mate. Braine knows that, and bill knows that. We've had similar conversations before, is all. I absolutely love both of 'em as posters, even though I disagree vehemently with them on this particular issue.

 

[DubaiSpur]

If i didn't like you so much Dubai id take offense

The last thing I need in my life is Jean Claude Van Damme taking offense at something I said: I wouldn't last the week, I think.

 

[braineclipse]

Yes, yes, the perfidious press at it again: damn, it must be enervating to be able to dismiss all evidence against our glorious infallible leader so very easily, be it words against him by former managers ('lies! Said with an agenda to cover up their own ineptness! Naargh!') or articles indicating the same ('lies! Press scheming to bring our glorious unquestionably great chairman into disrepute! Naargh!'). Patently lemming-like, but enervating nonetheless.

I was trying my best to insult your absurd opinion on this topic without actually engaging in another winding discussion - as we both know that's going nowhere fast.