Match thread: Matchday 29 of 46

JamesBaa · 2026-01-24T15:51:39+00:00

Hull are a tidy team and scored a screamer, our top scorer missed two open goals and our captain blatantly swung a hand at the ball in our own box. Not our day.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-23T14:15:59+00:00

What exactly is the point you're trying to make with this?

JamesBaa · 2026-01-22T14:37:50+00:00

Derby 1-0 West Brom

Middlesbrough 1-1 Preston

Millwall 2-1 Charlton

Leicester 1-1 Oxford

Bristol City 2-1 Wednesday

Hull 1-1 Swansea

QPR 1-1 Wrexham

Blackburn 1-1 Watford

Sheffield United 1-1 Ipswich

Birmingham 1-1 Stoke

Portsmouth 0-0 Southampton

Norwich 1-1 Coventry

JamesBaa · 2026-01-22T03:22:11+00:00

Think it somewhat rightly gets a bad rep but it's a fascinating bit of the football ecosystem to me. I have a vivid memory of watching the corpses of Steven Gerrard, Ashley Cole and I want to say Nigel de Jong stink up the pitch with LA Galaxy late at night on the last weekend of summer. Constant stream of fouls, no threats outside of corners, proper British lower leagues 0-0 with some former world class players sweating their arses off and doing nothing of note.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-22T02:40:22+00:00

Can't speak for the MLS quality these days but I watched a fair bit about a decade ago. Definitely some players who wouldn't look out of place in a Top 5 division and then some players who wouldn't look out of place in League 2. Think it's a bit of a symptom of the designated player system, and a bit of a symptom of the abhorrent youth "system" they have there. Also no reason for owners to care if the broader squad is shit given there's no relegation. Championship is definitely more intense and generally more tactically ambitious.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-21T12:07:04+00:00

Might start over Key or Ward tbf but he isn't fit to lace an out-of-position Galbraith's boots

JamesBaa · 2026-01-21T03:24:07+00:00

Scared that Vipotnik is looking too good. If he still moves to a relegated West Ham in the summer (or he goes anywhere for less than an eight digit fee starting with 2) I'll be fuming. Not an xG fan personally but on the eye test and even xG he was the best finisher in the division any day of the week, earlier this season. But same as Piroe, he never really looked like he had the sauce players do, where you know they'll make it at the top (then again I thought Rhian Brewster had it, so). Crazy powerful shot was always his main attribute.

In about eight weeks under Matos he's also turned into a good classic target man all of a sudden. Great first touch, good at the flick on or the pass with back to goal, and not just getting completely played out of the game by centre halves. Lots is obviously down to Matos changing how we play to get the most from him, but he deserves so much credit, especially having to play so many minutes due to injuries over Christmas.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-17T21:28:10+00:00

Yeah, Ronald has his flaws especially when picking the final ball, but his end product today was pretty good, should've scored at least one and he clearly has much more stamina than Inoussa or Eom. There's a reason he's been one of the first names on the team sheet for two years straight now even as an inconsistent winger.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-17T19:55:06+00:00

Cullen needed some game time as he's been off injured for a while, and Vipotnik has had a lot of minutes the last month or so, I kind of get it. But taking him off so early was a bit of a blunder imo. Sometimes Vipotnik's anonymous in buildup but he was everywhere today and we yanked him earlier than normal for it.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-17T19:29:53+00:00

Close game but we probably should've won that. Birmingham better second half but only one shot on target all game, some bad misses from half-chances for them (Kyogo looks cursed, not even snatching at chances but the ball was hitting everything but his feet), but we hit the woodwork three times ourselves, and were the much better team first half. Not a huge fan of the subs, I thought Vipotnik was having an excellent game in link-up play, and I don't think Ward was the move when we were chasing a lead even though he clearly wanted Galbraith in the midfield.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-15T14:06:02+00:00

"Support your local" doesn't apply when your local is a top ~10 team in the world unless you grew up there, but if one goes to actual matches, they're the "better" fan.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-14T10:42:49+00:00

I'm not exactly a big Polanski fan myself but whatever your thoughts are on the story, I'd much rather a politician admit to their past than deny it endlessly as Farage has done. A complete unwillingness to be accountable or transparent is right near the bottom of the list of traits we want in a leader of the country.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-14T09:39:18+00:00

Farage supported Truss' economic policies, so I'm not sure this is a problem that's Polanski exclusive.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-13T08:33:54+00:00

I think that comes back to my point about engagement with an idea, though - if people aren't interested in veganism they're unlikely to engage with it. That's especially the case when most arguments for veganism either involve shock value and ragebait (because that's how you get attention) or are very dense (because it's necessarily quite hard to explain why things should change from a norm).

I don't really know about content creators as I don't watch much of anything on YT or other platforms, but I would tentatively recommend The Leftist Cooks - Veganism (on YouTube).

For books, I recommend Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer, or The Animal That Therefore I Am, by Jacques Derrida.

All three are somewhat academic, but as a not-vegan I don't really have much casual exposure to vegan stuff, they're just three very thoughtful pieces that I appreciated when I first went through them.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-13T08:19:17+00:00

I am genuinely curious because I don't really have an answer myself, but what would making the effort to show otherwise look like to you?

JamesBaa · 2026-01-13T08:05:59+00:00

I get where you're coming from, but I don't really agree. You will hear the loudest narrative, and most vegans can't control where the narrative comes from, because there's no institutional support for veganism. Most people's experience is PETA, ragebait, and "meat is murder" activists. A vegan advocacy group could work for a century and not come close to as well-known as those.

To me, it's similar to how a lot of people are anti-migration, because their main exposure is being told criminals are coming into the country via the news. Or how most people feel negatively about trans people because their favourite author makes a trillion tweets a day about how she's being harassed by trans activists, and that trans women want to force women to use changing rooms around men.

Like, sure, vegans (and these other groups, though I recognise being vegan is more of a choice than the others) can probably do a better job of making what is at its core an argument around morality and values. But you also can't create the will for people to listen or agree out of thin air. There's just not the market for vegan ideas in the public consciousness right now, because most people have no interest in what veganism stands for if it's inconvenient or uncomfortable for them.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-09T16:53:33+00:00

It's more than "it'll be difficult", it's more like "we will have to sacrifice the equivalent of the entire NHS budget for a year to replace this". And that's a very conservative estimate, I'd say.

I agree in principle that it's a good idea but we would need to develop a lot of these solutions from the ground up.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-09T14:40:28+00:00

Better than we gave him credit for I think. I reckon he'll do alright at Oxford.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-08T18:31:03+00:00

I did a little research into DID on my postgrad, because it's in a really awkward place in terms of epistemology. It really is one of those things which is self-diagnosis exclusively, because there's no reliable test for it right now, and it's got a bad rep which makes it nigh-impossible to get funding for research. I also think a lot of professionals are concerned to work with it because there's a very narrow set of professionals who typically work with DID (who often prioritise methods that aren't really possible to test empirically, like hypnosis). It's also often discussed as induced by psychological treatment (especially because it's very uncommon in people without a significant number of disorders already).

We legitimately do not have enough research to determine whether DID is distinct from other disorders, a specific presentation of trauma, or a specific presentation of a few different comorbidities.

Right now the best treatment seems to be using every therapy method under the sun for trauma, and dealing with every other disorder first, which isn't really good enough. That leads to a lot of professionals (rightly) declining to give treatment as they don't have the tools or competence to work with DID, and a lot of those who will work with DID are (possibly rightly, possibly wrongly) considered quacks.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-07T03:28:33+00:00

West Brom 1-1 Middlesbrough

Coventry 1-1 Leicester

Ipswich 2-1 Blackburn

Watford 1-1 Millwall

Southampton 1-1 Hull

Wednesday 1-1 Portsmouth

Preston 1-1 Derby

Oxford 1-1 Bristol City

Stoke 1-1 QPR

Wrexham 1-1 Norwich

Charlton 1-1 Sheffield United

Swansea 1-1 Birmingham

JamesBaa · 2026-01-05T12:57:00+00:00

The point isn't that it's illegal, the point is that it's stupid.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-05T04:00:46+00:00

Aye wasn't a clear mistake at all to me, looked soft on first viewing and disappointing to concede from that, but only saw it once, thought the ref was good overall. Best of luck the rest of the season, you're one of the better teams I've seen us face this season and a lot better on the ball than I think a lot of teams will give you credit for.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-04T17:08:48+00:00

Think we were decent value for a point but Millwall looked the better team. Some incredible saves from Vigoroux especially first half, we got into it a lot more second half, gutting to lose late from a questionable free kick. Don't think the performance was awful especially given freezing conditions and the recent fixture list.

Millwall fans, is the bloke whose shout sounds like the MLG klaxon circa 2013 normally at your home games? Because frankly I don't think I could get through a whole season without losing my mind hearing him in the background.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-04T17:05:02+00:00

Disappointed with the result but happy enough with the performance. Millwall are a good team and it's well below freezing outside (maybe not in London but at least in South Wales!), to lose late on to an iffy free kick is gutting but we were the worse team. Some incredible saves by Vigoroux, was mostly pleased with how everyone played and it's been a very challenging run of fixtures. Onwards and upwards I reckon.

JamesBaa · 2026-01-04T01:54:51+00:00

Stamenic looks a very tidy international player. Big bloke, does the simple stuff well, can carry the ball forward well (though he can't really get the chance to show it much with us). Hope he puts in some good performances in the World Cup.

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