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Congratulations Norwich on a fantastic win today. Your performance at Turf Moor was superb and thoroughly deserved. You ran us (Burnley) ragged from the first minute onward and we could not complain had the margin of victory had been greater. I've got to wonder how the hell you are bottom of the league playing like that! Good luck in the next round.

Methinks there is an agenda against Drmic on here today unfortunately. Hardly going to be at his sharpest in his first start and after injury lay offs. Still it wouldn’t be this message board if somebody wasn’t written off every Saturday 👍🏻

Considering the paltry budget he's been working with, I'd say there have been a lot more hits than misses. As far as misses go, I'd say Franke, Marshall, Husband, Srbeny, Heise and Watkins have been poor permanent signings, and of those only Franke and Marshall cost us more than a million. Watkins cost us nothing and we turned him for a £1m profit within 12 months. On the other hand, I'd say Vrancic, Hernandez, Trybull, Zimmermann, Buendia, Krul, Pukki, Hanley, Stiepermann, Leitner and Byram have all been somewhere between decent and excellent. I can't be bothered to trawl through all Neil's signings, but I doubt his hit rate was nearly that high, and he also spent considerably more money. Factor in the quality young players we've either invested in or brought through the Academy (Neil would never play youth team players, remember), and I think it's fair to say Webber has been relatively successful with his recruitment.

I think we are a family club . I like a bet . So do my children .

Substitution hawks updating their spreadsheets furiously with timings!

So, The FA Cup and relegation......... I'd settle for that. ;0))

Rupp looks to be a good signing. Settled in very quickly for a Jan purchase.

Rupp looks very handy Hope now that we've got a good lead we can see Josh Martin for 10 or 15 minutes later on

Should be starting every week for me.

If people would only say what they see instead of looking for reasons. One person said Drmic was a donkey. The rest of the comments are based on what he has done today. Personally, I hope he scores a hat trick in the second half. But I observe his first half performance and he has had three chances. I can't alter that and so I say so. He wasn't unlucky either, just poor finishing. What are you supposed to say? People get what they want out of a game but you cannot defend three chances missed. Its his job to score.

Yes, because Pukki has never, ever missed a chance.

Said he had a knee problem at the presser yesterday and was touch and go. Don't believe Leitner was mentioned.

Why should there be any anger? We are pretty much where we expected to be, in a relegation battle. I’d hoped like many others that this team was capable of achieving mid table. But we’ve underestimated the task at hand. There’s nothing to be angry about, we’ve come up, and in the majority of games given it a good go and been competitive playing at time’s some great football. Ultimately We’re going to fall short because we’re not quite good enough for this level, and have at times been naive in our approach. Should we have spent a bit more? Of cause we should have. Would the outcome have been any different? Probably not.

I was wrong about England being the most densely populated..it is indeed the Netherlands still. But Belgium is a good way behind England, with 377 per square km compared to 430 for England. I declined to include Malta due to its small size, but if small size matters then also include Vatican City and Monaco. Monaco would then be the most densely populated at 18,000 per sq. km.

Got the Fenerbahce game on whilst marking some assessments. Used to live in turkey so keep half an eye on how Fener are doing. Ref just have a pen. Ran over to the monitor, overturned his decision. Whole process took maybe 30 seconds or so. VAR has a place in football but the implementation in the UK is lunacy. It can and does work, as other countries are demonstrating every week

Just shows we have a very good squad.

Glad we got £13 , I did get a bit excited when Hanley scored it could have been much more. Let’s not be greedy though, plus we are still going to Wembley. Hopefully kathys last two come in , good luck

Good performance and pleased to see games like this give a chance for the likes of Vrancic to show why they should be in the team while others such as Byram give the same levels of performance that they have in the league. More game time for Rupp and Duda too. When I came on here earlier it seemed a few people wanted a strong line up as we are already relegated anyway, the fact that some are irked that Farke brought Pukki on for 3 minutes encourages me that maybe not everyone thinks all is lost!

Lotus? manufacturer of fast cars, are you really advocating we are sponsored by a car manufacturer when 1800 people per year die in car crashes and thousands more are injured?!?! You have a problem with betting but not with people drink driving, speeding, killing pedestrians etc? Not very ‘family friendly’ of you. Aviva - pensions provider, but you aren’t considering those who have money troubles or can’t afford pensions are you? What if seeing the aviva logo reminds someone of their dire financial situation and the commit suicide? All because you weren’t happy with adults who make their own choices on gambling. For the record, the above is irony to show how ludicrous the “issue” is. Your thread and point are equally stupid

“Make a substitution!!!” ”no, not that one!”

And that's why we're bottom

He's our most creative player and it will always be a mystery to me as to why Farke has chosen not to field him in the first 11 all season.

Well if after 5 -10 minutes he’s missed two clear chances I can see why there may be comments that early about him. Anyways here’s hoping we can put one of these chances away 2nd half.

I think the point is that the Drmic moans started, what, 5?10? minutes into the game? That’s ridiculous by any measure. Give him a proper chance. It’s a bit like Rupp and Duda were already being written off by some after Spurs. The sensible thing to do is give them a chance, but too many appear to almost have their minds made up after a player’s first touch.

Very enjoyable game so far, it's nice to have a game with no real pressure in it at this stage of the season, Drmic has missed a couple of good chances but we are playing well at the moment.

He has to score 100% of his chances does he? That sounds dead fair👍

Don't tell me, you're a midget.

I dont think he realises much tbh , Offo.

I think Dave Murray is spelt with a silent C and W...

Promised myself as I staggered out of Villa Park after the minor miracle of last season that no matter how tough things got this season , I would carry on believing in the team until all is lost . Said to myself they’ve earned that from me many times over . Surely I could bloody manage that I said . All is not lost , getting closer admittedly. And keeping that promise is a f*** sight harder than I’d thought at the time ! But , I don’t think it’s just blind faith . Saw us create enough chances away at Spurs , a top side , to beat them . If we weren’t creating the chances , then maybe . So small chance of success, everyone’s writing us off , what’s not to like ! Keep creating those chances and bring it on ! Keeps me going anyway .

I agree with you entirely, but I’m not convinced your post was particularly enlightening or exciting (nor is this one before you say so)

We've signed quite a few for our academy recently.

Yer dunt ger owt fur nowt thar knoze.....

Brilliant stuff! We're only two games from Wembley now. Would be great to avoid one of the top six if possible.

Can we say last 16, it sounds better.

😂 Drmic scores - world wide shortage of humble pie. 🤣

Drmic has looked awful, its a simple fact, don't understand why anybody is disputing that. The keeper has impressed me though! Unfortunately we've got Drmic for 2.5 years and Ralf for 5 months.

Enjoyable game, Byram, Hernandez and Fahrmann are playing really well. Feel for Drmic, not an easy comeback game, great that he is getting into the positions

I sure do mate, those heady days of Scott and Newmario up front.. heres another one.. Ulf Ottosson! 😄

Thanks Bovril.

This site rarely lets me down, currently working https://live.soccerstream.me/burnley-vs-norwich-city-live/stream-1

😮🤣🤣🤣 👇 https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/brexit-information-events-eu-londoners/london-open-supporting-european-londoners-through-brexit?utm_source=email&utm_medium=mail-from-the-mayor&utm_campaign=LondonisOpenwintercampaign2019-20&utm_content=eventpagetoJan31CHevent 🤣

Sinani doesn't have to be part of the registered squad if he signs. The benefit of signing him now is that he gets used to his new surroundings and a step up in class before pre season training. It is possible that he will go straight out on loan somewhere

Idah off to the Championship in readiness for next season or league 1 ?

Straight after Charles Michel, the EU Council President, signed the Withdrawal Treaty early yesterday morning, he traveled to Albania to discuss EU-Albania relations and the future of the accession process... It's a real shame we're going to miss out on a lucrative trade deal with Albanian farmers.. 🙃

Well, you certainly don't and for the umpteenth time of posting the obvious, you utter dolt... We currently import about half of our food tariff-free from the EU, but have to charge the approximate 30% EU tariff on all the food we import from the rest of the world --- When we leave the EU we can have tariff-free imports from the rest of the world. If the EU wants to insist on charging approximate 30% tariffs on the tiny amount of food we sell to it, and on paying 30% tariffs on the enormous amount of food we buy from the EU, that will be their problem, not ours, especially as the world will be our tariff-free oyster. I'm pretty sure I initially posted the above correct information on page 12 of the deleted 'EU' thread... Which previous and already defunct argument are you going to attempt to make tomorrow? 💤

Thanks for sending the donation Dan. I've put it straight into our presentation pot. You're a star 🌟 Here are the latest totals...

Nutty will put you right. Hogesar will then back him all the way.

Here is another very long post - but do read it - as Brexit isn't done yet the pain is just about to begin.... Cool, so everything's sorted right? Brexit is getting done, everything's going back to normal and I never have to talk about trade again. Oh yeah, no sorry. That's all a lie. We are about to enter the most perilous system-level recalibration of an advanced economy in trading history. What. Yeah, all that nightmare of the last four years was the easy part. Now we have to figure out our future trading relationship with the EU. I saw Boris Johnson on the telly the other day. Really? That never happens anymore. No, it was crazy. He just popped up. It was like a Big Foot sighting. Anyway, he seemed to suggest it was all really easy. We'd get it done in a year and then be free to do whatever we want. Yeah, that's the official narrative. But the reality is very different. Are you suggesting that the government is making a sustained attempt to deceive the public in order to hide the fact that they have an impossible set of negotiating goals and no competence to deliver them? Yes, I know. It's hard to believe. I know what happens now. You start talking about fisheries and regulatory alignment and customs procedures and then I gradually lose the will to live and have to order extremely expensive whisky. That's right, that's how this works. So here's the thing. The government wants to get the Brexit deal negotiated, ratified and implemented in eleven months, before December 31st. They were entitled to an extension but have decided not to take it. That means the deal is going to have to be proper bare-bones - a completely stripped-down set of negotiating goals. Like what? Tariffs, basically. Nothing else. Just eliminate the tariffs. What are tariffs again? They're taxes on goods crossing borders. The thing is, most tariffs are already very low. Decades of worldwide tariff-reduction rounds have hammered them down in pretty much every area but agriculture. So it's a very modest bar to set. It also means that services - which are kind of key to our economy - are completely forgotten about. And it does nothing about the real problem areas of trade - alignment, customs checks and rules of origin. Yeah, that's it. That's where I switch off. I swear these words are like hypnotic suggestions to close down brain function. Bear with me, they're all pretty simple when you break them down. And the implications of them can smash local economies, which then has a massive political impact. Will people blame Brexit? The government? Or the EU? Remainers? Immigrants? The knock-on effect of these decisions will define our politics for years to come. Which is troubling, because it's not clear the government has any idea what it's doing. How so? Take the distinction between goods and services. Sounds simple right? Goods are things and services are, well, services - legal, financial, hairdressing, whatever. But actually that's a crude distinction that doesn't reflect the reality of how businesses work. Car companies, for instance, sell cars. But many of them also often offer the financing for the car, which allows the person buying it to pay in monthly installments. So in that capacity they're actually functioning as a mini-bank. And banking is… A service. Exactly. The same is true for loads of companies, like IBM, say, or Hewlett Packard. They sell things. But they also sell services. So even at this very basic level, going for a goods-only deal already has a massive knock-on effect on businesses. If they want to keep on selling the services in Europe, they have to internally restructure to get into the right regulatory regime. Sometimes that'll be big news - they'll close an office or factory. Sometimes it'll be a case of moving staff around or bulking up whatever office they have on the continent to get recognition there, and it'll slip under the radar. But the long-term danger is that all the high-knowledge, proper value-added activity goes to Europe. Grim. Yep. And things get uglier when you look at regulations. Yeah I heard about this. What are they exactly? Regulations are one of the key aspects of international trade. Countries have different regulatory regimes. So when they trade, people have to show that they are satisfying the requirements of the country the good ends up in. That entails a lot of time and paperwork. Until now, Britain has been part of Europe's regulations regime. Now it wants to completely detach itself. But we're so deeply ingrained in continental trading networks that we can't afford either time or paperwork. How come? Basically because of our reliance on a manufacturing system called Just-In-Time. Manufacturing depends on this to keep costs down. It means that you avoid holding a lot of stock. Instead, you get the parts you need, literally, just in time. And we are absolutely locked into this. So for instance BMW makes the engines for its Mini model at Hams Hall just outside Birmingham. But the engine blocks come from France to the UK, where they're drilled and processed, then go to Cologne in Germany for more engineering, then back to the UK for final assembly. GKN in Birmingham also makes the drive line for many cars - this is what transmits power from the engine to the wheels. But it uses components from Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Millions of components come across the Channel every day to arrive just as they're needed. Is this primarily a car thing? No, it goes across the board, in Britain's most successful manufacturing sectors. Take aviation. Nearly 80% of aerospace components manufactured in the UK are exported. And the important part there is in the word 'components'. That's what we do. We don't make the whole plane. As a country, we specialise in wings, landing gear, engines and avionic systems - the electrical equipment in the cockpit. All of that is regulated by the European Aviation Safety Authority (Easa). Everything you see on a plane in Europe, numbering over 5,000 different parts, has been vouched for by them, down to the little trolley serving you drinks when you ask for your fourth rum and Coke and the air steward starts to look at you suspiciously. Oh, and his training is overseen by them too, as is the pilot's, and that of the engineers. It's the godfather of aviation regulation. That's right. The industry is clear: it needs to hold Easa tight. And not just Easa. It also wants a close relationship with Reach - Europe's chemical safety regulation system - because they use those chemicals in the manufacturing process. There is zero reason to deviate from this regulatory framework. There are literally no upsides. The UK is not going to start setting international standards for aviation on its own. The trend in the global industry is towards alignment, because everyone wants the same things - a safe product, with fuel efficiency, which is clean and quiet and cheap to run, and which can be traded in a complex supply chain with a minimum of friction. Can you stay in Easa from outside the EU though? Sure. It's an EU body, but it has various agreements with non-EU countries. Or you can just align and basically mimic whatever it does. And why not? The industry will make products to those specifications anyway, simply to trade them easily. So surely that's what we'd do. It sounds insane to do anything else. Yes it would be insane, wouldn't it? But apparently that's what's going to happen. You're not serious. Who knows. Theresa May's administration had pretty much decided to stay in the system. The political declaration for the future relationship she signed with the EU said the UK would "explore the possibility of cooperation" with Easa and then added: "In this context, the United Kingdom will consider aligning with Union rules in relevant areas." But then things got a bit weird. Johnson updated the political declaration when he got his deal and he made some small but quite striking changes. Like? Well the line on 'exploring possibilities' stayed, but the following sentence, on alignment, was deleted. That raised a lot of alarm. And then the chancellor, Sajid Javid, told the Financial Times this weekend that "there will not be alignment, we will not be a ruletaker". So right now, if we're to take the government's word for it, no - we're going to pull away, for no reason at all, and at enormous cost. Or they could be lying to sound tough and Brexity. Or they could think it's a negotiating gambit with the EU. Who knows? OK. So you've now been talking about regulations for what feels like several days. Is that it? No I'm afraid not. The government also wants out of the customs union. That means it's also a customs problem. Manufacturers will have to fill out two sets of forms - one for regulations, one for customs. In the case of agriculture, they'll also have to satisfy health checks - these are called sanitary and phytosanitary measures. And that takes place on or near the border. Please tell me this section is over. Hell, please tell me it's all over and the final days are upon us. Anything to escape this relentless carnival of doom. The worst bit is yet to come, I'm afraid. It's called rules of origin and it is horrible. It's a kind of bureaucracy that kicks in when you have a trade agreement. How does that make sense? Surely trade agreements are supposed to reduce bureaucracy. Yep, but they need an insurance policy. So imagine the UK and EU do a trade agreement eliminating tariffs. And then the UK does a separate agreement with the US eliminating tariffs. Sounds ideal. Quite. But the EU and US don't have a trade deal eliminating tariffs. So now there is an incentive for the US to ship goods to the UK for entry into the EU as a way of sidestepping the taxes on their exports to Europe, but without having to make any of the concessions a trade deal would involve. Rules of origin checks are how you get around that problem. How do they work? The purpose of the rules is to find out where something was made. But the way of doing that changes depending on what kind of good it is. There's different rules in different sectors. Sometimes they measure a country's economic contribution to the product, such as its capital or the labour or intellectual input. There's also different grades of change in the product. You often have to show that the product has transformed from one customs category to another in a substantial way. Did something terrible happen to you when you were a child? Hey I didn't make the rules. But they do make sense. And this, arguably more than regulations or customs, is going to be one of the defining issues impacting on Britain in the years to come. Actually, it's already happening. How so? The EU and South Africa, for instance, have a deal on rules of origin allowing components from the other side to count towards the 'local content' tally. But when the UK leaves, its components will automatically be excluded from the total. So last July BMW redirected engine production from the UK to Germany for South African production. That could be the start of a trend. How big a problem is this? Very big. British car production leans heavily on parts and processes in the EU and Turkey. If those are excluded from the calculations, they wouldn't satisfy the rules of origin requirements. And even working it out is a nightmare - a horrible tangled web of multiple supply chains, with their own separate supply chains for component parts, and then multiple layers of subcontractors and goods going back and forth. And it's not just goods like cars and planes either. The same goes for food. Chickens reared in the UK often go off to the Netherlands for slaughter then come back and are turned into ready meals. So how much work went into the chicken to make it British? And what happens when it's put on a frozen supermarket pizza? Civilised people don't put chicken on pizza. That's where you're wrong. Chicken is a perfectly respectable pizza topping. But even if the chicken is British, what about the dough, the tomato sauce and all the other stuff? It's a nightmare. Just working this stuff out will put a massive new burden on British producers, who never had to do any of it before. And that assumes they can even pass the test and get the product to a level where it has enough domestic components to satisfy the rules. Is there any way out of this? In terms of the faff of it, no. But there is a way to make the test easier to pass. We need the rules of origin to have something called a cumulation provision.That means some inputs from outside the UK count towards domestic content. There are two main ways to do that: bilateral or diagonal. Bilateral would mean stuff done in the EU and UK would count. Diagonal includes the UK and EU and extends it to other countries who have trade deals with both of us. That would fix the South Africa problem BMW had. But even there they have different levels. We would want something called 'full cumulation', meaning that no matter how small the work done in different countries, it counts. So it's a no-brainer, right? You go for full cumulation diagonal rules of origin. Oh and look at that. You have made the most unspeakable words come out of my mouth. Yep, you totally would. But that's in the EU's gift. It gives them significant leverage over us. And honestly, listening to the weirdly bullying rhetoric coming from the UK government, it's not clear Downing Street realises that. Election went to their head. There's a lot that's gone to their head. OK so I think I get this. It's ultimately pretty simple right? The Brits want the Brexit talks done in one year so they've reduced their negotiating goal to tariff elimination and that is going to hurt us. Not all of us equally. Small firms will be hit harder than large firms and poorer areas will be hit harder than richer areas. But of course, because the reality of the world is inversely proportional to any sense of moral justice. Pretty much. Small firms selling less than £250,000 of merchandise to the EU, of which there are tens of thousands, will be forced into filling out all sorts of forms they've never had any contact with before. That'll be a much bigger burden on them than it will the big firms selling over that amount, or who already trade with the rest of the world. And the cost of adopting the new system might outweigh the benefit of exporting the goods in the first place. Why does this mostly affect poorer areas? Well there's a cruel irony to the effects of a hard Brexit: It won't really hurt Remain-voting areas but it's likely to seriously damage Brexit-supporting areas. This is insane. Yes, it is. The kinds of industries which could get really pummelled - automobile, aerospace and that - are mainly based in the Midlands and the North. Remain-voting London, on the other hand, is less exposed to European markets. It's economy is already hyper-globalised, arguably more so than any other city in the world. Decision-makers in the capital are often on the phone to Namibia, Honduras or Belize. But the decision-makers in Hull are more likely to be on the phone to Denmark and Germany. Gotcha. There's another problem too. Oh cool, another one, yeah why not. Tariffs aren't the only ask. Britain has also got a negotiating goal on fishing. Fishing? Really? Surely that's a tiny dot in the economy. And given that they've given up services you wouldn't expect them to get too het up about it. True. But it matters to the communities who do it and it has a political importance that far exceeds its economic impact. Britain also has a watertight legal case for its demand. Basically, sovereign coastal states have a 200 mile limit out to sea in which they can fish, under the UN Law of the Sea Convention. Cool name for an international convention. Isn't it. The whole thing is very Aquaman. I always preferred Namor. Everyone sensible does. He has those little wings on his ankles which let him fly. That is so preposterous and wonderful at the same time. Imagine what it looks like to see him fly with the little wing thingies on his ankles. You were talking about fisheries policy. Ah yes. So the British position is simple. We are now going to be a sovereign coastal state. We want our 200 mile limit. We'll decide what goes on there. The EU position is very different. It wants everything to stay the same as it is right now. And what is the status quo for fishing exactly? Basically anything outside of 12 miles from a member state is a common area. The stocks of individual fish species are then divided up between countries in set quotas to prevent overfishing. So Britain might have a 15% share of a particular stock, for instance. Those quotas are set. They do not change. But each year scientists provide advice on the total allowable catch. If it was 100,000 tonnes, Britain would get 15,000 tonnes that year. And that's how they divide up the stock. So they want that to stick. Yeah. But Britain, on the other hand, will probably want something like what Norway has. Each year, in the autumn, Norway gets together with the Europeans and sorts out some annual fish arrangements. It's fraught and tense, but it has a lot of power in the talks. They haggle over how much of a quota it gets on certain stocks. And unlike in the EU, that quota can change. Sometimes, if no agreement can be reached, Norway just says you can't fish in their waters at all. Britain would love to operate just like that. Why can't it? You said the law is on the UK side. It is, but the leverage isn't. Recurring theme. Quite. We can take control of our waters and block anyone fishing within 200 miles of them if we want, but there's a problem: we don't eat our own fish. Eighty per cent of what we catch goes to the EU. The fish we actually eat - good old British fish and chips - mostly comes from Norway and Iceland. OK, but so what? So the European threat is simple. If we don't do what they want they'll put tariffs on fish. That would absolutely hammer our fishing industry. The tariffs are high in this area and it would apply on almost everything it sells. OK so what about some sort of compromise? Maybe the UK could stay in the EU system but they agree to rejig the quotas a bit to placate us. Tempting, but the trouble is that would involve opening up the whole quota debate across the EU again. It would be like opening Pandora's Fish Box. They won't do that. So we're faced with two sides with really quite distant goals in a highly emotional area of trade. Yep. Which is why it's instructive to look at how they plan to talk about this. Britain wants to talk about fish separately to everything else. But the Europeans aren't having any of that. They want to bring the issue into the general trade discussion. And that'll be the attitude throughout - the British trying to silo off individual topics so they can't be used as leverage against each other and the Europeans making it more comprehensive. What is it the Europeans actually want? I thought you'd never ask. It's quite simple. They don't want Britain to undercut them. And that's not just about price - it's about regulations, subsidies and taxes. What do you mean? Well take Ireland. It basically functions as a kind of tax haven. This distorts the market and leads a bunch of major international companies to set up base there, where they pay hardly any tax. Countries like France hate that. Now, they might not be able to fully control tax policy, but they will want to make damn sure the same thing doesn't happen with Britain. This is the Singapore of Europe thing, right? Right. Britain will be experiencing two things simultaneously after the end of the transition period. First, a degree of damage to its trading status, the exact extent of which depends on how the trade talks go. And second, some freedom it did not have before. So where does that lead you? Well you're still a big country which can encourage companies to set up with you because of your infrastructure, language, culture and all that. So why not slash corporate taxes to the bone, lower regulations and subsidise business? Make yourself as low standard and attractive as possible. The Europeans want firm commitments to stop this happening. How do you know? When the new European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen came to London recently her priorities were clear: "Zero tariffs, zero quotas, zero dumping." That's an interesting set of priorities. Used in this context, 'zero dumping' sounds like code for UK firms undercutting European ones. Like how? Well environmental regulations for one. The EU is about to bring in a massive new green initiative, including carbon tax and carbon VAT tax. It doesn't want that undermined by Britain basically exporting lots of dirty carbon to the EU. Same with what's called 'social dumping' - unfair labour practices like easy firing laws. And the same with subsidies - throwing cash at an industry so it can outperform its competitors overseas. This is disciplined at the WTO, but China does very well operating in the grey area of the rules. Britain could try and do the same. This is really their main priority? Pretty much. Britain isn't their biggest concern globally - the US and China are - but it is a big meaty economy, which can heavily undercut them, right on their doorstep. Lowering environmental or labour or subsidy standards would allow this, and might tempt firms over from the rest of the world to invest in the UK rather than the EU - or, hell, even get firms in the EU to move. Taken together, this is called the 'level playing field' debate. And it is central to the European negotiating aim. So this is where one of the main battles will be? Yep. And it has a knock-on effect on the timetable. Johnson is desperate to get this all done in eleven months. But the level playing field issue has a procedural impact which could make that impossible. How so? It's because of how the EU works. It's split up into different competencies. Some things member states have pretty much to themselves, like criminal justice. Some things are mixed competencies, like the environment. And some things are exclusive competencies of the EU, like trade. If the talks with the UK were completely focused on trade, the European Commission could insist that it has exclusive competence. That would be great news for the UK. It would mean that only the Council, where national leaders meet, and the parliament, where MEPs vote, needed to sign off on the deal. But if the deal expands to include things like the environment - and the level playing field issue does exactly that - then it becomes a mixed agreement. And that means you need each and every member state to ratify it according to their domestic political arrangements. Christ alive. So every national parliament would need to OK it? Yeah and not just them. In some cases, their constitutional arrangements mean even regional parliaments, like the one in Wallonia in Belgium, would also need to ratify. When Canada did a trade deal with the EU, Wallonia actually refused and for a brief moment it looked like the whole thing would fall down. Damn. And actually it goes further than that. A non-mixed agreement would be decided by a qualified vote in the Council. That's important, because it means you don't have to keep them all on board - just most of them. But if it has to be decided by every individual state, you need something for everyone in there, and nothing too terrible for anyone either. The whole thing becomes a lot more complicated and harder to negotiate. Can the UK prevent this? It's unlikely. Nearly everyone believes this is a mixed agreement. Member states want to maintain EU unity, but they all have different interests with the UK. They'll want to be able to have an impact on negotiations. So that it then? There's no way Johnson can get his deal ratified in time? Yes and no. There is still a get-out clause. The UK and EU can take the trade aspects and provisionally apply them in areas where the EU has exclusive competence. Then the deal goes out for ratification to national parliaments, for however long that takes. And then when they've agreed, it's all put back together and gets properly ratified. There's a bit of wriggle room, basically. OK. The trouble is what happens if a member state says no. That happens. The Netherlands rejected the EU's association agreement with Ukraine after a referendum. Greece decided it wanted protection for Ouzo in the South African talks. And if that happens, you have to reopen the agreement and work it all through again to try and find a compromise. Basically, you are sucked into the domestic and regional politics of 27 other member states. And there's no predicting which way that will go. God. Yeah. And then there's the thing we haven't mentioned, which is an absolute monster of administrative confusion and grim political consequences. I can't believe this isn't over yet and you are still talking. Have I died and gone to the Bad Place? We're all in the Bad Place. You must surely know that now. Yeah, good point. OK, hit me. Northern Ireland. Christ, I'd forgotten about that. So has the British government. This week, the Stormont Assembly voted unanimously - all parties and not a single vote against - to withhold consent from Johnson's Brexit deal. But even without their consent, it is going to be imposed on them. And it is an absolute godawful mess. Why? The deal Johnson did with the EU on Northern Ireland says that it stays in the UK customs territory but follows EU customs rules. It's not clear that he understood the implications of this. It means that a British trader selling into Northern Ireland would need to prove the goods are going to stay there, or pay the EU tariff. Doesn't sound so bad. But think about how weird it is. All around the world, goods arriving at a customs border are asked questions about the past - what is it, where was it made, how was it made? But now they are going to be asked questions about their future - where will it end up? And that is fundamentally unknowable. How do you prove it stayed in Northern Ireland? Let's say it's by a receipt on sale. How do you prove that the person you sold it to isn't then selling it into the EU? And this isn't just for final goods. It's also for goods for processing. So you need to know about the supply chain of the people you sell to as well. I see the problem. We don't even really have much data to prepare us for this because we don't track British trade to Northern Ireland, for the simple reason that it was always treated as domestic. The kind of information you'd usually have to prepare for a free trade agreement simply doesn't exist. This is horrible. It gets much worse. How is Northern Ireland supposed to prepare for this? If the British government succeeds in securing zero tariffs across the board, then life gets marginally easier, although you'd still need to deal with regulatory checks. But if it doesn't, we won't know what the outstanding tariffs will be until close to the deadline. And the Northern Irish system needs to be up and running at the end of transition on December 31st, with all the infrastructure and monitoring that entails. Put simply: It can't be done. What's Johnson's plan? He doesn't have one, or at least he hasn't revealed it. Probably the former. He still insist trade will be frictionless, even though this simply cannot be true by virtue of the deal he himself signed. The government also insists that "largely electronic" processes - the high-tech-solutions band back together again for a reunion tour - will solve everything. And then, even if everything works out in the best possible way and all the highest aspirations of the high-tech solutions come to pass, there is still a ghastly problem we have to face. Alright, I'm strapped in. What is it? Rules of origin. No, come on. Not again man. Don't do this to me. We've done that. Yeah, but it applies here too. The Northern Ireland arrangement is permanent. It stays in place even if the UK and EU have a trade agreement. And that means it has to function as if it's in the EU customs union. And that means… Rules of origin between Britain and Northern Ireland. Exactly. Those laborious, nightmarish requirements, carved right into UK territory. Do they have to do these checks at the border? No. You can do it away from the border. But the impact on businesses will be huge. Exporters from Britain, who are used to sending things to Northern Ireland as if it were the same country, will suddenly face the full bureaucratic horror show of rules of origin. They will need to decide if they want to go to all the work of figuring out where all their inputs come from, and where their suppliers source their inputs, and where their supplier's suppliers source their inputs. Or whether it is cheaper to simply stop exporting to Northern Ireland. Which many of them are very likely to do. What's the political consequence of this? It shows that Johnson's promise of frictionless trade between Britain and Northern Ireland is an outright lie. In fact, his deal creates a permanent border within the UK. It will never go away. It is set in stone. And the worst part, the really immoral part, is that this is happening without the consent of the people it is being imposed on. How that plays out, against the background of Irish politics and the prospect of sudden infrastructure and monitoring arrangements, and impossible timetables, is anyone's guess. But one thing is clear: No responsible person would have done this. OK. Please tell me this is over now. Yes. But also, it's only just beginning. Just on the off chance that I fell asleep through any of that, can you give me a quick executive summary. Sure. Johnson has set himself an arbitrary one-year deadline for a trade talk with the EU. The consequence of this is that the deal is bare bones, excluding services or - probably, if they're not lying - alignment on goods. Unless he changes course, this will be highly damaging to UK industry, especially those parts based in the Midlands and the North. He also wants control of fisheries. The EU want fisheries to stay as they were and a set of level playing field provisions to stop the UK undercutting them in future. They will try to secure these outcomes by keeping all the issues in play at the same time, so they can leverage them against each other. Whatever happens, the UK must deal with rules of origin requirements, which are extremely painful and will have potentially ruinous results between Britain and Northern Ireland. Can you make it shorter than that? The government either does not know what it is doing or is not prepared to reveal what it is doing. We are heading towards a truly disastrous set of outcomes unless that changes. Go on, have a pick at that then....

It looks incredibly unlikely and would be one of the survival runs in Premier League history, so let's be honest about that. It's not impossible though. The problem is even our good performances aren't quite good enough to get the results we need. But i'm happy with how we're playing, I enjoy watching us, I like this squad and I like our manager. So i'll have a bit of hope till the end and if not i'll look forward to next season.