Manifesto!

Off You Go - Good Riddance

So – as a follow on from an idea I floated in the last blog.  Here’s the League 1 Minus 10 manifesto for English football.   I thought about this for a whole 15 minutes.

For the Many (I stole that bit)

1        The European Super League

The Creation of European Super League – the top 6 can take their toys and go and play in that amongst themselves with all the other ridiculous clubs in Europe.  Someone else can sort out the logistics of that because I don’t care.  All I care about is that less dubious character money orientated players will be left in the English League and less plastics fans to ruin my matchday experience.  All the big money will be in the European League so all the parasites will swarm towards that.  Sky Sports will of course throw all their money at that and with Sky Sports going, all the Liverpool pundits can go with them.  Jeff Stelling and Matt le Tissier are of course given a free transfer to either BBC or ITV.  See English League TV Deal Section.

2        The English League

The English League will consist of 4 divisions as it does now. 

These will be named Division 1, Division 2, Division 3 and Division 4.  Terms like ‘Premier’, ‘Super’ will not be used, nor anything that even closely comes into territory of branding.

The current Championship Trophy will take its rightful place back as the Division 1 trophy.  Traditional.

These four divisions will contain 92 clubs so we have the same number of clubs as we do now and it makes it more difficult for the European Super Clubs to come back.  They won’t want to anyway, until they realise it’s all very boring travelling all over Europe, by which time it will be too late.

2.1       Promotion and Relegation

The Winners of Division 1 will be promoted to the European Super League should they wish to go. 

If they go, the bottom placed English side comes into Division 1 and have to adapt to the rules.  This will probably mean selling a lot of their players to the remaining European Super League clubs.  When they don’t want to sell their players, they will have to deal with players strikes and concerted media campaigns.

Four up, four down between the English divisions.  The playoffs are not all evil as it does keep more teams involved until the end of the season but the basic sporting unfairness of a team finishing 6^th getting promoted over a team who has finished 20 points ahead of them totally outweighs this.

2.2       Players & Transfers

There will be a quota of 9 England qualified players in every match day 18.  This should be easier to implement post-Brexit if it ever happens.  The current ‘homegrown’ criteria is plainly ridiculous when we have Spanish internationals with 50 caps counting as homegrown and similar for a French international who has been signed from an Italian club for £90 million.  Once a player plays a competitive match for another country, then they’re not England qualified any more.  Other British countries are a bit of a grey area here.

There will be a salary cap per division.  You get relegated, your money drops if you are over the cap for the division below.  No exceptions.

Agents fees will be capped at a fixed fee, as will the players signing on fee.  This will be paid by the player out of their signing on fee, not by the buying club.  This should get rid of the more ridiculous agents who are left if they haven’t all defected to the European Super League.

2.3       Loan System

Loan system to change. 

No loans to clubs in the same division as you.  It’s plainly ridiculous when you think about fairness of competition.

Loans only allowed for Under 21 players to a lower division. 

Maximum of two loans per squad.  Loan players cannot play in Cup competitions.

No loans of players from abroad.

2.4       Administration

The English Football League, FA Cup and League Cup will be administered by The Football League.

The Premier League can look after the interests of the 6 clubs in the European Super League, like they do now. 

The Football Association can run the England national side but the best solution would be if the FA and the Football league merge to form one governing body.

2.5       Domestic Cup Competitions

2.5.1       The League Cup

The League Cup will be played between the 92.  The European Super League Clubs don’t want to play in this anyway.

All rounds from 1^st to Semi-Final to be played midweek.

The League Cup Semi-Finals will be played over 2 legas as they are now.  This makes it different to the FA Cup.

The League Cup Final will be played at Wembley on a Sunday, 3pm kick off in March

2.5.2       The FA Cup

The FA Cup will extend invitations to enter to the English European Super League English clubs.  They have to abide by the 9 English qualified players in the match day 18 rule.  If they don’t want to enter, they won’t get invited again for another 3 years.

All rounds to be played on weekends.  No replays.

The FA Cup Semi-Finals will be not be played at Wembley but at the biggest English League grounds available for clubs not involved based on geography of the semi-finalists.

The FA Cup Final will be played at 3pm on the last Saturday of the season.  No other games will be played that day.  There is absolutely no need to play this game after 5pm because fans can’t get home afterwards.

2.5.3       The Football League Trophy

The FL Trophy will be played between clubs in Division 3 and 4.  The European Super League and Division 1 and 2 clubs will not be allowed to enter their Under 9’s or whatever stupid rule is in place now.

2.6       TV Deal

The TV deal for the league will be from Free-to-Air channels – BBC, ITV, Dave etc.  This keeps the money down which is a good thing.  No pay TV channels will be allowed to bid.  Any live games will only be screened on terrestrial free-to-air TV.

Jeff Stelling and Matt le Tissier to transfer from Sky as presenters.

2.7       Kick Off Times

Kick off times will be Saturday 3pm.  One game a week on Sunday 5pm for TV. 

Any Tuesday/Wednesday 7.45 pm games can be screened also.

No games will be moved because they clash with European Super League games.

2.8       Fixtures

Midweek / Sunday evening League games will not involve long distance travelling.  75 miles maximum.  Same applies for games on Bank Holidays.  It really shouldn’t be that hard to schedule it.

2.9       Fans Costs

There will be a maximum Season Ticket price per division.  Maybe £500, £400, £300, £200.  Kids under 16 should be £5 a game maximum.

Maximum charge for an away game is £20, £15, £10, £5

Kits will be worn for two seasons – two kits per team.  No colours can appear on both kits.

2.10    Ground Rules

Selfie Sticks are banned

Any device bigger than a mobile phone is banned

Anyone taking part in a Mexican Wave will be evicted

Anyone buying or selling or wearing a half and half scarf within a mile of any football ground will be issued with a life ban.

3        Conclusion

None of this will ever happen.  

Sadly, we’re too far down the road and no one will be interested in going back to anything remotely resembling pre-1992 football.  There’s too much self interest and too much money involved.  Would any owners of Premier League clubs vote for anything like this – of course they wouldn’t because of the loss of income from not being in a league with the big boys.  So, it’s not going to happen but I bet there are many out there who can remember pre-1992 who would gladly back a version of the proposals laid out above – even if some of them are far fetched and not fully thought out. (at all).  

If anyone wants to make any suggestions / improvements then I’m all ears.

They say nostalgia makes you think things in the past were better than they were and sure, there are some things now that are better now – pitches, stadiums, training grounds etc but something has been lost – soul.

Pre-Season Part 4 - The Shithouse Gene: Van Dijk vs Lallana vs Lovren

"You Taught Me Well Oh Master, but now, I am the Bigger Shithouse. Just Watch"

As a fan it’s tempting to only see things from your own club’s point of view but every so often you need to think about things as a whole.  Being a Southampton fan, we’ve seen all of the top 3 divisions in the last few seasons and I can categorically say that the season we spent in the Championship was the season I enjoyed most since Markus Liebherr bought the club.  If you do well in it, then the Championship is excellent.   You do however, have to be doing well because unless you’re a masochist, doing badly is not fun.  The Championship when we got relegated in 2005 was not a good time because we were dreadful – but the league as a whole was great.  Less prima-Donna players, less diving, shit referees who were genuinely just shit instead of big club dodgy, kids getting thrown into the first XI because teams couldn’t afford to carry a massive squad of experienced pros.  Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday – not Monday, Thursday, Sunday 12 noon, Wednesday, nothing for two weeks, Sunday at 4pm because your opponent was in Europe on Thursday.

This brings me on to the Premier League and the problem with it.  There are many problems and here’s just one of them – Shithouses.  In our promotion season in the Championship, Saints had players like Billy Sharp, Dean Hammond, Richard Chaplow, Jos Hooiveld, Danny Fox, Fraser Richardson, Kelvin Davis – players who were not infested with the ‘Shithouse’ gene.  They would still be at Saints today if we hadn’t gone up and ruined it all for them.  Great characters, solid characters, decent blokes and above all, not Shithouses.   Even in some of the other players like Adam Lallana and Jose Fonte, the Shithouse gene had not risen to the surface and taken over but it was laying dormant beneath the surface.  It was only activated by Premier League, international honours and 'super' agents or as most fans prefer to call them, cunts.  These agents however, play on the power of the dormant Shithouse gene and convinced their clients that they would be best served by shitting on everyone who had helped them so far and the big clubs would throw loads of money around in their direction.  Is it good for your career?  Who bastard well cares, think about the money, money, money...

The Premier League is horrible – it needn’t be but it is.  It’s just about the Big Clubs and money, that’s it.  Not a big revelation there but it’s gone to shit.  If for some reason, one of the big clubs had a horrific season and were in danger of relegation, I’m sure that Brand Premier League would kick in and decide not to relegate anyone that year or at least instruct the referees to ‘sort out’ some of the games.  No danger of any of that coming to pass though because of the money that the big boys can afford to hawk around compared to the others.  I used to kick off whenever the possibility of a European Super League was mentioned because of the effect it would have on the English game but right now I’d love it and in time we’d have English football that somewhat resembled the pre-1992, pre-Sky competition that I grew up with.  Yes, we still had the elite and the also-rans but it was much more even.

So, the Big 6 can all fuck off as far as I’m concerned and Sky can pour all their money into that and the top division of English football can get back to a more sustainable, shithouse free environment.  The European Super League would soon get very very boring for those involved but domestic football in time, would be a much better experience for the fans.  The hardcore don’t care who their own team is playing and I for one, would not care in the slightest if we didn’t play the big clubs every year.  Replace Chelsea, Spurs, City, Liverpool, Arsenal and United with Reading, Sheffield Wednesday, Fulham, Leeds, Norwich and Derby from the top end of last season’s Championship.

The game as it stands has gone fucking mad.  Look at some of the transfer fees this summer – Bournemouth have paid £20 for a Chelsea reserve who has played about 20 Premier League games.  He looks decent but on 20 games, is he worth it?  No he’s not.  I see £50 million for Kyle Walker, a Forrest Gump full back who cannot defend or cross the ball, I see £50 million (possibly) for Gylfi Sigurdsson, a 28 year old ‘good’ player who has already failed once at a big club.  ‘Good’ not ‘outstanding ‘.  Some could argue that Southampton have played their part in that with the players we’ve sold in the past something has happened recently.  Last summer we sold Sadio Mané for £32 million, this summer it would be £60 million plus. 

From a perspective of Southampton buying players – it’s simple.  We will not be spending more than £20 million on anyone so that rules out virtually everyone in the Premier League, certainly anyone in the top half.  Mamadou Sakho, a player Liverpool do not want is valued by them at £30 million and his wages are over £100k a week.   That’s the other thing – once a player has been at a big club, especially if he’s been transferred to it, the wages are obscene so that rules us out as well. 

The ‘something’ that has happened recently is the TV deal with Sky.  I can’t be bothered to look up the amount but it’s obscene.  It means that income through the turnstiles now makes up a miniscule percentage of a Premier League club’s turnover which begs the question – Why are ticket prices still so fucking expensive?  Anything over £500 a season is expensive to most people so why not cut it right down – halve it.  It makes little difference so cut it down, fill the grounds, expand the grounds, grow the fanbase etc.

So, Fuck the Premier League.  It’s just about the money, money, money and fuck all about fair play and an even competition.  If there was any virtue in it, Liverpool would the sitting there, gnashing their teeth over a transfer ban.

Meanwhile, back in Southampton…

The first pre-season friendly was a virtual training game in Switzerland against St.Gallen which ended 0-0 with not a lot of incident aside from Gabbiadini looking sharp.  Virgil didn’t play but I think most accepted the excuse that he hadn’t resumed full contact work yet.  The man himself then muddied the waters in the way that players do these days with a cryptic social media bout about ‘great to be fully fit’ which directly contradicted what the club had just said.  Hmmm, accidental or shithousery going on?

On we went to Brentford and a game which was having all proceeds donated to the Grenfell Tower fund.  Again there was a statement regarding Virgil but this time the gloves were off – he was refusing to play as not psychologically ready and he wants to move.  Here we go up a notch.  Virgil is taking it to new levels of pathetic spoilt-brat behaviour and he won’t care.  He’s under some sort of spell, cast by a combination of his agents, Liverpool FC, Jurgen Klopp and the media.  He’s incapable of resisting, his head has been turned and even though Liverpool have officially bailed out and left him to it, he can’t resist and will do all their dirty work for them.  Whilst many a person in all walks of life has been influenced to do bad things by unscrupulous third parties – at the end of the day, the path you take is down to yourself.  Liverpool seem bomb-proof from any criticism from anyone that matters so Virgil is willing the take the fall and shit all over the club that pays him incredibly well, made him captain and got him fit again and of course, take a massive dump over the fans.  Fans – players like Virgil just think we’re shit on their shoe.  They don’t care, they just get new shoes and throw the shitty ones away.

Mauricio Pellegrino passed his first test with flying colours showing calm authority.  The boy (as in ‘stupid little boy’) will be training on his own and we only want players who are 100% committed to the cause.  Whilst this turn of events was entirely predictable, it’s still a kick in the nuts as Virgil plummets down in everyone’s estimation.  To put this into context – the players who handled their moves away from Saints the worst in recent memory are Lovren and Lallana – both to Liverpool which is a massive coincidence I’m sure.  Lallana refused to play (he disputes this of course) and Lovren said his head was already in Liverpool.  Lovren as far as I know, never refused to train and he was never the captain and he’d only been here a year so actually, in context, Lovren wasn’t that bad and we only give him the most stick because he’s crap and because his missus felt the need for her head to be elsewhere as well.  Lallana was as bad as Virgil as he was our captain but even he wasn’t banished to training on his own.  So – Virgil’s behaviour is pretty fucking appalling and in all likelihood, the worst of the lot.

So - the Shithouse of Recent Times award goes to: Virgil van Dijk.

Where this leaves us is interesting.  I still think we’re miles away from him going to his and his agents only preferred destination of Liverpool.  It will be a massive climb down from the board if he goes there having reported them to the Premier League and the fans won’t forgive that unless there’s such a massive deal that it’s a no brainer – I’m talking something like £80 million up front + Sakho + Liverpool pay Sakho’s wages for 2 years + they pay the 10% to Celtic.  Liverpool will also be shit scared to trying to make an approach for a player that they have been forced into saying they are ‘no longer interested in’.  I was going to say ‘resurrecting their bid’ as opposed to ‘make an approach’ but there’s nothing to resurrect as they haven’t actually done anything yet officially.  No bid, no official approach, no anything aside from tapping up behind the scenes and ex-players in the media.  Graeme Souness was the latest to chip in and Steve Nicol had his say again.  He’d probably forgotten he’d already commented. 

The media went into a frenzy of course and I heard Alex Crock on Talkshite.  I don’t see much of what Alex Crock writes as he’s blocked me on Twitter but he said one interesting thing that in his opinion – Virgil wasn’t on strike.  I realise that this is a legal definition but surely a player who is refusing to play matches when fully fit is on strike and we should therefore be perfectly entitled to not pay the twat for being in breach of contract.  It would be interesting to know what the PFA think of this, bearing in mind they are very quick to comment when clubs are hard on players.

Wanker Klopp has been asked a couple of times about it but no one has had the guts to ask him to confirm that he personally met Virgil at some point.  Meanwhile, Barcelona have put a bid in for Coutinho and Klopp has been very ‘not for sale and the matter is closed’ about it all.  I believe we said that as well Jurgen.  So, it appears that no means no but no sometimes means yes.  Dangerous values for a bloke to have unless of course, you are a shit, arrogant, hypocritical bloke or a sex offender.

Of course, what I’d love is for Liverpool to put in a bid (this will no doubt be about £30 million), Les Reed to go full mental and slap in the Tapping Up Dossier to the Premier League and force them to sort it out.   This dossier would contain pictures of Jurgen Klopp in compromising photgraphs with Adam Lallana and a tub of Nivea.  Even if faced with 100% solid gold evidence of rule breaking, the Premier League would do absolutely sweet fuck all.

The Brentford game saw a debut for Jan Bednarek and he looked a bit shaky as we conceded an early goal.  After half time, Charlie Austin showed that summer allegations of cheating (at Monopoly) had not dulled his goalscoring edge and he scored twice, once from a hilarious mistake in the defence where one Brentford defender wellied another one instead of the ball and once when he connected sweetly with a left footed strike from McQueen’s pull back.  There was still time to snatch a draw as Fraser, complete with new 5 year contract in his pocket, dropped a routine cross into his own net in ‘Under 8 player who has been pressganged into going in goal fashion’.  Not good but never mind.  I will repeat again, if Virgil leaves then we absolutely have to get a physically dominant centre half to partner either Jack or Maya and of course, we need a new captain – now.  It will make absolutely no difference to Virgil and his decision to stay or not.  He doesn’t give a shit about us so why not do it now.  I don’t think he can carry off the “they stripped me of the captaincy so I want to leave” angle.  He'd probably fucking try it though.

Next, the squad are off to France for a training camp and to play a friendly against St.Etienne.  Virgil is not with them but he has been spotted in Paris, at Euro Disney.  Perhaps he’s signing for Pompey with their new owner and all that and the Disney connection. 

I'm off for a lie down in a dark room.

Pre-Season Part 3 - Corruption, Bullshit and New Signings

The FA Not Investigating Liverpool.  I Wonder Why

There has been nothing but silence from the Premier League since Liverpool’s grovelling apology over their pursuit of Virgil van Dijk.  Then the most respected and well placed Saints man in the media, Jeremy Wilson, wrote that because Saints had not offered any more evidence and accepted the apology, the Premier League deemed the matter closed and no action would be taken against Liverpool.  The article didn’t really provide any new information in the form of quotes so we can only hope it’s not true and Liverpool get the transfer ban that they deserve. 

It would not be remotely surprising though if it was true and Liverpool were let off for breaking every rule in the book regarding transfers.  History will probably be re-written and the whole episode will be remembered as being Saints fault somehow.  The justification for this will be the time honoured ‘everybody does it’ approach and Liverpool will play the victim – they’re good at that after all.  There still has been no word from Klopp which is surprising considering the main stream sports media all gather for a group wank whenever there’s any reason to get Klopp’s face on the TV.  However, they can’t possibly ask him any difficult questions.

So the moral of the story is – break as many rules as you like, as many times as you like and if you get caught, apologise and you’ll be allowed to get away with and repeat time and time again.  I hope that we try the apology approach if we give a penalty away next season and then the referees will let us off and give us a free kick instead.

Meanwhile, there has been no word from Virgil, just rumours of a move to Chelsea though I guess this may change soon with players back in for training.  Two players who I guess won’t be back straight away are JWP and Nathan Redmond who played prominent roles for England U21’s in their run to the semi-finals of the European Championships where we predictably lost to Germany on penalties in the semi-final.  JWP was class throughout the tournament and put his penalty in the top bin.  Nathan was decent in the group games but unfortunately was the fall guy, missing the vital penalty.  He’d missed it in the walk-up where he looked absolutely terrified.  Jack Stephens and Matt Targett didn’t make it onto the pitch in the whole tournament which was tough on Targett in particular who had to watch the abysmally bad Ben Chilwell of Leicester play in his position. 

Jan Gets Sent Off.... Straight to Southampton

Last seen getting sent off against England was Jan Bednarek of Poland and he’s since joined us for a fee of about £5million from Legia Warsaw.  He looked raw as you like in the games I saw so I feel that this is one or the future and is a bit of a no lose gamble.  He does however look like Toby Alderweireld’s long lost brother so if he plays anything like our ex-loanee then brilliant.  I imagine though that he’ll be 4^th choice behind Jack Stephens, Maya Yoshida and Virgil, if he stays. 

Sam Gallagher signed a new deal which shows that he’s going to be in and around the first team this season after a good season on loan at Blackburn.  He wouold have been useful this season just gone with the way we played.  At least then we may have had someone with a bit of physical presence in the box when we threw all those hopeful crosses into the box.  Also signing on for another 5 years is Jack Stephens who proved he potentially has what it takes at the end of last season.  As I’ve said before, I feel that his performances were somewhat over-hyped in Saints desperation to find something positive to say about the second half of the season and whilst he had some very good games, there were some real shockers in there and plenty of mistakes.  Going into the season with Jack and Maya as our first choice partnership is not something I want to think about too much.

Going out the door was Jay Rodriguez and I have no reason to disagree with the commonly held view that this is the best thing for all parties.  His Saints career died at the Etihad 3 years ago when his knee went.  A year and a half of recovery, a new injury and a stop-start season last year and it’s time to move on.  He was a player that you always wanted to do well but in the end I think it became obvious that he was never going to get back to where he was or be the sort of player who would ever become a first team regular again.  The extra yard of pace that made him different and able to play in wide areas was gone and though he’d beefed up to cope with the demands on his body, he never looked comfortable as an out and out striker.  The odd flash of the old Jay like Bournemouth away was mixed in with performances where he looked like player with a hangover, not sharp in the slightest and somewhat lacking in determination. 

He’s joined West Brom which will be interesting.  Tony Pulis is a huge fan of his but it’s hard to see where he fits into a Pulis team.  Unless he plays off a big lump of a striker then he’s going to be out wide which as discussed, is not his strength any more.  If he does get regular games then maybe he will get back to his best but that was very unlikely to happen here so good luck to the lad.  Maybe he’ll reinvent himself as a centre back as Pulis tends to have at last four on the pitch at any one time.  I really hope he does well though because in a world of shithouses, Jay stands out as a genuine good guy and in that respect, it's shame that he's going.

 A Good Guy... and a Shithouse

Training restarted with Mauricio meeting the players for the first time.  Virgil was present and correct which prompted another round of delusion from Red Bastard Scouse Land.  ‘He’s only there to hand in his transfer request’ and ‘he should be on strike’ etc etc.  A more spectacular shower of wankers you will struggle to find anywhere in the football world.  His birthday seemed to trigger some more rubbish as an article was re-hashed which basically said he only wanted to join Liverpool and no one else.  It had no new quotes or anything factual so fake news I guess but it’s focussed my mind on what I think about all this.

The fact is that our captain is a shithouse.  He could put all this to bed at a stroke by giving an interview, apologising (even if it’s insincere) and pledging to get his head down.  The fact he’s done none of this suggests that shithousery is still the order of the day and it also makes me think that Liverpool are still hanging on in there.  I don’t see how he could join Liverpool and them not get charged and found guilty of tapping up.  As far as we’re concerned it’s the Fonte situation from last summer.  Captain wants out, sulks like a spoilt little prince, is the proverbial bad apple, gets his way in the end.  I think most could deal with him moving.  Personally I don’t give a shit either way but we can’t sell him to Liverpool, even if they’re the only team in for him.  It would be too much of a climbdown and why the fuck should Virgil and Liverpool, the two parties who have behaved with a lack of class, a lack of respect and a lack of decency throughout, get what they want.  The Premier League have a lot to answer for – they could have laid down a marker for the good of the game but they chose not to.  Personally, if I was Les Reed I’d wait for one more tiny squeak out of a Liverpool source and then go in all guns blazing with another complaint.

So, our last three captains on the field have been Virgil, Fonte and Lallana.  We thought all three were stand-up characters but they’ve all shot that out of the sky.  I think a bit more care needs to be taken over the next choice.  I would argue that it needs to be someone who is not likely to be chased by a big club so that kind of rules out Oriol Romeu who would be a fantastic choice based on leading by example and being a solid character. We could go safe with Steven Davis or we could think long term with JWP who is obviously earmarked for the role at some point.  He’s still only 22 but why not?  I have a feeling that he’d become a better player with the responsibility.

We’ll be getting our first taste of a Pellegrino team in action in the next few days out in Austria.  Nothing will be gleaned from it in terms of preferred personnel but there may be the odd thing of interest like if Virgil plays or maybe a player playing in a slightly different position – Boufal further forward or Gabbiadini on the pitch at the same time as Austin perhaps.  The only thing that is sure is that there will be more and more Liverpool connected wankers speaking in the media as they get closer and closer to the season starting and them still having Lovren in their defence.

As time has gone by and Liverpool, neutered by their own actions and grovelling apology, have relied on an army of ex-players and Scousers in the media to keep their pursuit of Virgil in the limelight. Jamie Carragher, Steve Nicol, Micky Quinn, Jamie Redknapp, Danny Murphy, Sami Hyypia and Steven Gerrard have all felt the need or been told to pipe up about the issue and then you have the biggest wanker of them all , John Aldridge.  If it goes quiet for a day or so, then another pipes up out of nowhere - Mark Lawrenson hasn't had a go yet so I'm sure he'll be next.  Coincidentally, they’ve all felt the need to do this despite the apology and silence from Official Anfield.  As I write I hear that Klopp was actually questioned about it and said nothing, almost blaming the fact that the media ruined it for them.  You and your club broke the rules pal and you got caught.  That seems to be lost on anyone of a Red Scouse persuasion.

An Apology:

I’ve just read this back and I apologise that a majority of it seems to be about the Red Scouse Bastards.  Be vigilant, if you drop your guard for a second they’ll seep in like a bad fucking smell.