BG

You're right that this is population level data though the individuals in the study are not 'randomly' selected as such. As to your point on football I agree that sociological explanations are more likely to be key. (As an aside a friend of mine at university was on Blackburn's books as a keeper. He remembers Owen putting a hat-trick past him. He was told at 16 by a couple of his coaches when he got straight A's in in his GCSEs that he was unlikely to make it partly because he had other options - they were right, he himself says he was less focused on football than others because he knew he could succeed in lots of other areas.) As above I agree on the first point. I'd be interested if you could provide some kind of evidence to your first sentence (I don't mean that sarcastically, I really would) as to me it seems physiologically plausible that some kinds of athletic performance (as I originally said, I wasn't talking about football) are likely to be impacted by maximal supply of oxygen to heart muscle which is itself partly determined by coronary artery diameter.

The 'perfectly healthy' athletes who dropped down dead are, as far as I know, thought mainly to have been suffering Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy. This often causes no problems at all, hence people seem fine, until something dramatic happens. I am certainly not labelling a whole region with any 'defect'. I am just commenting on something which seems to be the case and is thought by some cardiologists/researchers etc to be significant in explaining excess mortality and morbidity in South Asians, which is clearly an important and valuable area for research. Here's the link. (It's a matter of interest as I work in area with a very large population derived from South Asia: it's certainly not the whole answer to excess risk of the South Asian population but it may be an important piece of the jigsaw.) On another note it's great to see so many young 'uns coming through the ranks at the moment.

No idea on the sports science but certainly there is evidence that people from India and Pakistan and some neighbouring countries have narrower coronary arteries. This makes them more liable to have cardiac events (heart attacks etc) and it would certainly make sense that it would impact on some kinds of athletic performance.

Always gets what he wants, etc

He's very under-rated in general IMO. He's still seen by lots of neutrals as sort of at Cleverley kind of level but he's actually much much better than that. If he can just improve his finishing a bit... It's one of the most encouraging things about BR that he seems to improve young players. There are a lot who look an awful lot better now than they did 18 months ago.

Laudrup sacked.

Our medical, if the pics are anything to go by, looks like it would take about thirty minutes and could doubtless be done at a clinic in Ukraine.

It looked from what the physio was doing as he assessed him on the pitch that there was a concern re ACL.

Not one of Brendan's better days that.

OptaJoe has used more one word sentences at the end of a tweet than anyone ever. Annoying.

The goals conceded in the last couple of games have largely been the sort of goals you see in parks on Sundays - the ball pinging round the box, not really cleared and then eventually it goes in. We really need to sort out the defending - starting with a settled system and a settled pair of CBs.

We've been a shambles at the back. Big questions need asking, and not just about why Sakho didn't play against Lukaku.

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There are neurologists who think Hawking probably has a different condition given how long he's lived since diagnosis. MND is an awful collection of diseases. Poor guy.

Moses asked what he wanted to achieve this season at Liverpool said: to win the premier league... Ilori's English is fluent, says he only left london aged 8.

Nor have I. I'm 6ft6".

It's what we should have done with Heskey.

Whenever this is claimed I always wonder what exactly has to be booked. We employ a doc, bloods wouldn't need booking as any decent hospital lab could turn them round fast so that really only leaves scans (god knows if we bother with anything much), perhaps an echocardiogram I guess.

This is the thing with Hodgson. His approach and tactics will make a poor team a middling one but it will also make a good or even excellent one a middling one. Roy will always guide a team up or down to his own middling standards.

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Neville is the best pundit on UK tv by an absolute mile. Bit depressing really seeing how bad lots of our ex-players are in comparison (Whelan, Lawro etc).

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Ferguson has always said he thinks the manager has to earn more than the best paid player to show the players who the club values most. That being the case I'd be amazed if any player there was earning more than him.