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England were absolute wan k last night. I’m someone who wasn’t too stressed about the performance against Serbia, but last night was much, much worse. I was really hoping not to see TAA starting against Denmark. We’re now firmly back into Scholes/Gerrard/Lampard territory, where we try and shoehorn our favourite players into the side at the expense of putting out a balanced team. Experimenting with player a RB in CM during a tournament seems mental when there are good players available who actually play in that position.
I hate playing with square pegs in round holes, so I would sooner have a 6/10 specialist LB playing at LB, than play a RB there who may be a better player and may have more experience, but who’s clearly uncomfortable and goes inside every time they receive the ball. I get that the hope is that Shaw will be fit sooner rather than later, but what if he’s not? I would have taken someone like Tyrick Mitchell, just to ensure the team had balance. Foden always comes inside too, so there is almost no width at all on the left.
The whole midfield was a disaster zone yesterday – none of them played well individually, and certainly not as a unit. It was just a mess. If Shaw’s not fit and we stick with Trippier at LB against Slovenia, then we surely have to play Gordon or Eze out on the left to give us some width.
1980 - Belgium 1-1 1988 - Republic of Ireland - 0-1 1992 - Denmark 0-0 1996 - Switzerland 1-1 2000 - Portugal 2-3 2004 - France 1-2 2012 - France 1-1 2016 - Russia 1-1 2020 - Croatia 1-0
World cup opening games:
1982 - France 3-1 1986 - Morocco 0-0 1990 - Republic of Ireland 1-1 1998 - Tunisia 2-0 2002 - Sweden 1-1 2006 - Paraguay 1-0 2010 - USA 1-1 2014 - Costa Rica 0-0 2018 - Tunisia 2-1 2022 - Iran 6-2
Given that we have generally played poorly in our opening games and often drawn or lost against teams we were expected to beat, I'm feeling pretty relaxed about last night. Lots to improve upon, but a steady start that with 3 points in the bag, takes a lot of the pressure off. Defence looked solid enough, which was encouraging.
I had that in a supermarket in Milan, where some woman pushed through from behind us in the queue and started sticking her shopping on the bit of the conveyor belt that I'd left as a respectful buffer between us and the shopper in front. Cheeky cow.
I think we're a lot like Rangers in this respect As a club who've never won a major trophy, our main selling point is playing in a nice, old style English ground, surrounded by terraced streets, the park, and the river. It's a quintessential English football setting.
Like QPR, we might win one of the cups in the next 100 years, if we get lucky, and us moving out to Worcester Park or somewhere and building a 40,000 stadium, wouldn't change that at all.
I did pretty much every home game when we played at your place and it was great for atmosphere, pubs, and public transport; better than the Fulham in those respects, but fu ck me, my legs were glad when we got back to the Cottage. Loftus Road is a proper English football ground with a load of character in a world where those are disappearing throughout the league.
I was at a Tottenham game last season and although the stadium is amazing and more or less on the same site, it doesn't feel like an English ground, which somewhere like Anfield still does. Facilities wise, views, legroom, comfort etc it's incredible, but it feels a bit like it could be anywhere in the world. Reading, Cov, Stoke... just a pain in the ar se getting to them from the City centre. Brighton, who had no option but to look outside the city, have built a nice stadium, but that train faff is just a ballache, and chatting to Albion fans I know, it does their heads in every home game.
I think QPR should stay where you are if possible, but need to be looking at 25,000+. If you don't have a bit of spare capacity, then it makes it difficult for people to start following the club. It makes it difficult for people to start bringing kids/grandkids. I started taking my son to Ashton Gate because it's affordable, round the corner, and getting tickets together with mates was easy. We now have a big group of his mates and their parents/siblings who have season-tickets with us, but if we hadn't all been able to get seats together when the kids starting showing an interest in going, I doubt that most of those now season-ticket holders would have bothered or done it as regularly.
I was out on a recent Thursday evening, which was the first day without rain for about 8 years, so anywhere with a beer garden was heaving. Went to the arranged pub and at one point there was a queue literally out of the door and a couple of metres down the street. Landlord appeared and asked everyone to stop queueing and just come to the bar, at which point things started to get a bit chaotic, with everyone pushed to get to the front.
Ferguson talking about leaving Hansen out of the Mexico 86 squad. Looking back, it's a very Ferguson-like thing to do - pis s him off and you don't tend to get a second chance. Richard Gough and David Narey had both done really well for a strong Dundee Utd side, so Scotland weren't doing too badly for CBs who also played alongside each other at club level.
Scottish football was in really decent shape then - depressing to see how much it's been dominated by the Old Firm since then.
I've only been for the football, but it took us about an hour to get from our seats into Stratford station. A proper pain in the a rse - I couldn't do that every other week.
Willie Miller and Alex McLeish played together over 50 times for Scotland, won 3 Scottish Premier Leagues, and a load of cups together at Aberdeen, so you can see the point of having them play together for the national side. I think there was also a perception that Hansen wasn't fully committed to Scotland and prioritised Liverpool when it came to availability. Bit like Giggs with Man Utd and Wales withdrawals.
Hansen was pure class, though. I hope he's soon on the mend.
Same, mate. My Dad grew-up locally, I love the Kinks, and the Clissold is probably the most disappointing pub I've been in, in terms of having high expectations. I didn't even stay for a pint.
You're not owned by the US Govt, though, Brian. You're part-owned by US citizens who may/may not agree with US foreign policy. It's a completely different kettle of fish when a club is state-owned.
We based ourselves in Bayeux and visited some of the D-Day sites a couple of years ago. The British and Commonwealth cemeteries in Bayeux and the British Normandy Memorial are immaculate, beautiful places, but heart-breaking to visit. Seeing the gravestones in the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mur and thinking that many of those young men may never have even left their own state before, and then died after a few hours/days of combat, thousands of miles from home whilst helping to liberate Western Europe, was incredibly moving, as was also the case at the Commonwealth cemetery.
The D-Day museum in Bayeux is well worth a visit if you find yourself in that part of the world, and highlights how brutal the battle was once Allied troops had made it off the beaches and were heading inland. Seeing the scale of the remains of the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches, really brings home the size of the operation, and what an amazing feat of engineering it was to be able to create a man-made harbour capable of allowing the disembarking of huge numbers of troops and vehicles. It’s quite mad to see families having a nice day out on what were the landing beaches, and then imagine the horrors of 6th June 1944.
I would really recommend visiting the cemeteries and museums in Normandy, if you haven’t been before. I found it a very sobering, upsetting experience, but came away with even more respect and gratitude for the bravery and sacrifice of all those who took part in the operation. I’ll raise a glass to them tonight.
BBC have a 3-part series, called 'D-Day: The Unheard Tapes', which is a powerful watch. It has actors lip-synching to recordings of soldiers and civilians who were there on D-Day. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001zg8f/episodes/player. I wasn't sure about the whole lip-syncing thing, but it actually works well.
My thing is that FFP as it stands only benefits the most successful clubs (at least, domestically that's the case), who by some amazing co-incidence, are generally the richest clubs too. Only a wage cap would be proper financial fair play, but that's never going to happen because the big clubs won't ever agree to it and it would disadvantage them internationally. In which case, as you suggest, if someone wants to bankroll Northampton Town to the Champions League, and they are happy to deposit enough cash in an escrow account to honour all contracts, then I don't really have a problem with that.
When they talk about competition, I presume he means competing with Real Madrid and the Saudi League when it comes to spending. I suspect he's very happy with the competitive balance in the PL that sees Man City win the league 6 out of the last 7 seasons.
Whether they thinking spending limits and rules to prevent clubs from circumventing them are unfair or not, they are the rules, so clubs should adhere to them. Like the clever club owners who bought their club's grounds for £46bn, the pis s-take with sponsorships is so transparent that even a 7 year old could see it.
States should not be able to own football clubs full-stop, but when you have states with unlimited funds, you have to at least try and pretend you're interested in retaining some sort of competition. Man City now represent Abu Dhabi rather than Manchester, and the same with Saudi and Newcastle, and however much I might dislike pretty much everything about Man Utd and Liverpool, at least they're not state-owned.
I would love to see all these cu nts fu ck-off, I celebrate most English clubs' eliminations from European competitions, barely bother with the PL other than my club, and wouldn't give a sh it if most of the most highly-paid players fu cked-off to Saudi to play in their tinpot league. I only watch the FA cup final because I spend the early rounds banging onto my son about 'the magic of the cup', so feel I ought to at least watch the final. The fact that Bournemouth can outspend most of the world's biggest clubs, and the fact we hoover up so much emerging talent from around the world is really depressing. You support a Brazilian/Argentinian club and your bright young thing plays about 12 games for before they disappear to Europe/PL at the age of 17.
If Abu Dhabi Carpet Showrooms want to pay £300m a season to have some adverts by the hand driers in the bogs at Man City, why should Man City have to turn that down? If the Abu Dhabi Auto repairs centre wants to pay £500m to sponsor Phil Foden's away socks, then shouldn't they be able to? Market forces and all that.
I'm wishing Man City all the best in their noble struggle against "the tyranny of the majority" Why should a club's autocratic, authoritarian owners have to operate in anything vaguely resembling a democracy? Given that the 7 richest PL clubs can veto any proposal from the others, and can use their influence to force through changes, you could argue that the majority aren't actually operating much of a tyranny.
I really, really, really hate the Premier League, and I really, really, really hate what Man City have become. A club I have always had a soft spot for, and I found myself in the very, very weird position of being almost desperate for Manchester fu cking United(!) to beat them in the cup final. And that was almost universal amongst my mates, all of whom hate Man Utd.
Cricket. The only other sport I watch or take an interest in. Absolutely love a day at the cricket, ideally a Test, but happy with anything. Very fortunate to have a nice cricket club with a stunning setting, 15 mins walk from home.
Been up to Glos a fair few times since moving to Bristol - they're talking about moving out of the city to South Glos, which I would imagine would kill it for a lot of fans who currently either walk or get the bus up from the city centre.
Took my Dad and son down to Taunton the other week, covers on and off all day, and most of the crowd gave up by about 3:30pm. Probably 800 people in the ground and I was one of the youngest. Fair to say my son wasn't convinced by County cricket!
I know what I think of stewarding in general - I was asking for examples of rules they try to impose that you don't feel the need to follow (as per your post). If you're unable to answer the question, that's okay. I've just clocked your signature, and having seen it, I'll leave you to get on with your Joey Barton tribute act in peace. Have a lovely day.
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