Sunglasses Ron

Nonsense, would still have banged it in off the crossbar 😃

Amazing character by the Swiss, fair play to them!

Stek well out of his depth here, nearly fell off my seat when I saw he was their goalie earlier in the tournament.

Exactly, seems to boil down to better interpretation of the rules and less splitting of hairs. Goals are the bedrock of football so anything to reasonably maintain them is good by me.

Well I’m glad we’re seeing goals given rather than taken away. The use of the thicker lines is a winner for me.

Who’d have thought, you can use VAR to uphold borderline goals and keep the games exciting. Much better than the ‘how can we take this off them’ approach of the Premier League.

Bale hugely disappointing today. Good performance by JV 👌🏻

Yup, I would probably buy 2 for £60-£70 but only ever get 1 at most at the point of release. I’ve given it a miss this year though, so will probably pick one up in a sale later on. I’m enjoying the retro shirts more these day, better value and pretty cool to boot!

Never seen it this way personally. I'm not commenting on whether the shirts are ethically produced (I have no idea, but hope so), but always viewed the excessive charge as being basically a donation to the club to help fund the things we want to see. Having said that, just checked a few League 1 / 2 clubs and their shirts sell for about £10 less so maybe we are being ripped off!

Probably not I'd say. Also, not trying to put him down but he's a youth product of Manchester United, rather than someone they signed. I think all clubs should develop players, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be at the same level as the players that clubs like that go out and sign for huge sums. I really admire him as a gent, he seems a fine role model and deserved his MBE, but that's not a reason to make the squad (if so, then Francis Benali would probably have got 50-100 caps).

Yes, of course, generally speaking if you play for a big club it means you're a better player. BUT, I think there's a fair amount of evidence over the years to suggest that it also cuts you more slack when your form dips than if you played for a club like us. There is also the argument that you have to work harder at clubs lower down the league as you're playing alongside worse quality players. I'm not actually saying that Ings deserved to go, but do feel that he was far more likely to get the chop for a loss of form / injuries than someone like Rashford. I may be going a step too far here, but I'm not convinced Rashford is a better player than Ings (ohh the controversy!).

Agreed, if Ings and Rashford played for the opposite clubs then Danny would probably be there right now. Unless of course Rashford's place is now untouchable due to him being an MBE?

Absolute pish, Sterling drives me f’ing bonkers when he plays for England.

Absolute trash so far, Kane looking like it’s his first game of football. He must come good soon right?

... plus you never know if you'll be playing on-the-beach versions of Liverpool and Leicester at that time!

I remember the 'devastation' of seeing Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana and Rickie Lambert all leave in 2014. I genuinely thought we were gonners, but then we did some stellar transfer business and actually became better. I'd like to think the club has learned from the 'everything we touch turns to gold' complacency that followed VVD's exit.

See where you're coming from, but there are ways to lose and there are other ways to lose. Even if the points don't materialise, the very least you expect to see is decent tactics executed by a committed team backed up by good use of subs. If we get smashed a few times and are around the bottom of the table then he would be luck to get to Christmas. Desperately hoping for some decent summer transfer business, but expectations are set pretty low to be honest.

Thanks for confirming, it really should be in my opinion!

Absolutely this! Clear and obvious as it's always supposed to have been.

Let's see if we can extend our laughable record of opening day results! What is it again, 3/4 opening day wins in about 30 years? Only ones I can remember are Coventry away ('99 ish), Leeds at home ('11 ish) and West Brom away ('14 ish).

Well fair play to them I guess for finishing the game, but they should definitely have replayed the match today (thought that before the result). Think someone at the top should have taken the decision off the players shoulders. I shouldn’t laugh but Hojbjerb clearly fancies himself as a bit of a Henderson.

Italy a joy to watch!

Great post, thanks! As someone who squeezed in with just 15,000 others in its final days, it seems difficult to conceive how 40,000 could have been in the same space. Amazing!

Yes it was, but I was talking about things from my perspective as my first game was in 1993 when capacity was about 17,500. If we're being pedantic, then the attendance of the game you went to was 31,044, whereas the first league game at St. Mary's was 31,107! 😎

Crazy isn't it! I remember clear as day, taking one last look at The Dell and then walking down to see the new ground in the summer of '01. That first league game at home to Chelsea was memorable, walking out into the bowl and seeing 30,000 Southampton fans at a home game for the first time ever. It's not bad ground, in fact far from it, I just wish it had a bit of unique character to it. If nothing else, whack some striped seats in there like the old Milton Road End 🙂