stevegrant

Those weird Saints-related Facebook groups might be for you then, seen some proper odd stuff going on there whereby the admins set every post on matchday to be fully moderated so they quite often don't become visible to everybody else until days later, so then somebody has posted something in reaction to an incident in a game on the Saturday and it then gets posted around the same sort of time as a game we're playing on the Wednesday utter lunacy.

OK, I think we are back...

As mentioned on the forum-wide announcement, you should have the option to switch the theme (in the page footer, there is a Theme dropdown item) to the original Invision default theme. Unfortunately this default theme is blue, but it might be a little bit more reliable for a short period - I don't really like the way this forum software manages its updates and functionality changes, as it forces those who use heavily-cached connections (often on mobile devices where it's harder to clear the cache properly) to suffer degraded performance for a while.

I wonder whether that is more a case of being "sold out" in terms of the number of STs they were willing to sell in that section, in order to allow game-by-game sales for those who can't/don't want a season ticket. Forest is currently on sale to members, but as I'm a ST holder and not a member, I can't even get into the stadium plan to see what's available.

Translation: I provided vague URLs in the hope that people would just accept my ever-reducing argument without question, but upon actual interrogation of said articles it turns out they don't even back up my point. Sad bastards for actually reading them!

Newcastle must also have been relatively flexible - in the past, PL clubs used to often take a stance of "decide exactly what you want a month in advance, you can't change your mind" when it came to allocations.

And it's perfectly normal for them to fail. Humans make more errors than automated systems. Most automated systems only fail when humans get involved. The app is the same app that UEFA uses for the Euros. Tickets for the group stage were sent through to the app about three or four weeks before the opening game, and you have the option of transferring tickets to somebody else - you put their email address in and they get an email with a link to either download the app (if they don't already have it) or it will open the app automatically (if they do already have it) and allow the recipient to "accept" the transfer. It literally couldn't be easier. In terms of how it will work at the turnstiles, the Euro tickets do not show the QR code until the day of the game, and I think the code changes regularly within the app for security, so if you did screenshot it and use it the underlying code may have changed in the meantime. That code gets scanned in the same way as the barcodes on last year's tickets did.

You joke, but...

Seemingly now the full-time captain of Northern Ireland too, so yeah, inclined to agree she's not planning to retire any time soon.

He's also the striker most similar to Kane in terms of his build and style. Often drops deep to make space for midfielders to run into, good linkup play, strong in the air, etc. I feel like Watkins just doesn't really suit international football - in the PL he's often playing against teams with a high defensive line so he can run the channels effectively and drag the defenders all over the place, but we're likely to come up against a lot of deep-lying defences in this tournament, and his penalty record is pretty shit: 4 scored from 9 in his career. It's a shame for him because he's been brilliant for Villa, but sometimes a top club player just doesn't cut it at international level which is often a step down in quality.

This view might hold even the slightest bit of water if we hadn't scored 13, 11 and 12 in the three tournaments played under Southgate.

Would Grealish and Maddison have definitely offered more creativity? They haven't really demonstrated it this calendar year for their clubs (and their England record is nothing to write home about - Grealish has 2 goals and an assist in 28 competitive games, albeit of course many of those will have been off the bench), while the players picked in their place have. On the defensive side of things, Guehi started the same number of games as Stones in the qualifiers, but it was a case of one or the other (generally as a result of Stones' fitness issues) as Maguire played all 8 alongside. So Maguire has a partnership with both, but Stones and Guehi basically haven't played together until the two games this week because Stones hasn't been fit. This year has been an absolute shitshow for players getting injured. From the 26 these have all had spells out with injury just this calendar year: Stones, Guehi, Shaw, Alexander-Arnold, Trippier, Eze, Gordon, Kane, plus the end of Toney's suspension. Then throw in players who would/might have made the squad but for injury issues: Johnstone, Maguire, Chilwell, Henderson, Maddison. One of the key things with international football is consistency of selection - as much as some people scream about "picking on form", actually that's generally nonsense because if you just did that each international break you'd be chopping and changing constantly and you'd never get a team that functions properly. And we're seeing that a little bit in these friendlies (and the two in March, where we actually played pretty well for the most part but just didn't get the results) where there are a few combinations that aren't quite as familiar as the 2022 team was, and it doesn't take an awful lot to upset the rhythm and leave a gaping hole for even a mediocre opponent to take advantage of.

I don't think there are any league rules about it, but some clubs impose a limit so they have matchday tickets to sell, which are obviously more expensive. Interesting to note that Liverpool have the lowest percentage of season tickets relative to capacity - around 30,000 despite Anfield now holding double that, because they know that they have enough fans who will buy on a match-by-match basis with the huge extra revenue that would bring - not just the ticket price but the megastore merchandise spending, etc.

But that's why that team never won anything, they were never a team and never seemed especially interested in being one. Arguably the biggest tick in the box for Gareth Southgate is that he's been able to bring all the factions from the various big clubs together and get them to embrace playing in a different environment. Other than Ben White, it seems as if everyone actually wants to be there these days. In terms of this squad, while Grealish missing out is the big story, I'm not sure it's that big a deal. Sure, he would be useful in situations where we're protecting a lead and you want someone to retain possession and win free kicks in tight spaces, but his record for England isn't anything to write home about. 2 goals (the 5th in a 5-0 win over Andorra, and the 6th in a 6-2 win over Iran) and 1 assist in 36 caps, for someone with his ability, is pretty poor, tbh. He's not really done a huge amount for Man City this season, and didn't play a minute in the last three games which included the title run-in and FA Cup final. I did fully expect Bowen to miss out though, but when you look at the makeup of the squad, Bowen is really the only proper backup for Saka on the right of the front three. Personally I'd have gone for Branthwaite over Dunk, but in reality neither should play a minute in Germany anyway so if that's all that people are getting worked up about, we're probably not in that bad a place really

But that is what international football is all about, really. As a coach, you get such little time with the players that it invariably means that the best teams, and probably more importantly the ones who have the best chance to win tournaments, are the ones that control games. It's where we've got so much better during the Southgate era, we have learned over the years to control games on our terms. As you rightly say, the defensive options probably aren't as strong as they have been in the past - Stones, Maguire and Shaw with fitness issues this season, and the depth options haven't yet convinced - but we are now finally giving that defence a bit of protection with Rice becoming a top player, and the dilemma is who plays in that role alongside him.