mrfahaji

Having just watched the opening two minutes of the Poland-Portugal game, I retract my Cedric statement...

Agree that we were sorely lacking a goalscoring threat from midfield last season. However, I don't doubt that Steven Davis is an important player and certainly good enough to play some sort of role. The two individuals there that concern me are Cedric and Clasie. Have hope that under new management Cedric could improve and go on to be good, but not sure the same could be said of Clasie.

I very much enjoyed his pronunciation of "entertaining".

Pretty sure the official site statement included something like "Sammy Lee has left the club, we thank him for all his efforts during his time here".

From right to left, the different stages your shirt & tie go through at a wedding.

Thanks The9, albeit I sense a response tinged with sarcasm/annoyance! I presumed they wouldn't be the actual shorts, but surely it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to be the same design as the first team kit (with the slightly odd chunk of colour on the side).

Ha, agreed! The only time the top button of shirt should be fastened is if you're wearing a tie. Even top buttons done up on a t-shirt is pretty awful...

Should we expect the shorts to be the same design as the training kit (though probably different colours)?

Or Tadic...?

Spot on eddie, spent some of this afternoon putting forward similar arguments to a friend who at one point asked "what the point of supporting Saints" was. I think we're all aware that a few duff transfers could dent the success of the business model, but seven years of continual improvement must be amongst the best (tempted to say unparalleled) across Europe. For all the frustration and disappointment of losing players that we have grown to naively love over time, in the cold light of day it would be mad to abandon a model that has served us so well in recent times.

There's a Venezuelan guy at Granada - Adalberto Peñaranda - who I thought might be a shout, but then saw he's actually contracted to Watford. However, if people are talking about prising away a Man City youngster, surely a Watford one isn't beyond the realms of possibility either?

As much as it's disappointing and emotions are riding high (not so much for me to be honest, I found it to be the perfect embodiment of our country right now - a joke and an embarrassment), I'm not really sure what Hodgson could say about the performance that would satisfy anyone, other than to give the mob more ammunition.

Excellent post, even better than the previous one! I like Southgate, and certainly think it would be unfair to judge his credentials based on his playing career, but it would be something to have an England team known for it's fragility and perennial underachieving managed by the man who missed a sudden-death penalty against Germany in a Semi Final at Wembley.

fixed

I agree with much of what adriansfc has said, except I think Alli was being played in his best position (in fact my concern was that he was going to be moved to accommodate Rooney, but that didn't happen).

Sergio Diaz - Paraguay?

As much as we would play awful football under Allardyce, at least the players would know what they were meant to be doing. We could cause a few upsets too, maybe knocking out the more successful nations, like Bulgaria and Switzerland.

Kasey Keller.

It doesn't have anything to do with passion. Although psychologically there might be some issues for the England team, it's more about having a system and picking the best players for that system, playing it continually so that every player in the side knows exactly what is expected of them. Hodgson picked Sterling because "we will need width against Iceland". Not a bad theory stood alone, but the fact that a player woefully out of form and facing the wrath of a nation was our only natural wide player in the squad begs a lot of questions.

Palace are Batshuayit mental for spending that.

I don't mind some of the talksport hosts as much as some on here, but Quinn really is a sickening human being.

You should probably have started an entire new thread for that.

I'm very disappointed Mane is leaving, particularly to Liverpool and for a fee which when you see the money being banded around the PL, doesn't seem THAT much - it will cover 3 gamble replacements (Redmond £11m, Mane was £10m in the first place). However, if I recall, last summer there were lots of rumours towards the end of the window about Mane and Vic both leaving. At the time I thought "I expected them to leave eventually, but not this season!" Given that we probably would have fetched £20m for VW and £25m for Mane then, perhaps getting a similar amount of money a season later, especially considering they both helped us to a great season and guaranteed Europa League football, shouldn't be sniffed at. Still gutted though!

JS: "There are two candidates for the job" SWF: "What are their names?" JS: "I don't know" SWF: "You don't know?! He doesn't know what they're called!" JS: "All right, their names are... Manuel and Claude, right..." SWF: "Oooh you said you didn't know! He's making it up as he goes along!"

I don't think resting players was a problem if the focus was on what was best for our best XI. I.e. - maybe Walker and Rose could do with a break, and we had adequate replacements. However, I feel the inclusion of Wilshere and Henderson was not due to other midfielders needing a break, but rather Roy's desperation to get them involved. Tournament games (unless first place was secure) should never be used as a means of getting your players match fit.