mrfahaji

Think we’ve been linked with Schär in the past, the way he dealt with Mitrovic for the goal suggests he’s not the dominant centre back we need :-p Wonder if Shaqiri would have got back and made that defensive header just then...?

The only good thing about Clive Tyldesley is that he isn't Peter Drury. But he is still pretty unbearable.

Ok yes, I guess so...! But I had a bit more context in my post, because the implication was that he was decent in the Prem and lost it last season despite being in a worse league. I read yours (i.e. the guy you work with) as "he's an ok champ player, who knows if he will cut it in the Prem". Wasn't a criticism of your post, just trying to add a bit more info.

I mean, this alone is quite unbelievable considering we only appear to have spent (wasted) £20m of the van Dijk money. I get that there are other things clubs have to spend money aside from transfer fees, but in case anyone hadn't noticed, PL clubs also tend to earn quite a lot of money from other sources too... I've never wanted us to be a club that spends money it doesn't have, gambles on success, or relies on cash injections from a billionaire to progress, but it is very worrying that despite selling players for such huge sums of money (which I'm not against per se) we are still broke.

Hmmm, that doesn't really tie up with what the Boro fan I work with said (see a few post 87)

Spoke to a Boro fan at work about Gibson. His words were, "had a great season 2 years ago, got on the brink of the England team, but since then has lost his way a bit. Did not have a great season last year - ok, he wasn't bad, but for someone of his perceived quality he was disappointing. He's a decent footballer, and strong, he could end up being a very good player, but just depends on whether he can get his mojo back. Also depends how much you pay. Is he worth £30m? Definitely not. £20m? Not quite, I reckon if you paid between £15m and £20m both parties would have a deal they'd be happy with".

They were quite spritely in that first game too for a while but completely lost it after about 30 minutes. They don't look to have much of a final third threat though... as soon as they get to the box the Portugal defence deal with them fairly easily.

Fair enough, I accept I didn't make my point very well. I wasn't actually advocating turning Salah into a defensive player, more that the commentators seemed hell bent on excusing him from running around because he was carrying an injury. So really my point was (or should have been) more that having a fully fit player might have been better for Egypt, but there was obviously no-one questioning that during the game.

That clearly wasn't the point I was making. My comment about Bobby Moore was about how the commentators were falling over themselves to talk about him over anything else that happened in the match. I wouldn't criticise a tactical decision for him not to track back, of course, but the way the commentators were talking made it sound it was only because he was still injured and therefore it was totally fair enough for him not to run around. Again, that's as much a criticism of the commentary. Your other points are fair argument, perhaps my dislike of Liverpool made me notice it more and found it more grating than the average person might. But I find it strange that you felt the need to link my Bobby Moore comment to Salah's goalscoring prowess as they were unrelated points. Even in different paragraphs...!

Quite ridiculous how much attention Salah was getting from all the commentators. Pearce virtually celebrated when Egypt were given a penalty. Then he announced that "this is what [the Egypt fans] have been waiting to see" - no Jonathan, they would much rather see their team win, I'm sure. You'd think that they'd brought Bobby Moore back from the dead and he was playing for Egypt the way they were gushing. Just seen the BBC user player rater has Salah as the best Egyptian and only behind two Russians. Ha! Looks like the rest of the population have been taken in by it too. Maybe if they had someone prepared to track back and run around they might not have lost. But I forget, this is a Liverpool hero we're talking about here, so nothing but praise and sympathy please.

Goal by Krychowiak. Lol.

Can't help but feel a more experienced centre back would have ignored the lunatic running out of the goal at him and dealt with it, but I think the whole debacle was caused by Szczesny, even if Bednarek was also at fault.

Don’t mind it. Would prefer it if the stripes went all the way to the top though. 7/10 - could be better but there are a few nice touches and nothing that makes me annoyed at the thought of watching it every week. Away kit is ok. Think the navy veho kit is the best we’ve had in a long time and the green was quite cool too, but this one is certainly tolerable.

Maybe there's not much to it then. Definitely feels like the newly promoted teams are ones to avoid though - maybe this can also written off as a myth, but they also seem to be on a bit of a high and throw everything into those first few games. Wolves or Cardiff away would probably be the worst opener for us.

I'd rather play the better teams at the start, especially after a World Cup when loads of their players will be back late to training and may have a bit of a tournament hangover. That could all be a myth of course. Getting the top teams over Xmas is a bit of an issue, where they can use their squad rotation ability to the max, but at least we have quite a few home games in that time. Overall pretty happy though, although our start is decent, it's not 'easy' like last season, which means if we do drop points we won't be feeling like it'll cost us come the end of the season, but if we win then it sets us up nicely.

Does the 3rd kit have red shorts? Personally I think white shorts would look smarter with it.

The problem with VAR can be demonstrated by our 'goal' in the semi final. The referee chose not to review it. had it been the other end though, I'm sure they would have done.

Saints Megastore

Tend to agree with the sentiment of the OP, even if some of the points are minor (e.g. League Cup extra time). The main issue for me now is that the big clubs have so much control and the television companies have so much influence. Add this to the fact that there is so much money in the game (because of the TV) means that this control and influence ends up making such a huge difference in terms of competitiveness and ultimately hope. It feels like every single announcement regarding Premier League or football in general is one which will make the game less competitive.

I prefer the two veho-sponsored shirts, though maybe in time I will like this one more. However I agree with the rest of your comments. Last season was the first time in a long time that I loved the kit on its release, but I hardly think this one is cause for any outrage or hysteria. I'd prefer if it didn't have that block of red at the top, it's bad enough that UEFA rules mean anyone who wears stripes effectively loses half their kit without taking any more of the stripes away, but at least this one sticks fairly close to our traditional (yes yes I know, not technically traditional...) colour/design.

Tend to agree with this. You'd think it would attract really good people, most people would love to design football kits!

Agree with your post, particularly this bit. I don't understand why they couldn't apply the same rules that they use in the non-League cup competition (FA Trophy?) where if both teams request for no replay (before the game takes place), then it is settled in 90 minutes. That basically means there will be no replay unless you have a minnow playing who need the money. Obviously that would never happen though because a lot of teams would request a replay against the big boys so it would potentially be a disadvantage for them (even more reason to have it in my book!)

Agree, I do not want a break. I'm just saying that if they insist on having one maybe it would make more sense to have it in January after the busy Xmas period rather than a random week in February. Plus the FA Cup becoming a midweek thing really p1sses me off. Seems like every announcement about football now makes me hate the Premier League even more.

I agree with you. If I was in charge I wouldn't remove any games and I would stop TV from changing the fixtures around so that everyone played on the same days. But that isn't going to happen, so I question whether or not it's right that some teams get an advantage over others with the scheduling.

See my reply to whelk... I realise that in my original post I've missed out the crucial word 'one' from the "take out *one* of the xmas games" bit which may have given you the wrong impression of my post. The one game I'm I refer to is one of the matches mongst the 'traditional' spots. If we have games on 19th, 22nd, 26th, 29th, 1st & 5th, perhaps we should get rid of, say, the 22nd or the 29th. It might just help with the imbalance of schedules. Obviously the better scenario would not to have any TV games on the 27th/28th/30th/31st, and just make everyone play on the same days, but the idea of taking games away from TV is now so infeasible that it's not even worth debating it...