Wullie

I thought the moment that really summed up this England team was 10 minutes and 15 seconds into extra time, I actually paused the game at the time to watch it again as it was so jarring. Slovakia play a really sloppy pass out of defence straight into Rice, if he's playing for Arsenal and you make that mistake you've already resigned yourself to facing at least a big chance, there's only one place the ball is going and that's straight into the centre forward who in this instance was Toney, who has support around him and runners ready in wide positions. Saka at the bottom of the screen sees what's happened and bursts into the space ready for the attack. But Rice has clearly been told no risky passes in midfield, under any circumstances, so he turns and passes it sideways, and it doesn't even look like an opportunity.

Feel like I'm completely missing something with Bellingham, he was a powerful box to box midfielder 2 years ago at the World Cup, why the fuck is he now an undroppable number 10? I thought he was absolutely pathetic today, and against Denmark. Either drop him deeper with Rice or just drop him.

In the last 5 years, managers that have brought clubs out of the Championship automatically include Scott Parker, Xisco Munoz, Slaven Bilic, Chris Wilder, Paul Heckingbottom and Daniel Farke (twice).

Fucking Bayern Munich When's Chris Wilder getting the call off Barcelona?

Indeed. I've always said this, football isn't like tennis or cricket where every point or every delivery is independent of each other. Giving a throw-in the wrong way affects every other thing that happens on the field from that point onwards.

This has always seemed to me such a wildly obvious and easy fix to the problem, rather than going too far the other way and doing the thing Wenger has suggested which would change the game too much and quickly be exposed as equally ridiculous. Bring back the concept which existed in football for over 100 years of "level". Offside was always meant to be something that could be seen with the naked eye by a linesman - if it's not, it's not offside! If you're going to use the technology therefore, change the rules to give a buffer of an inch or two so that only obvious offsides are called.

I saw the clip again of Gordon's goal against Arsenal yesterday and the first thing the referee says to VAR is that the "ask on the pitch" is for a check whether the ball was out of play or not. Gordon said last night he was telling his team mates that it was a penalty and not to worry because the VAR would give it. I think that was quite naive. If the players know exactly what the foul is, it should be drummed into them to tell the referee what they need to look for to make sure it doesn't get missed.

I mainly play the Bet365 version, I'm hanging on in the top 1k which is £100 prize (it's £175 from 500 up then goes up and up, top prize is £50k), my wife and I have different teams but we're only a couple of points apart. I've never been so annoyed about anything for ages as my decision to bench Havertz yesterday in favour of Mateta, what the fuck was I thinking? The extra 10 points was worth about 100 places.

God I'm seething after that. The game is won, just don't do anything absolutely fucking brainless for five minutes and he can't even manage that.

Creased at the idea of a fucking quiz

I watch pretty much all of the play offs and most of them are... quite dull? Like the vast majority are instantly forgettable. And I'm probably misremembering all these classic LC semi finals but it's not something I particularly look forward to. We had this same conversation 2 years ago anyway. The proof of the pudding is here and the competition hasn't been this dull for a very long time.

Scrapping away goals shows how little those who are in charge of the game understand it. Unbelievably stupid thing to do.

Was planning to roll this week, now I'm on at least a -4 Own all of TAA, Carlos and Porro FFS. Also got Kabore in defence who is just as useless.

This strikes me as a particularly stupid decision from the FA.

Funny how some players, rather than having a particular weakness in a knee or whatever, will just pick up injuries absolutely everywhere. Kieron Dyer probably the most obvious example, Woodgate as well. Wilson definitely in that bracket.

Think he should be alright, they create an enormous amount of chances and just miss them all.

Aye that rings a bell

I'd completely forgotten Cabaye playing for Palace. Edit: wow he played more games for them than us

Aye we saw it at Seaham Red Star a couple of weeks ago as we were thoroughly confused about what the hell was going on. Been going for 5 years according to this but it was the first time I'd seen it. https://northernleaguetalkblog.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/sin-bin-rules-to-be-implemented-in-the-northern-league-next-season/

They've been doing this sin-bin thing in non-league for a year or two but just for dissent, a yellow for dissent means 10 mins out. As a measure to reduce dissent, I can see the merits of it even though I'd rather not but I think doing it for "cynical fouls" is dangerous territory because that's incredibly subjective.

One thing that I really can't stand in match threads after a result is the disrespect of the opponent even when it's completely unwarranted. Luton smashed the arse out of Brighton 3 days earlier but the way folk were going on you'd think we'd been playing the Dog and Duck on Saturday. Hard to complain about complacency from the team when you're being so disrespectful to the opposition yourself.

That's interesting because that's kind of how I'm so sure that we didn't sign it at that time because my best mate is a Boro fan and I grew up on Teesside, I have always thought of it as a Boro song.

I said exactly this on here a few years ago when I started hearing it and a few people said "oh yeah we've always sang that" and I do not remember that at all. I used to go away semi-regularly from approx 2003-2013 and I'm positive I never ever heard or sang that song, but several people assured me I was wrong.

Hall got booked at Kenilworth Road as well for hauling down Ogbene as he went past him like an express train, he is fucking rapid