Wullie

https://www.planetfootball.com/in-depth/james-perch-ill-never-speak-to-pardew-again-mike-ashley-influenced-selection/

It absolutely 100% definitely is and feel free to quote me on that.

The takeover's been over since July.

What's he meant to do like, stay unemployed for the rest of his life?

I had a row with them after the Sunderland Lincoln play off final about the number of free kicks. I quoted the whoscored foul/offside count and the wife said "well not every foul is a free kick you know?" and cut me off the live chat. When I got up the next morning it had been resettled as won.

Whatever whoscored.com says goes. It'll be resettled as a winner at some point.

BTW if we're talking dull, this game has been fucking atrocious.

There's just no evidence that sort of approach wins tournaments. You can probably count the number of winning international teams that were entertaining in even half their games on one hand. I know what you're saying - I spent the last few weeks of the season moaning about how unwatchable I found Chelsea, where Tuchel also plays with 8 defenders - but in cups, conservatism bloody works.

I completely agree. It was exactly the type of composed professional performance in a knockout game that we've asked of England against a big side for the last 56 years. Binned the fucking Germans out 2-0 having not conceded a goal in the tournament yet and still it's not enough for some people, it's really weird. I didn't watch the game while on the forum, came on after full time and frankly some of the posts in the second half before the goals were embarrassing. You'd think we'd defended for 90 minutes and won via a fluke OG. We were the better side and well worth the victory.

People talking like almost every team that wins a major tournament isn't absolutely dull as fuck. Portugal were absolutely painful. Spain's results in World Cup 2010: 0-1 2-0 2-1 1-0 1-0 1-0 1-0 (aet) You can bet your bottom dollar that if Rafa Benitez were managing a team in a tournament, it would be playing exactly like England are.

Goretzka 1 shot on goal after 5 minutes, got hauled down when clean through then 2 off target at the end. Tosser.

You have to have both keepers on the bench, 'tis the rules.

Fuck me I'm absolutely buzzing

Never thought I'd say this but I wish Jordan Henderson was playing. Their central midfield compared to ours...

Same, I'm not confident in the slightest.

Apparently Gundogan is out which means Goretzka will probably start. 9/1 with Betfair for 2 SOT.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/sports/soccer/euro-2020-expansion.html

England going to a back three tomorrow apparently.

I needed a Swiss offside for a rare winner, can't fucking believe the flag didn't go up right at the end.

The two games tonight have been identical

This is absolutely mental.

In my view, it seemed those games were used as practice runs in an attempt to get over this: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/jun/03/england-football-european-championship-euro-2020-scoring-first

Belgium's squad isn't even that good any more. The back three have a combined age of about 200. Martinez has them really well drilled, which is not something you would have expected of him.