Sifu

Not too sure I'd want him back. Seemed to be a bit of a prick.

Fantastic news

But the cat looks like Garfield!

The time felt right for us to sell him.

Thought it was a fantastic bit of business myself.

Well then, it's still early days - he could hit top form in the coming months but dare I say we may have dodged a bullet here?

I got excited and chose 7th but having had a longer thought about it, I say we'll finish 8th.

If you're born in the North you can get an Irish passport. They are perfectly entitled to play for the Republic and have no loyalty to the North or the UK. Deal with it. It is Shane's choice in the end but he should give some indication of who he wants to play for. Maybe his heart's still set on the North that he refuses to answer Worthington's phone call and he's hoping for the man to get sacked sooner rather than later? Oh I agree with that. He should declare for one or the other. I'm just informing clueless cretins why he has a choice in the first place.

Great read that.

If you're born in the North you can get an Irish passport. They are perfectly entitled to play for the Republic and have no loyalty to the North or the UK. Deal with it. It is Shane's choice in the end but he should give some indication of who he wants to play for. Maybe his heart's still set on the North that he refuses to answer Worthington's phone call and he's hoping for the man to get sacked sooner rather than later?

I'd rather he didn't play on Tuesday tbh! But the fact he could be considered for that game is positive.

It wasn't that simple at the time though, a lot of people still had (unwarranted) faith that we had a top class player on our books that could pop up with a goal. I know his performances were terrible but Shearer clearly thought he could get the best out of him. There's a lot of hindsight bullshit going on with Owen and the relegation season imo - the other options weren't brilliant either and we weren't so aware that he had the heart of a pea at the time. Wrong as I'd have been I'd have generally put Owen in my first 11 and hoped I could get the best out of a player that was the best striker in the country not that long ago. Where I share Ronaldo's concerns about Shearer is that he appears to have limited football knowledge with regards to other leagues and other approaches, much like most of the pundits you see on telly. I'm starting to think he should have went straight into management to stand a chance of doing it in the long run. Still don't agree with Ronaldo's general jumping on Shearer at any opportunity though, the agenda he has negates any point he makes on Shearer imo, you can't take it seriously. Agreed. Considering that Owen and Shearer were mates at the time, Big Al rightly thought he could motivate Owen to step it up. Of course in the end, this didn't happen. I still have a feeling that Shearer is still let down by Owen's contribution in those 8 games so for him to big up Owen in that article is a bit weird like.

That's some nice positivity. Hopefully we'll hear more in the coming days.

So I hear

Pearce would be a terrible choice too (think he's said he didn't want it though, thank fuck). The "England icon plus strong backroom staff" is a good idea actually. But that could go either way imo - it might be a monumental success or a monumental failure.

After some reflection here's my opinion on the "England Manager": The FA will be massively tested when they start searching for Capello's replacement. It's all well and good to have an English manager in charge of the national team but then again, we have seen in the past that English managers aren't necessarily the way. Hoddle lacked man management skills, Keegan's reign was a disaster and McClaren was s****. However, we have seen that with the "right credentials", an English manager can bring the best out of the team. I guess what that means is a manager who has a lot of experience and is well-liked as well as respected in the dressing room. I get the feeling that Capello's strict regulations are a bit overboard which might make Capello an unliked figure. So we need someone who can be strict when necessary but at the same time be a great mentor/have great man management skills. Redknapp may very well be this man. He is quite tactically astute (not perfect but he does know his stuff) and I'd say at the moment he would be my choice (even though I can't stand the man). Like IP said, "There's a psychological block there with some of them and he's a proven track record of making players feel good about themselves." On a sidenote, Sam Allardyce will never be England manager as he has too much arrogance and his tactics are beyond s****. He may have experience but people who actually watch football will see that Allardyce would be an awful choice.

It's because he'd be mad to slag off a superstar who's doing Capello the favour of playing for his daft little team in his spare time when he could be shagging grannies and smoking tabs. Players don't like playing for England anymore, it's all wrong. A lot of things that are wrong with the NT were shown up at the final whistle. England qualified tonight, you'd never have known. Montenegro didn't but even qualifying for the playoffs was obviously a source of immense pride to them, do most of the English players have this pride, I doubt it. Honestly, it might sound like I'm over-playing the media aspect but I think they were genuinely just relieved they weren't going to be vilified and stalked for the next few months. "That's that one out of the way, we'll not get ripped to shreds until next summer". The whole thing's completely unhealthy. I do wonder whether other countries have experienced such a drop in interest/ability to identify with their national team in recent years. Obviously Spain don't count. The media definitely play a part like. All England managers have had to face intense media pressure which is a massive detriment. It's a mild problem IMO that is played up as an easy excuse. Are the media in Italy, Spain, France, Brazil any less forgiving? No chance, not at all. It's the same with the players get paid too much argument, English players get paid no more than other top nations really. A combination of lack of decent coaching at the top (since god knows when - maybe Hoddle and even then he had his faults) and a lack of wanting it from the players. It's still quite a problem for England managers to deal with. Sir Bobby found the media to be a massive nuisance during his tenure as England manager. But I agree that it's only part of the overall problem. The media across Europe are pretty much the same too I guess. The French media, like you pointed out above, are intense too when it comes to international football. They were essentially crucifying Domenach after France's shambles at the World Cup last year too.

It's because he'd be mad to slag off a superstar who's doing Capello the favour of playing for his daft little team in his spare time when he could be shagging grannies and smoking tabs. Players don't like playing for England anymore, it's all wrong. A lot of things that are wrong with the NT were shown up at the final whistle. England qualified tonight, you'd never have known. Montenegro didn't but even qualifying for the playoffs was obviously a source of immense pride to them, do most of the English players have this pride, I doubt it. Honestly, it might sound like I'm over-playing the media aspect but I think they were genuinely just relieved they weren't going to be vilified and stalked for the next few months. "That's that one out of the way, we'll not get ripped to shreds until next summer". The whole thing's completely unhealthy. I do wonder whether other countries have experienced such a drop in interest/ability to identify with their national team in recent years. Obviously Spain don't count. The media definitely play a part like. All England managers have had to face intense media pressure which is a massive detriment.