Unbelievable

What does "leading the chase" mean in this context. There is no way on God's green earth he would consider coming here.. You have to laugh.. It means we're closest to agreeing to a deal, it will be bullshit anyway. We can agree a deal with his current club all we want, still doesn't mean he will come to us.

Anyway, it's fair to assume the winner of this match will avoid a draw vs Holland in the quarters..

What does "leading the chase" mean in this context. There is no way on God's green earth he would consider coming here.. You have to laugh..

Might as well add Messi and C. Ronaldo if we're dreaming..

Somebody's got money on Spain then The dutch will rest players and they will be happy to lose the game. They would rather face Romania in the semi final than France or Italy, which is why Romania are odds on to win the game!! I can't see it myself. Players will be rested, but their replacements will not roll over, they will try to battle their way into the team and when you look at the quality of some of them there are some match winners there as well (Huntelaar, Robben, Van Persie, Affelay). What's more, Romania may well be a stronger side than France and Italy in Van Basten's view; they beat and drew to Holland in the qualifying stages for this tournament. I think Holland will play for the win. If Romania manage to take a lead Holland will not go all the way to win the match the way they would have to in the knockout stages, so that may be in the advantage of Romania. I therefore expect Romania to come out all guns blazing and it will be interesting to see how a second string Holland team will cope with that.

If we're being serious, then (if true) this kind of trivial cost saving will put out a feeling of the club being "cheap" to current and potential players. The players will just laugh it off and pay it of course, but they'll still be a bit pissed off about it no matter how insignificant the cost is to them. I have first hand experience of this kind of thing working for a company which is cutting and cutting staff perks; the gain to the company and the loss to the staff is trivial, but workforce morale is shot to s***. Any financial cost saving the company makes is far outweighed by the time wasted by everyone whinging about it, and reduced motivation to do a good job. It probably doesn't matter much in companies like Sports Direct where staff motivation is probably so low it can't get any worse and trivial savings mount up across a large number of stores, but at a football club keeping the playing staff happy and motivated is a very important thing. If it was a reasonably significant cost saving then it may be worth it, but this just seems stupidly petty. That's exactly how I felt when I read the article. While other clubs are chasing transfer targets we are cost cutting on ridiculously small details in the bigger scheme of things. What a way to be portrayed in the press. Is this what they meant when they said Ashley would take a more hands on approach..

We will see. I think this has just been the approach these two games and also partly due to the fact they took an early lead in both games. It's not Holland's natural game to sit back, soak up pressure and hit teams on the break, far from it. They are more than capable of dominating a game as well. It will be interesting to see how the fare when the opposition scores the first goal..

Agreed, hence me stating the fact that he's been poor at Chelsea since he's been there....all I'm saying is he's been solid so far in the two games against supposedly two of the world's best teams!! The Premiership isn't the be all and end all of football you know..? Don't see what you're getting at?!?!? All I was doing was pointing out that he has looked solid these two games he has played yet he's looked distinctly average at club level!!!!! See there you go and do it again.. He hasn't looked distinctly average at club level or he would have never been in the Holland squad or with Chelsea in the first place. He may have looked distinctly average at Chelsea in the handful of matches he has played, but that doesn't mean he's crap.. It may come as a surprise to you how well he's capable of playing, but that says more about your knowledge of football outside of the Premiership than it does about Boulahrouz as a player I'm afraid..

Agreed, hence me stating the fact that he's been poor at Chelsea since he's been there....all I'm saying is he's been solid so far in the two games against supposedly two of the world's best teams!! The Premiership isn't the be all and end all of football you know..? No, but it's better than you. That goes without saying..

Agreed, hence me stating the fact that he's been poor at Chelsea since he's been there....all I'm saying is he's been solid so far in the two games against supposedly two of the world's best teams!! The Premiership isn't the be all and end all of football you know..?

Yes..? Yeah baby! The Dutch Dream Machine rolls on..

1-1

Pen to Austria..

Bloody hell. Blatantly offside Deflected shot though. Anything in the rules about that?

And Poland score..

Good match so far, surprisingly..

Almost? Yes, as in it's a rarity to see a pass backwards for player who is offside. Simply because of the way the game flows. But when it happens it is correct. No, that's a theoretical impossibility.. Edit: well, no it's not I guess, but only when the player was offside and has to run backwards to pick up the backward pass. Not sure where the law stands on that exactly, but I don't think I've ever seen it happen either.. Is that what you are referring to? That's what I was talking about when I said almost always, in that it's not impossible but very unlikely for the ball to go backwards and yet still be offside. Ta!

Good goal, great cross

Diagrams please..

Almost? Yes, as in it's a rarity to see a pass backwards for player who is offside. Simply because of the way the game flows. But when it happens it is correct. No, that's a theoretical impossibility.. Edit: well, no it's not I guess, but only when the player was offside and has to run backwards to pick up the backward pass. Not sure where the law stands on that exactly, but I don't think I've ever seen it happen either.. Is that what you are referring to?

Almost? Yes. I don't get it. The goalscorer doesn't have to be behing the ball when the pass is played to him (in the classic case when there is a defender playing him onside), but there can never be offside if the player receiving the pass is behind the player passing the ball regardless of where defenders are (i.e. the third Portugal goal). The pass can be forward or backward, as long as the player receiving the pass starts out behind the passing player when the ball is played. Simple as that no?

Almost?

This is correct. Most certainly not..

Just said he was approached and politely declined..

We know all that man, but equally, an attacker could shoulder charge a defender off the pitch and (assuming he's not penalised) ensure that there is no chance of being offside. If there is no foul given what would be wrong with that? Well, the goal last night, for one. The defender didn't leave the pitch under his own volition, he was pushed off the pitch and his team was penalised for it. In your example, if the defender was shoulder charged and through that an attacker would be onside if a pass was made what would be wrong with that, assuming the shoulder charge wasn't a foul? The same would happen if the incident happened and the defender stayed on the pitch, putting the attacker onside..? In yesterday evening´s event, it was an Italian player pushing an Italian player out of play. In any case, the rule is pretty clear if you ask me and there seems to be no debate between the people who know the rules..