Yorkie

Even if it's a pen it's probably one where the ref wasn't 'wrong enough' to be corrected on.

Not a pen for me based on one look of the replay. He's barely in control of the ball there.

Feel like the Scots are losing control of this.

I'm broadly with you but if we were dropping £49m on DCL I'd raise an eyebrow. Anything up to 30 I'd say cos he isn't prolific, has fitness doubts and his contract is on the wane. Much beyond that and I'm wondering what the scouting network is getting paid for...

Eesh McTominay has been awful.

Ah ref put your whistle away for a bit man.

Proximity to the most popular and lucrative league in the world something to do with it you'd think, but wouldn't know the specific reason. Best coaching talent goes to England?

Scotland are so unimpressive, like. Some clever touches from Gilmour and McGinn aside, they've absolutely nothing going for them. Hope it picks up cos there'd be amazing scenes if they nicked it.

It's utter fucking bilge and, on top of that, completely unnecessary. 99% of situations are fathomable to any spectator who's witnessed more than a couple matches in their lives, and even in such peculiar and rare occasions where something may not be obvious - so fuck. I don't get this assertion that the crowd has earned an explanation immediately. Clearly there's an infringement of some sort, just check your phone at half 5 to find out the specifics.

Wow, what a fantastic addition to the game this is. 👏

Personally I'd be quite excited by this signing. He's consistently demonstrated that he can score goals in this league and he's a good age. Cut-price deals for players like that are as rare as rocking horse shit so I'm not surprised we'd go for it rather than gamble on someone untested. He's a different sort of striker to Isak meaning he's an alternative option and someone who can potentially be used in a two. Robbing those horrendous fucks' first choice striker and demonstrating our places in the respective food chain would also be chef's kiss.

Thought it might be worth having a quick neb at Grand Old Team to see what the consensus is on DCL, but Chrome won't automatically translate feral to English so I gave up.

The impression I get from many visits there (though granted that's almost entirely in the north) is that anything that might progress at a race of knots is obstructed by (putting it kindly) the very sensitive political/religious landscape. Casement Park, for instance, would be a very rare example of all sides coming together to deliver something.

This ref the top lad we met in Paris?

Weird one.

What a noise.

He absolutely shared some of the accountability for us surrendering the advantage that night.

I don't have much faith at this point, and nor have I ever thought he was a tactical genius. As usual I'm just disputing the notion that he's been a bag of shit for England and held us back. For me, the opposite is true but on the basis of this tournament so far, I'm starting to believe that he should've had the handshake after Qatar.

Nah, not a chance imo. Scotland is the only one which compares because we were crap that night, and they did a great job of rattling us. But against Denmark we literally couldn't string two passes together. It's the only time we've looked like a team of total strangers. If Thursday is the same as those other performances then ultimately we can still feel confident of going very deep in the competition again. But it was far worse for me.

What about them?

The comparisons have been made routinely for ages and I was respondingly directly to Cf who was saying it had been this way for six years. Thursday night was horrendous, the worst tournament performance under Southgate, I'm not going to defend it. It was a miracle we were playing an utterly limp Denmark side who, apropos of nothing, are barely a shadow of the very good team we faced in the last Euros semis.

Happy to not argue with any of that. Not saying I agree with all of it but I've done the debate a thousand times and I'd be on a hiding to nothing at this point. What I absolutely cannot resist recoiling at is the suggestion Steve Bruce could have inherited the job Sourhgate did and then delivered a WC semi, Euros final and a WC quarter. It's annoying that my hatred of Bruce has given me a reputation for loving Southgate.

Of course it hasn't, that's a ludicrous suggestion. He completely changed the culture of the England camp and turned us into a team that, first, punched above its weight and then 'at' its weight. We haven't played as badly as we did on Thursday under Southgate at a tournament before then.

Second round of games inevitably cahier with most teams happy to settle for a point, either cos it all but puts them through or provides an opportunity going into the last game.