brummie

I've watched the match now. I thought we were brilliant. I wouldn't be too worried if i were you, you are still a very decent side and in a great position. I just think we really clicked today, and would have beaten almost anyone. Emery is nuts. He does things that make you think, he's insane. Like Bailey out, so you think 'ah, Traore in then' and he puts Dendoncker in to add a bit of physicality in the middle, and you think "WTF, Dendoncker?" and then he does exactly that, and has a great game. Nice to see these two clubs clearly both on the up and fighting it out at the right end of the table, rather than the years and years of awful relegation-fighting shitfests.

I haven't seen it, recorded, will watch tonight

I'm not commenting till at least Tuesday. I know when to keep my head down.

The Midlands one is clearly Villa Park, which will be at 52k by then (rebuilding North Stand this summer). Fair point re 12 v 10 grounds, it's probably part of the wider picture in terms of what UEFA insist on. TBH it's probably only political reasons that make this a UK and ROI bid rather than just an England bid. England could easily host this on its own, but looks like multi country bids are the new 'thing'

Yeah, he's a fucking dreadful political operator who looks after number one, and - and I don't know if this happened with you, but it did with us - even used to get his idiot fucking son weighing in on twitter. Gerrard was a clueless, obnoxious cunt, but Bruce was a different type of obnoxious, 'not my fault' wanker.

Ha ha, I'm a Villa fan. Trust me, you don't need to convince me of that on Bruce. I remember the likes of Graham Turner and Billy McNeill, and Bruce for us is right down there with those two.

Manchester and Merseyside together encompass an enormous population - 5m (3.5m + 1.5m), with god knows how many professional clubs in that area. The West Midlands and surrounding area also has a huge number of clubs. Ultimately, as it's not just an England bid, they are limited to six venues, so i think they've done a pretty good job. They've ignored the south west because it basically isn't football territory and as a result doesn't have any stadiums even remotely close to big enough. If anything, I am impressed they resisted the temptation to give London 3 venues.

Fair enough. My memories are faded.

Even Braverman wouldn't do that.

.... there's an argument about somewhere like Leeds on a geographic basis, though, but there's no way they're going to extend that shit tip by 15k seats any time soon.

There's one stadium in the West Midlands - population 3.5m, one in Greater Manchester, population almost as much, and one in Merseyside which also has a large population, and two in London, population 10m. There's just no political argument to have two stadiums in the north east which a much, much lower population. Maybe if this were an England only tournament, but it's not.

Bruce is a fucking dinosaur, yes, and he made my eyeballs bleed watching my own team, but - and I am not even a Newcastle fan - my times attending Newcastle matches, the managers were Willie McFaul and Colin Suggett. He's surely a better manager than them? And I can't believe I am writing this.

Sunderland isn't one of the grounds because there are all sorts of other criteria around things like hotel rooms and public transport etc etc which Sunderland would never fulfill. It's also not just "enough hotels", it's enough hotels of a certain quality. If you look at, for example, the requirements around UEFA competition final grounds, it's about 4 and 5 star hotels. There's also no way they'd have 2 grounds in the north east, they need - politically - to spread the load geographically. I think they also insist on 50k+ capacity, but I think they may make an exception for Belfast (again, politically).

That's exactly it.

You really can't be in a two horse race for the title with Leicester City and not win it.

Sadly only metaphorically.

There's so many games at Man City in the league and the various cup competitions, it must make it easier. EDIT - in 50 years going to football matches, their support at the 2020 LC final was the worst I've ever seen.

Yeah Bayern are horrible too. So long as Man City don't win it, I don't care too much. Every time the camera pans to the crowd it's 90% tourists, you can just tell looking at them.

That's exactly the sort of signing you, and us, need to be steering well fucking clear of in the summer. Smells of Everton, in normal years.

"Maybe this is Manchester City's year at last" Fucking hell, they make me want to vomit my fucking legs up.

Nice bit of gentle patronising of the Bayern fans from the commentator.

God, this is so depressing.

"Please welcome today's match sponsor, Josef Stalin".

You have to look at Leicester appointing Dean Smith through the prism of the fact that they stuck with Rodgers for way, way too long, and got rid of him at a point where they'd managed to reduce their realistic options massively. They've been awful for ages but just put up with it.

Ah FFS.