brummie

Easily the absolutely worst song sung anywhere in English football is the Spurs slow version of When the Spurs (Saints, actually you cunts) Go Marching In. It's absolutely terrible.

He's black, he's broon He's playing for the Toon Cunningham, Cunningham

No, it originated with Napoli.

Not too sure about that, I can recall hearing it sung with two pronunciations of Cunningham which lent it totally different meanings.

Yeah, everyone else hates it too. Although that one dates back to the 50s / 60s. Another popular one, Hi Ho Aston Villa is weird as Wolves and Sheffield Wednesday also use that song (as mentioned on MOTD this year when Jeff Beck died).

I fucking hate that version (everyone seems to have one) of the Napoli 'un giorno all'improviso' (ale ale ale, that one) that we turn out every 3 minutes. It makes me cringe, it's so unoriginal. I remember loads more songs from the 70s and 80s that don't exist any more. Although oddly, a couple of them which reference Nigel Spink, Tony Daley, David Platt and (Tony Cascarino) still get aired a bit. As does one referencing Paul Birch (RIP) and Alan McInally.

Do you still sing "An N and an E and a WUBBLEYOO C, A and S and T L E, U N I and T E D Newcastle United FC"? I recall that from my regular match attendance at SJP in the 80s. I also recall "We've got Mirandinha, he's not from Argentina, he's from Brazil, he's fucking brill*" plus one with some low level racism about Tony Cunningham. EDIT actually, thinking about it, not that low level. Football in the 80s, man, different planet. * he wasn't

I hate that ei ei ei ei ei ei o one, when we were in the Championship pretty much every set of away fans would sing it.

I bet he knew the Spanish for “what time’s your husband home?” too.

I think English football culture is actually extremely innovative - only it gets expressed by taking the best coaches from abroad and bringing them here.

Absolutely this (btw Pako Ayesteran is Emery's number 2). According to our players, Gerrard did literally none of the training, Beale did it all. As for detail, I read the other day Emery has got the club to agree to build an annexe to the training ground so players can stay there overnight if needed. That's his level of detailed commitment. Imagine Gerrard's reaction to a suggestion like that.

I was listening to a Villa podcast this week, they had a long interview with Alan Hutton (who in general, came across very well, was treated pretty disgracefully by the club for two years). Anyway, he was talking about his various Villa managers and he absolutely loved Steve Bruce. They asked him why, and it was all human pleasantry - always had time for you, treated the other staff at the club very well, man managed on a lower level (ie day to day) very well, etc. But absolutely no comment about how he set the team up, how he set us up to play. Gerrard was very much out of that mould, except his day to day management tactic wasn't to slap the lads on the back and tell them to do their best, it was to pull the hardman act and play mind games with them. No tactical acumen whatsoever. We played the exact same shape literally every single match, every time. So ponderous and predictable. Even a manager who did alright for us, O'Neill was the same - he had one way to play, and never ever changed it from one match to the next, always the same thing, regardless of who the opposition was. Now look at Emery. I read stuff about him and how he likes to play this way or that way, but the fact is, he changes it up a lot. He changes it to suit the opposition but also the players he has at his disposition. That's why, for example, we saw Dendoncker yesterday to muscle up a bit in midfield, and it's why we saw Moreno pushed even more aggressively upfield, as he'd identified that as a place we could get joy. Not only that, our formation changes DURING THE MATCH. Imagine that, during the fucking match, and compare that with the above mentioned PFMs. We change shape depending on who has the ball and where it is on the pitch. When we're under pressure in our own half, we'll drop another man into the defensive line. Or even two sometimes. When we move forward, we change shape again. We used to go literally months without changing formation. On top of this, the amount of preparation he does for each opponent is off the chart (as referenced in Roger's Profanisaurus this month, I saw ;-) ). The difference is you get a lot of British managers who just are not capable mentally of doing that, because their playing days were all in an era where it was belt, braces and bluster and nothing more. Or there are those such as Gerrard or Lampard, who played all their careers in winning teams and seem to think that turning themselves into top managers is just a matter of adopting the personal language and habits of this manager or the other, whilst some other sap does the coaching for you. Gerrard is the sort who will subsequently not improve any of his players, and with us, he didn't. An actual proper manager like Emery has improved every single one of them in 18 games. He has only bought one player for us - our starting line up against Forest last week, except Moreno, every single one was bought by Dean Smith (except McGinn who was bought by Bruce). The sycophantic Gerrard lovers in the media should look at facts like the above and wonder how he's ever going to get a good job in the game again, but he will, because just like Lampard he'll fall forward.

I think we've put in performances which have been as impressive, except in different ways. So, say, winning at Spurs and Chelsea were both controlled performances where we were absolutely on top of what we were doing, realised we wouldn't get that many chances, and were ruthless in taking the ones we got Today was much more on the front foot, aggressive, going for it.

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.