Gallowgate Toon

We did play well for good spells of Colombia and Croatia, like, which is a vast improvement on other recent tournaments where we've had to play better sides. I'd say we deserved to win both games, overall. Belgium was meh. The issue with Southgate is his in-game management. He seems good at getting pieces prepared but when it comes to actually changing things up, he responded in pretty much exactly the same way against both Croatia and Colombia - reactionary and short-sighted, taking off critical players to our system with quite illogical replacements. I still can't get over how he couldn't see the fucking huge midfield problem we had for an hour tonight - the strongest part of their team and we didn't even dare to change it up, we didn't give them anything new to think about. I'd understand it if Alli & Lingard were astute defensive players, but they're not, they're not even Centre Mids. I think we have the base of a plan and a good core to move forward with, but it needs far better balance going forward.

Felt like we sat back far too much after the break. They still looked clueless for the first 10 minutes of that half but we just kept on egging them on and got deeper and deeper. I thought we lost that game in midfield as it wore on. Alli & Lingard were absolutely dead, Loftus-Cheek would've been a good replacement for one of them, added energy and guile and would've further tired their mids out. I think Henderson had a knock? Absolutely no way he needed to go off, he just needed better support from those in front of him. I felt Sterling would've got back into the game much more if we'd have sorted the midfield balance out earlier too. A good run but this is a massive case of 'what if', for me. We should've won today.

Fucking hell

Maradona, man. The bloke is just a total cunt. We weren't perfect last night, by any means, but Colombia were fucking woeful. Only played actual football for about 10 minutes and spent the rest of the match being total, complete, absolute utter arseholes. I really liked them as a team, before last night, but they were as bad as peak Barca/Real twattery. Fewming.

Alli is currently ineffective and a big problem. He was often the closest player to Henderson but rarely showed for the ball and did little other than pass it back or lose it. We need someone there who can link and can break the lines confidently. Loftus-Cheek has a way to go but he's the exact type of player. It's a massive shame AOC isn't fit, as he's genuinely perfect for it.

Christ. Awful, awful stuff. Horrific subs, like.

Would still hang out the back of it.

Ritchie was a passenger for half of the season. I like him a lot but he's definitely someone to be upgraded upon. As always, the question will be whether we reinvest. I know Townsend left with a bit of a sour taste, but he's the best winger we've had since Ben Arfa by quite a distance, imo. Kenedy is a no-brainer who will be a very good player (potentially world class) & was important last season, but he wasn't on the same level as Townsend was for us. Having both of them would be a treat, in the short term. Although, I have high hopes for Murphy this year.

Hope to Christ we get a decent striker in, like. We'd have had 10 more points last season with a half decent player leading the line.

This would be a great tactical squad move, assuming Ki is Merino's replacement, if the money was going to be properly reinvested... Very handy squad player to have.

What a fucking pen

That'll have cost them, like.

They all seem jubilant about it but they essentially have a bloke who has 8mill that needs to clear a far more significant amount of debt. He'll surely have to take money from sales to achieve that, if he can't find investors?

Ashley won't get it. From his statement, he doesn't think the team is as bad as it is. Probably reckons we're solid enough now, personnel-wise, that he can bring in a shitey PFM and we're good enough to stay up with minimal investment once again. There's really not a lot of point in supporting us anymore anyway, but no Rafa will render the whole thing a waste of time, for me.

Southgate is such a drip. When will England appoint a manager with a bit of gumption and vision?

So fucking bitter. It's delicious. Rafa can't develop players, apparently, but the same poster said we have a poor squad yet we've just finished top half. Some lethal mental gymnastics there.

He needs a run of games, like. Completely different coming on as an impact sub compared to finding your rhythm from the start, especially if you've not played a lot of football over the last few months. He did a couple of decent things and has some athleticism about him. Looking forward to seeing what he can do when we're actually on it. It was massively frustrating to see 3 great crosses into the box after he'd gone off.

Well, that was shite. We looked pretty flat. Disappointing as I wanted to carry the pressure on that knobhead.

Small victories Sums the club up, tbh.

Sounds like the bloke that does the Videos every week. It is! Recorded in his mam's en suite.

Fuck me :lol: https://youtu.be/OnH84rPVtGE

It's been really sad to see how things have turned out for him. I really like him but time certainly is up.

Didn't geordiedean or some other total rectangle say he was shite for Watford and we were mental for trying so hard to sign him? Rafa or geordiedean? Hmmmmmm.

They'll be wittering on about 6 in a row for years and years. It's literally the entire highlight of their club's existence since '73. We battered them for years and years and years. I look back on those times fondly but, fucking hell, I couldn't imagine hanging my hat on that as the pinnacle of experiences I've had with the club. The gravy-stained 'fatty' patter is weird as fuck, like. They talk about us as if we're a different species doesn't Sunderland have the highest levels of obesity in the country or something?

That commentary is proper cringe, like, and just massively unnecessary. I was watching the BT Gazetta documentary the other week and they made a great point about Brackley's commentating and how he didn't take it too seriously - he didn't try and take over the moment & make it 'epic'. Drury sounds like JR during a Hell in a Cell match.