Rupert Pupkin

It's not hyperbole to say that the Saudis are one of the closest things on Earth at the moment to the Nazis is it? If you were going to pick the most brutal regime around, is there one worse? North Korea possibly but at least they're not bombing anyone. The UK had pretty good relations with the Nazi regime up until the outbreak of war, Edward VIII was a friend of Hitler. I don't think "our government likes them" is the most robust defence, you could say the same about Assad and Gaddafi, these people are always our "friends" until they're not. You missed the point. Take all that moral shit stuff to the other thread, not this one. Jeez. There is also a positive optimism thread where you can avoid all the "moral shit." Surely this thread should be for everyone to put their point of view.

Protests won't get him out of the club. Untill some one pays him his asking price he'll stick around unfortunately And what affect do you think anti-SD protests have on his asking price? Do you think it will raise it? If we hammer SD, that decreases the value of the free advertising he gets from the club. It's not hard to follow the logic really, don't be intentionally dense.

Fuck off! Sports Direct is a shameful business, never mind the whole NUFC protest. I hope their shares plummet and you and the fat cunt both end up broke. Anyone who is holding shares in a company (for reasons of financial gain) which acts the way Sports Direct do towards their employees should be lined up and fucking shot! We are talking about a company which has been specifically named in slave labour trials here. So, once again, fuck off, you utter fucking cunt. Fucking "honest business" my arse! p.s. I might be a little drunk right now, but still, fuck off.

As it says in the article- if you read it- they are back together. He must have won her back with his charm and wit.

Let's say, just for the sake of argument that you are 100% correct, I don't think you are but... even then, what is to be gained by talking this way? It just brings everyone down at a time when people are trying to motivate others to get involved in protests. It's not helpful.

I agree with that, and also Rafa possibly wanting to protect the players from sanction by the cunts, so he is going to deliver the message himself, rather than putting the players in the position where they feel they have to back him up and then end up getting sanctioned over it.

I'm sure Rafa would love Wellbeck, but I can't see us paying his wages.

He's not pointing, he's demonstrating his prostate exam technique. That was a bloody good joke, prostate cancer awareness kit and that; and nothing. Fuck all of you! Dinho was right, bloody clique!

He's not pointing, he's demonstrating his prostate exam technique.

People parroting the "tire kicker" stuff about Staveley absolutely blows my mind. I'm genuinely amazed that people still swallow Ashley's bullshit so easily.

Rafa will sign a new contract when the new owners come in.

How about incontinence? Just a never ending stream of shit. Indolence? There must be a few more.

"Have you ever seen bendy water?" absolutely killed me.

Log on to the N-O forum. Check the transfer thread in the vague hope we might be going to spend some money, get pissed off. Move to the Mike Ashley thread because I'm pissed off, get more pissed off. Come to this thread to cheer myself up a bit. Leave. Repeat.

Chanting about the fat cunt does nothing anyway, he doesn't care about peoples personal perception of him. He only cares about Sports Direct and the free advertising he gets from the club, if some of that free advertising involved chants directly aimed at SD, negatively (obviously) it affects what he cares about most. Ashley is perfectly happy to play the pantomime villain so long as SD receives the free advertising that his ownership of the club allows, lower the value of that free advertising and you lower the value of the club to him, making a sale more possible. I'm convinced going after SD directly is the only way.

Or, we could read the names on the tweets.

I wouldn't worry about the affect it would have on peoples jobs. SD is a shitty employer, if their stores close down, someone else moves in and it ends up having a positive impact on peoples employment situation overall. Attacking SD is the best way of getting rid of Ashley -- publicity for SD is literally the only reason he owns the club, he doesn't care about anything else, if the fans can make using the club as a sponsorship vehicle for SD more hassle than it's worth, that's the day he fucks off.

It'd just be more of the same with Vardy though. I'm talking about a proper shock n' awe plan B where we literally say fuck it, let's send on the biggest, most aggressive centre forward we have and go old school Stoke-style for twenty minutes - Trippier and a winger banging in crosses from the flanks, Shelvey knocking them in the box early from the centre and our frontline bullying the shit out of their defenders. If we knew it was plan B and for most of the game we'd be trying to play decent football, i reckon the fans and players would accept it. What an utterly depressing scenario this is. England need a plan B, but not one inspired by Pulis. How can anyone watch Maguire and Stones in this World Cup and think we need to "get it in the mixer?" Is this a joke that's gone straight over my head? Depressing! How so? When it came down to it, against the one team with anything about them, we had no plan B. Our plan B was more of plan A but with different players and we got beaten. Even Belgium, arguably the best footballing team in the competition, went direct against Japan and it led to them winning the game. The other criticism you can level against this England team is that for all the possession we had, we didn't create enough chances from open play. If you can't go round them and you can't go through them, what's the next best option to try - the same thing again or something different? Should we bring Crouch back in from the international wilderness too? Go long has been England's plan B for 50 years and it has never worked, why would it work now? Belgium brought on Fellaini, but even then they didn't just look to lump it forward, look at the winning goal, it was direct, but not in the Pulis kind of way. Part of the problem for England against Croatia is that they did end up going too direct up to Kane and it just played right in to Lovren and Vida's hands. If you want to win a major tournament you have to have control of the matches, and if Plan A doesn't give you that, as it didn't against Croatia, then switch to a Plan B that does, not just "lump it forward and hope." Shelvey didn't go to Russia at least in part because he didn't fit in England's system at all. He's not defensively good enough to be the holding player, and he doesn't have the pace or stamina required of the other midfield roles. Southgate will have to develop a plan B, now that he has time to do so. The switch to the 3-3-2-2 was too late to also be trying to get the players to adapt to a second new system at the same time, but he could look to adopt a 3-4-3 as a plan B where someone like Shelvey could play alongside Henderson or Dier, a bit like the role De Bruyne was being asked to do for Belgium. I'd much rather see something like that than England resorting to Sunday league tactics. again peak leicester would have to be your template for a plan b when under the cosh by a team you can't get the ball off tighten up into a 4 and play targetted, quality balls into the space between/behind CB's and FB's using the pace we have...that's where shelvey would have been invaluable...wouldn't have worked at all with the midfielders southgate took I don't think an international side has the time together to be able to learn to play two entirely different systems though, I think a plan B would have to be more of a tweak than a total change of style and formation. A 3-4-3 would have allowed England to exploit the space in behind the fullbacks with Harry Kane keeping the CB's occupied, or looking to run in behind on occasion, but we would need better passing from the deep midfielders, which Shelvey could provide, and Dier can't. It's not a huge change of system, but it would have helped lighten the workload for Henderson and made England more of a threat in wide areas which might have stopped Croatia pushing their fullbacks so far up the pitch, which is what killed us really. So, yeah, I basically agree, except about going to a back 4.

It'd just be more of the same with Vardy though. I'm talking about a proper shock n' awe plan B where we literally say fuck it, let's send on the biggest, most aggressive centre forward we have and go old school Stoke-style for twenty minutes - Trippier and a winger banging in crosses from the flanks, Shelvey knocking them in the box early from the centre and our frontline bullying the shit out of their defenders. If we knew it was plan B and for most of the game we'd be trying to play decent football, i reckon the fans and players would accept it. What an utterly depressing scenario this is. England need a plan B, but not one inspired by Pulis. How can anyone watch Maguire and Stones in this World Cup and think we need to "get it in the mixer?" Is this a joke that's gone straight over my head? Depressing! How so? When it came down to it, against the one team with anything about them, we had no plan B. Our plan B was more of plan A but with different players and we got beaten. Even Belgium, arguably the best footballing team in the competition, went direct against Japan and it led to them winning the game. The other criticism you can level against this England team is that for all the possession we had, we didn't create enough chances from open play. If you can't go round them and you can't go through them, what's the next best option to try - the same thing again or something different? Should we bring Crouch back in from the international wilderness too? Go long has been England's plan B for 50 years and it has never worked, why would it work now? Belgium brought on Fellaini, but even then they didn't just look to lump it forward, look at the winning goal, it was direct, but not in the Pulis kind of way. Part of the problem for England against Croatia is that they did end up going too direct up to Kane and it just played right in to Lovren and Vida's hands. If you want to win a major tournament you have to have control of the matches, and if Plan A doesn't give you that, as it didn't against Croatia, then switch to a Plan B that does, not just "lump it forward and hope." Shelvey didn't go to Russia at least in part because he didn't fit in England's system at all. He's not defensively good enough to be the holding player, and he doesn't have the pace or stamina required of the other midfield roles. Southgate will have to develop a plan B, now that he has time to do so. The switch to the 3-3-2-2 was too late to also be trying to get the players to adapt to a second new system at the same time, but he could look to adopt a 3-4-3 as a plan B where someone like Shelvey could play alongside Henderson or Dier, a bit like the role De Bruyne was being asked to do for Belgium. I'd much rather see something like that than England resorting to Sunday league tactics.

It'd just be more of the same with Vardy though. I'm talking about a proper shock n' awe plan B where we literally say fuck it, let's send on the biggest, most aggressive centre forward we have and go old school Stoke-style for twenty minutes - Trippier and a winger banging in crosses from the flanks, Shelvey knocking them in the box early from the centre and our frontline bullying the shit out of their defenders. If we knew it was plan B and for most of the game we'd be trying to play decent football, i reckon the fans and players would accept it. What an utterly depressing scenario this is. England need a plan B, but not one inspired by Pulis. How can anyone watch Maguire and Stones in this World Cup and think we need to "get it in the mixer?" Is this a joke that's gone straight over my head?

If England won we'd have got Rondon, because we won't it's no one.

Alli and Lingard weren't the problem. They were doing a ton of defensive work throughout the tournament, and especially today, closing down in midfield and then getting out to try to close down the fullbacks too. They both played very well, imo. We needed to change the system today, after half time two up top wasn't working and we were getting overrun in midfield. LC for Sterling instead of Rashford would have been better, with Kane up top on his own, or Vardy, though there was no way Kane was going to come off. The 352 has worked really well, but we need a plan B for when it doesn't, like tonight. Croatia exploited the weaknesses of it really well tonight, with those driven cross-field balls to their fullbacks overstretching England's midfield and forcing the wingbacks to drop back in to a back 5.

I wouldn't say I'm confident about the Colombia game. I've been watching England too long for that, but Colombia looked really poor today. Senegal should have beaten them, they just lacked a bit of quality and composure in the box. Colombia couldn't handle Senegal's pressing in midfield or their physicality. England should really beat them. Obviously, whether James is fit or not will make a big difference to Colombia's chances too - he wen't off early in the Senegal match and he never really looked fully fit from the start.

Not sure I agree, strong left wing.