Tribesman

Someone you can upgrade easily if you are prepared to invest or have good scouting, but I have no confidence we would replace him properly. I think he will stay for another season if Benitez stays, but can't blame him for leaving if Benitez doesn't sign a new contract because he would probably lose his chance of playing for Spain would be over then. If he does leave in the summer along with Benitez then the club is going to be in big trouble in the summer. We have important players that may want to leave, loan players we won't sign to replace and squad players that are not good enough to replace like Joselu. This is what happens when you don't back your manager properly. Reckon there’s a lot to the theory that his future is linked to Rafa’s - my first response to reading that quote was “Rafa’s gone”. Struggling to grasp the ambivalence to the idea of Ayoze leaving - he’s been our best player in 2019, and offers so much to our attack. Find the notion he could be adequately replaced by Almiron or Muto frankly weird. I think some other key players will look to leave if Benitez goes while their stock is high like Lascelles and Dubravka. He will be hard to replace and we will miss him more than the likes of Cabaye, Ben Arfa and Mitrovic who are oddly held in higher regard than Perez.

I would as well. I think we were linked with him last summer.

West Brom forgot to replace their manager.

Just ignore whatever I said in that post then.

Someone you can upgrade easily if you are prepared to invest or have good scouting, but I have no confidence we would replace him properly. I think he will stay for another season if Benitez stays, but can't blame him for leaving if Benitez doesn't sign a new contract because he would probably lose his chance of playing for Spain would be over then. If he does leave in the summer along with Benitez then the club is going to be in big trouble in the summer. We have important players that may want to leave, loan players we won't sign to replace and squad players that are not good enough to replace like Joselu. This is what happens when you don't back your manager properly.

In what way?

I think if Solskjaer keeps the likes of Mike Phelan in his backroom team and Man United strengthen their weakest areas in the summer then I think they will consistently finish in the top 4 which would make the Man United owners happy. I'm not sure though if he can get them back to seriously challenging the league title, but time will tell. I think he is a good fit though because he is liked by both players and fans and the previous managers after Ferguson never had that. Pochettino probably has the better CV, but I don't think he has helped himself with negative comments about how Spurs don't need trophies and should be happy with just finishing in the top 4 every season.

Found the video. The last 20 seconds.

I remember when Eamon Dunphy basically called him a fucking idiot on live tv and Souness never came back to RTE after that.

I didn't know Pepe was available for as low as £7 million when in Angers I thought they wanted £20 million. I don't the mind the club wanting to buy young talent, but you really have to push the boat out to make it successful.

International football is not for everybody, but there were actually some decent matches this week. I even enjoyed watching Ireland for the first time in a long time.

Apparently they want to sign Nicolas Pepe and Werner as well. There is going to be some pace in that attack if they sign those players. I seem to remember years ago like with Aubameyang and Lacazette we didn't want to sign Pepe for £20 million because he was too expensive, but could now be sold by Lille for £70 million.

They do and seem to always get the same couple of teams in their group all the time.

£100m for Sterling? Behave. If Coutinho can go for more than that then I think he would be worth it.

I do wonder would Real Madrid be better off spending £100 million on Sterling instead of Hazard.

A lot of the smaller European teams have really improved. Luxembourg are no longer just there to keep the score down.

Really impressive from England. Years ago after going a goal behind against such opposition it would have been an ugly draw at best.

Playoffs are based on the Nations League Just a small detail I left out in my last post.

I forgot the Euros expanded. I don't know how the play offs work this time because some teams are guaranteed a play off regardless where they finish in their group.

Your group is piss easy, you will get a play off with a couple of matches to spare.

Mourinho plans to go back to management in the summer. I can only see him at Inter Milan or Roma next season. I wish he would stick to being a pundit I would love it if he was on Sky or BT. I hope he turns his career around because off the pitch he comes across as a nice guy.

For me it’s France, followed by Belgium & England in Europe. I would go with that. Probably only France have more depth than England.

That Spain squad is not as good as it used to be. England probably have a better squad.

I saw that, I wonder what powers the new FAI CEO will have now. We need more stories to force him out completely.

John Delaney resigning as FAI CEO.