St. Maximin

Long shot here… but anyone watched football in Boston (USA) and know of a bar that would show it at 10am? Cheers

Hopefully he bonds well with his team mates on the trip abroad.

Yes this is a good one. And on the subject of camera angle pet hates, any camera angle for penalties that isn’t your standard angle. No need.

Agree on the mentality/team ethic/culture absolutely, but not sure I’d agree on the decisions. If we don’t know the alternatives then we can’t say for sure they were justified unless they always brought us the desired results. On both occasions we ultimately failed against decent teams after having fortunate draws and there’s reason to think Southgate was tactically naive in both of those matches. Also he persistently picks Mount and there’s no justification for that based on England form. Hungary were of course brilliant, but losing 0-4 at home to them is still absolutely pathetic and after this nations league it’s absolutely right he’s getting stick.

I don’t really see the squad as overrated imo. I’m 32 and there have definitely been better squads on paper in my lifetime, but this is still one of the best in the world. The PL is I think the best league in the world in recent years, judging by the number of teams excelling in Europe and we’ve got players consistently dominating it. We have a clear imbalance in our squad, but I don’t think anyone is in denial about that - they just recognise there is so much attacking talent in the squad and feel frustrated it gets sacrificed to shore up a defence, without the desired results. I can hardly look at some of the players in our spine and think they’re world class, but right now how many teams can you say that for? Is this really a golden era for centre-backs/midfielders in general? In fact in general I can’t say international football is an amazing standard. Italy were deserved winners at the Euros and tbh I had barely heard of half their team. Southgate has the typical English overly cautious approach. Different sports and all that, but watching cricket all day and it’s interesting how we get a Kiwi coach in and all of a sudden stop playing with fear. Need a bit more of that in football.

Agree with this, though he does have players from some of the best teams in the world playing consistently exciting and attacking football. I think he’s restricting them from playing their natural game - understandable to an extent - but too far imo. Defensive managers tend to be effective (like Rafa at Newcastle) because the players available encourage that.

I think purely by the semi-final and final in his two major tournaments, Southgate has earned the right to manage this WC. He’s clearly more than just a nice bloke - I think he does an excellent job for the team spirit and has helped the public love the team again; the values of which can’t be underestimated for major tournaments. It’s also absolutely right to point out teams tend to win tournaments by being defensive. However, Southgate’s approach just shows his tactical limitations and I find there’s got to be a balance he’s not striking - the big tournament conservative approach to him seems to be sacrificing our strengths (attack) to shore up the weakness (defence), leaving multiple strong attacking players on the bench. And also Mount on the pitch despite continuing to be crap for England. There definitely just seems to be an English mindset of being a bit cynical of being aggressive, risk-taking, backing out abilities etc. I agree with previous comments that we set up like underdogs despite having arguably the second best squad in a tournament virtually hosted at home for us. This seems to get reflected in some of our fans who think the team were brave heroes for winning a few games they should have won. Those Sports Personality awards were a joke.

If we’re going by form I imagine Tomori is the best CB having won the league with Milan. Also apparently speaks Italian well already so automatically boosts the team intellect.

It probably would have been yeah, but we don’t know what the journalist would have followed up with. He was ultimately put on the spot by a difficult journalist and understandably not used to answering questions about his morals. It also wasn’t the only scenario he was asked about and perhaps it was a time in history he didn’t really know about.

Then it’s a stupid question and Westwood seems more justified in his comments about hypothetical situations, especially if that one was impossible. Not really sure why a journalist needs to know about their moral positions in general, let alone over hypothetical situations.

Not sure why they should be the ones being criticised when a journalist is clearly being difficult. They may not be as articulate as Howe, but presumably both parties have been rightly advised not to answer due to criticism they’ll receive. As Westwood said they’re hypothetical questions, so don’t really deserve an answer. We all know it’s about money for what its worth, but even then I’m not sure why they should be held to a higher standard than the many other people in sport benefiting from Saudi investment… or politicians.

Indeed, but now just about everyone realises this compared to before when many more thought he did a good job despite those nasty deluded Geordies.

Thing is when he got sacked I thought what a silly man he was for his quotes, but it was more frustrating seeing how the narrative from social media was what a horrible bunch we all were, no doubt thanks in part to him. Fast forward a few months and he’s been shown up to everyone the fraud that he is, so he now just seems to be a laughing stock.

Correct. It may have been a penalty. It may not have. Even if there was some contact, it may not have been significant enough. Contact doesn’t equal foul. It absolutely isn’t obviously a penalty and a sign you need your eyes testing if you don’t agree. Whatever you think of VAR, it did it’s job correctly here.

I’ve watched that several times and I’m still yet to see the clear contact tbh. If anything it’s minimal and may not qualify as a penalty. If it was the other way round though VAR would have probably kept it.

Is that clear contact? It can’t have been much if so, at least from angles I’ve seen. His foot might have brushed the attacker’s foot but that’s hardly a stonewall penalty, so I think VAR was right. I’d be annoyed if something like that was given against us.

Grealish may be a massive whopper, but he’s hardly scum of the earth here. He’s just having shit banter while hammered. Nothing to get upset about.

“I thought what’s his name - Tottenham striker - stayed on the pitch too long… we really should have bought Sanchez on. He’d have changed the game” My neighbour the day after the Euros final, only he apparently happens to work for the FA, knows Chris Hughton and was “texting Gareth” after the match about his tactics.

Pretty much how I see things regarding Lampard. I think he’s an average manager who gets an easy ride in the media, but he doesn’t seem offensive - just boring imo. The Tory stuff I think is just looking for a reason to hate the bloke when he’s hardly been harping on about how much he loves their most harmful policies etc.

They were in horrendous form before he was sacked. Whatever he was doing was clearly not working and he was falling out with players causing issues with his stubbornness. I don’t think it was simply a case of getting off to a slow start and waiting for his methods to work. They weren’t any signs change was just around the corner. I mean Lampard may not have been the most inspiring of choices, but he had to take over a team in a mess rather like Howe did (albeit in differing circumstances), so his stats won’t really impress (especially initially) but I think context is important.

Got no strong feelings either way for Everton but the Rafa connection I just find irrelevant too. He no longer owes us anything and we likewise the opposite - he had a new job he chose to take and whatever else was going on, he failed and had to take ownership of it. It was a silly appointment in the first place, but in the circumstances it wasn’t a silly sacking.

Btw I’m just messing, sorry that seemed a bit blunt lads . I don’t really have any strong feelings either way for him or Everton, or Burnley for the record. Just nice it’s not us. Fair play go him though even if it’s just short term as the whole club was a mess when he took over.

He’s unavailable sadly. Luckily lots of other Tories are available for me.

Lampard did a reasonable job and kept them up after the previous guy was a disaster, irrespective of his track record. There are plenty of worse blokes in football. You don’t have to despise the guy or mind when he gets praise.

I mean for balance it isn’t true either