TheBrownBottle

Fernandez and Caicedo were utterly insane transfers by a club throwing money about like it was going out of fashion. Grealish’s passport accounts for a fair mark-up. Perhaps a club will be crackers enough to bid £100m+ for Bruno. I doubt it though.

Excerpt from that latest modern classic: ’I was about to put the keys in the Jag. It’s the latest F-Type R75 Coupe. The model with Metal treadplates with Limited Edition branding. It is everything you’d ever want in a car. I suddenly thought about how this desirable car could be used against a top football manager by those terrorists. So I got out and looked behind the wheels; they are the 20" Style 1066, Diamond Turned with Gloss Black contrast which go towards making this car such a favourite of successful business and entertainment people. And that’s when I saw the flashing light of the car bomb. I thanked my instincts and - quick as a flash - used the tweezers that my attractive younger wife bought me for my birthday last week to cut the yellow wire. I knew about the yellow wire on car bombs from when I was top of the class in O-Level electronics.’

From 1st July other clubs aren’t limited by FFP for the current season. I don’t think the speculation will end until the window closes. I also think it’s likely that Bruno stays as I don’t think anyone will offer what we’d likely want and he’s unlikely at the moment to agitate for a move - he isn’t a £100m footballer, and I’d be surprised if we got a bid for that amount. The clause would have been set at that amount and agreed by the club because it outstrips their valuation of him - you don’t agree to automatic release clauses under or equal to the amount that you think a player is worth to you.

How many international sides historically have been full of world class players? They usually aren’t. France 98-00 and Spain 08-12 are the only sides I can think of in my lifetime where this could be said. Every other international side which won WCs or continental competitions had weaknesses. England has a significant proportion of top players, and relative to the rest of the teams in the tournament potentially has more than anyone else, which is not something which we could say historically. Southgate is pissing away the country’s best ever opportunity to win international competitions. Euro 2020 will always be the nadir for this - and that Serbia game was remarkably similar. Take an early lead then retreat into a shell, when the talent was there to go and get a killer second goal if you only had the bollocks to go and get it.

I’m perfectly happy to blame Southgate for Foden’s performances. They are the performances of a poorly managed player. The lad is simply playing uncoached for England, it is clear that Southgate cannot get the lad to unlearn elements of what he does for Man City which won’t work in this England side. TAA in midfield is a pisstake. You’d think Southgate would remember being played in midfield by Keegan and think ‘this isn’t a good idea’. It is just a miserable experience watching a Southgate-managed England side. They’ve got the best attacking players in this tournament, and this mediocre empty suit has them playing on the back foot with two holding midfielders despite England not producing any holding midfielders. I just want to be entertained, I’m not that arsed about England winning or losing. The quicker the glaky looking twat gets the boot the better.

You get nothing in this game for three on the bench

Imagine having the attacking options England has, and then looking at the defensive options and thinking ‘defensive football is our best bet’. The man is an oaf.

Every England manager in my lifetime suffers from having a preferred system and plugging players into it, instead of basing the system on the players available, which is why I’m watching Foden being so poor and a clumsy TAA completely out of position in midfield. Robson is the only manager who changed it, mainly because the players pretty much forced the change on him at Italy ‘90.

Jenas was very much part of that group after his first season. I saw him enough times in Baja Beach Club to confirm that. He started acting the twat and word got around - which is where the ‘goldfish bowl’ comment came from.

He had a lot of poor games in his final season or so. Went completely off the boil - that’s why we pretty much got back what we paid for him.

They’ve also got a turnover which is double the size of ours, even when they’ve underperformed on the pitch. That gives a lot of headroom.

Southgate not doing what I used to on Champ Man when I was a national team manager with the option to pick dual national players - you give them a competitive cap and then see how they develop

But it isn’t in KSA - and that’s the point. KSA doesn’t have the Rule of Law - it has an uncodified legal system based upon Sharia, which is reliant entirely on the rulings of appointed judges (though precedent and case law don’t apply there - ‘justice’ is literally the whim of the judge and his interpretation of Sharia and a few regulations). We’re not talking about ‘normal’ even in the context of the Middle East. It isn’t defendable.

We've made a Faustian pact, there's no two ways about it. Sadly, given KSA's record on workers' and human rights no-one should be surprised in the least. Nothing much we as supporters can do about it - other than not defend the undefendable when it rears its ugly head.

100%. Can’t picture a red Manc swapping getting the PL trophy back off Man City for England winning a Euros.

Well-off and Southern.

I’ve never met anyone in that 33%. Someone’s fibbing. Is this like the shy Tory effect? Or are people putting on a Geordie accent and saying ‘England’? I get more excited by NUFC winning a corner than England winning a match.

‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ trophy winner on RTG 2023/24 Bunch of weird fuckers 😀 - the day after Del Piero was in the press talking about how he could’ve signed for us in his prime, we’re to believe that nee-one in Europe has heard of NUFC …

Aye, fair enough. £100m for Minteh it is

Tbf the lad could end up being class, or he might end up being ok, or he might end up doing nothing. But I wouldn’t rely on statistics from the Dutch league as a perfect benchmark for future performance in England, which some have implied. Him being in the top 1 percentile on a variety of stats is a positive, but that doesn’t mean that it follows that he’ll be a star in a tougher league.

The two seasons he played in Holland, the Eredivisie could boast the European Cup winners and the European Cup runners-up. Completely different world.

It was the Robson not the Keegan era when he was linked to us

We were knocked out by the Yugoslavians. * looks at first group game* Bugger

Words fail

I meant that Wallsend isn’t in Newcastle either, but no-one would consider someone from Wallsend not to be a Geordie.