TheBrownBottle

Italy are so numbingly average I don’t think they’ve got the players to do it. I watched their game at home vs North Macedonia last year when they lost and got knocked out of the WC playoffs. That was the same story. They’ve got nowt about them.

The Sheff Wed band gave that dirge some accompaniment

You’d think not qualifying for two consecutive WCs would be bad enough for Italy, but if they don’t qualify for a 24-team Euros that would surely be the nadir. UEFA has basically made it impossible for any side which isn’t completely and utterly shite not to qualify.

I wouldn’t hoy any money on Italy, either.

Kane is a blinding centre forward like

Maguire - though the fact that my brain took more than a microsecond to process the answer is damning

It was pisspoor GKing mind

*Sean Longstaff reads this and smiles*

All about Bellingham that one. Sublime.

It hasn’t been replayed on the Australian feed tbh - haven’t had the chance to see it again. He went down like he’d been shot

That Sheff Wed band having been going for over quarter of a century now, and they are a still a fucking blight on England matches.

Spectacular dive from Foden, that

Saka is a big miss - that lad fizzes with energy and intelligence.

FIFA still had those shit rules at the last WC re ‘predominately light or dark’ kits, which is why England and Italy’s kits now look uniform. It’s a shite rule

Definitely. It says a lot about his footballing intelligence that he can do that reasonably comfortably.

I remain in the ‘Rashford is a decent gadgie but not an international class footballer’ camp. He’s too ‘streaky’

I wouldn’t be happy seeing him there for Newcastle tbf. But Southgate’s selections have become increasingly bizarre. England managers, like US presidents, should have a term limit …

No, your second point was. Your first: ’The Ashley mindset in some of our fans is taking a while to shift mind’ Was a reply to a previous poster saying that we shouldn’t sell players because of FFP, that this would be small time.

Playing the ball doesn’t come into it - stopping a clear GS opportunity does. Looks like Bellingham was stretching for the ball so that wouldn’t be an obvious GS opportunity

Has to be a red too

Cheech and Chong @ St James Park

It’s what the A-League should be all about, and it is beginning to produce young players

Yep, Irankunda in particular looks like he could be a real talent, still very young of course. I enjoyed watching Nieuwenhof play for WSW, it’ll be interesting to see how he gets on at Hearts. It can be hard to tell how young lads will develop, of course. But there’s some canny young players coming out of this country at the moment.

C Ronaldo is one of a handful of players who can effectively self-fund a transfer via additional revenues brought into a club (even one as big as Juve). It isn't an apt comparison to an excellent midfielder like Bruno who also isn't going to shift the commercial dial much

The idea that we can't be selling better players in order to spend. If we sold Bruno, it would hardly be to line the owners' pockets a la Ashley. We would sell in order to improve the squad - if we sold Bruno for 100m (extremely doubtful) that could fund buying several 100m footballers under FFP. But apparently that can't be considered, because that is 'Ashley-like thinking'. Until NUFC's revenues are up with the elites - and based on the adidas and Sela deals, we're not there yet - then of course we'd have to consider selling players. And we shouldn't act like wet blankets if we do.