Erikse

And then he's onside because a fraction of his shoe is on, because a fraction of the defenders shoe lines up with it.

It's like that with handball aswell. People will complain nomatter what the rule is. Change it to just "intentional" = subjective and inconsistent refereeing.

But if we go to the point about lack of quality available, then the point about the quality of the players from Serbia and Denmark becomes valid again. What type of ability does Serbia and Denmark have available in all the various positions? If you look at Denmarks midfield yesterday, I wouldn't exactly feel sorry for Southgate having to play someone like Wharton (or any mid table CM) alongside Rice and Bellingham. And that's ingoring the huge gap in quality in most positions compared to theirs, and solely focusing on the weaknesses of England.

The point is that he has a big number of players to choose from. It's up to him to make up the system and pick the players for that system to work, regardless of how big the name of the player is. Teams like Denmark don't have much luxury, because they don't have much quality to choose from. They might be lucky enough to have a system that works where they can also fit the stronger players, kudos to the coach for creating that system, if so.

Fair, but that's also up to Southgate. Lots of players that didn't start yesterday (or even get picked in the first place) would start for Serbia and/or Denmark. Shouldn't be that hard for him to stitch together a team and tactics that would be comfortable playing against those teams. They probably also have some cohesion problems of their own by the way, that's the case for most national teams.

I agree that the team is unbalanced, but if you compare the player material to the players you've been facing in the first 2 games.. Better to have 8-9 strong players with 2 weaker ones than being balanced by having consistenly mediocre players all over the field. The tactics looks pretty bad, and it's not hard to see. I honestly think Denmark would be starting Gallagher if he was Danish. Foden too, even as a left winger. It's better than what they've got.

How does he keep playing him in midfield? Is he not watching the games?

Head to head comes first. Goal difference unlikely to matter here.

Sounds like the perfect Chelsea signing.

I don't rate Mourinho anymore, but Man Utd did way better during his years than now, and they were happy to see him go back then. How times have changed.

Where do I sign up as volunteer?

Dan Burn at left back for England putting in crosses for Harry Kane. We will be questioning how Southgate didn't think of it.

How does it work, though? Does part of the fee count towards FFP immidiately? And if so, it's just going to be around 1/5th of it, right?

I don't like either option, so hard to say. Problem is that the rules simply won't change in a way that could threaten the elite.

If we didn't lose out on ECL, it would be quite a bit more.

Don't get your hopes up. We were certain that he wouldn't be our LB last season.

First team to win 4 years in a row, and point wise Man Utd didn't ever manage to get the 98-100 points that City has managed on 2 occasions. Their highest is 92. If you add together the points accumulated by Man City in the last 6 seasons, no consecutive 6 seasons by any team would come close. I would guess that Liverpools total in the last 6 years is closer to what Man United achieved at their best, and may even be better than Man Utds strongest 6 consecutive seasons. Yet, also Liverpool are far off of Man Citys total. If FFP existed pre Abramovich, Man Utd would still dominate. Probably even more. How would you feel if they still complained about being restricted, saying it was unfair towards them?

But they also didn't have laws in place to limit potensial competitors. No club has dominated the PL like Man City is doing now. The current system itself is also protecting them, despite limiting them from spending insane amounts of money. You can't just look at them being limited while ignoring the fact that every other team is being limited spending wise, most of them way more, without having much chance of changing that fact.

Matter of fact is that Man City has had the most income through sponsorship. Etihad Airways is by far the biggest sponsorship deal in footballing history. Look what happened. 4 years in a row. They can still spend the most, and this will continue to be true. This is the defintion of "uncompetitive": "characterized by a desire to avoid fair competition." This is what Man City want, to avoid fair competition. It's kind of the problem we have with FFP, that it just retains the status quo. Man Citys domination is fueled by FFP. If it were up to them, they wouldn't want any more changes to be brought up, because the system is already made for them to continue their domination. So, they can cry me a river here.

Like every other team, right? Don't see how that's uncompetitive. They will easily get other good sponsorship deals, just not overly inflated ones.

"It is a move that has sparked civil war among Premier League clubs, with City claiming their Abu Dhabi owners are victims of “discrimination” and the rules around associated party transactions (APT), which were introduced in December 2021, amount to a “tyranny of the majority”. They also say the rules are designed to stifle their future success on the pitch." They've literally won 4 in a row under the current rules, while continously being the club that are allowed to spend the most every season, having most other teams being held back by FFP.. I feel really bad for them, they are so hard done by..

Schär maybe? Edit: already mentioned

But if Liverpool comes along, we will give him away for £40m and he will lower his wages to £60.000 per week. Obviously.

Corner vs goalkick, throw ins, and the more obvious offsides so that we don't need to wait for the chance to finish, and then for VAR to check it, on every single offside decision.

Can't wait for the Saudis to bail out Chelsea, just to make it even worse. This could just be another way for the media to make more stories about our players being sold though, no? They love using the phrase "desperate to sell".