Yes - at major tournaments (WC, Euros) since 1990 we have only beaten the "big eight" (France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina) five times - Spain (96), Netherlands (96), Germany (00), Argentina (02), Germany (21). On the other hand we have lost to the big eight 11 times - Germany (96), Argentina (98), Portugal (00), Brazil (02), France (04), Portugal (04), Portugal (06), Germany (10), Italy (12), Italy (14), Italy (21). It would be interesting to see how this compares against the other big international teams... However I haven't got the bothered points to go through all eight teams results over last 30 years.

Interesting question - who'd everyone have in a combined Brazil and England XI? Its funny Id doubt Richalison would even make our squad but hes superb for Brazil. Probably for me : Alisson Trippier. T. Silva. Marquinos. A. Sandro Belligham. Rice Saka. Neymar. V. Junior Kane Brazil slightly edge us Id say 6 to 5. But in modern game the centre midfield is king and we have an advantage there now I think. That said in terms of quality on the bench Brazil are very good, as are England, but... I think Id rather have Jesus coming on to win a game over any of ours.

Looking back main differences from 18 months ago at the Euros is Belligham coming in and Saka and Rice having 18 months more experience. We do look a lot better for it. That said Nations League was pretty disappoining... So not wise to get carried away As Bellingham and Rice are real physical monsters I wonder if it will mean we will give 4231/433 a go? With Kante and Pogba out theyre probably the best physical pairing ok the competition so that means maybe we can loosen up a bit in competitive games? I guess we'll find out against Wales.

Yes agree its bizarre how few good matches there are. Hard to understand really since its 32 teams still. I guess some teams with good pedigreenot qualifying has diminished the interest quite a bit (Italy, Nigeria, Sweden, Chile, Russia, Ivory Coast, Norway) and having the lack of a host to get excited about. But surely who was scheduling the fixtures could have found a good game for the first weekend? Portugal v Spain in Russia really set the tournament going. You have to have one of those in the first few days.

If I was to pick one player who I wished Id seen live since I started following football (about 1991) I think Id go for Ronaldinho personally. Dont think theres anyone who can beat him for pure entertainment. Similarly just talking English players wish Id seen Le Tissier.

Yeah... the year we won the title Manchester United significantly out spent us, and I think Liverpool were there or thereabouts also. https://www.theguardian.com/football/when-saturday-comes-blog/2013/oct/23/blackburn-premier-league-title-earned-1995

Yeah - it's had completely reverse impact to what is desired by Qatar....Eight of the competiting teams have banned homosexuality, but they as hosts are the ones who are highlighted and attacked. They will get hammered relentlessly, as they should be. Hopefully it will deter horrible regimes from trying to co-opt sport. Also fans and media should step up going after the UAE and Saudis at the Man CIty and Newcastle games imo. Being very closely scrutinised should be the price of getting involved in sport.

I guess what I mean is all those players have grown up in a culture from the cradle where England are seen as someone to get one over due to the history. If you are drawing a parallel to the east lancs derby, I don't think we actually played any of the proper local lads who were emotionally invested in turning over Burnley. So I don't think it will be the same thing really. That said I've just been reading the Iranian players have refused to sing the national anthem recently due to the ongoing internal turmoil and repression and have a nascent revolution going on in their country, so maybe are not really going to be driven by patriotic ferver?

Yeah but Iran are next level. Its a current perception rather than something historical. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/25/military.iran

Think the first game could actually be a bit of a banna skin for us. Iran have a intense dislike of England that stretches back 200 years so will be very up for it, and are surprisingly ranked 20th in the world. Beat Uruguay last year.... The heat, lack of settled team, focus on off field issues, and the likely complacency we will show to a team seemingly so far off us in capability point to a few surprises.

We come back after the world cup and have a (hopefully) quite winnable home game against Preston then a very tough away game at Norwich. I'd hope by the time we play Norwich we've come up with some options. They will attack us in a very similar way to Burnley I imagine.

West Ham didnt really, felt they didnt do their homework. Burnley didn't make that mistake. We really need a strong central striker so we can play it long with confidence if needed. Id put 100% of the transfer budget into that personally.

Really disappointing day, feel bad for everyone who went. We created a few decent breaks first half and start of the second, but didn't get any shots away at all. Once Gallagher went off we stopped looking at all competitive, it could have been 5 or 6. While I can accept being beaten, the manner of the capitulation in the last 30 minutes is totally unacceptable. We desperately need a quality physical centre forward who can share the burden with Gallagher. Also I was very surprised we didnt move Diaz central after Gally went off and we toiled away with Vale up front. It was so clearly not going to work but we did it any way which I find absolutely baffling.

Yeah, that was a big shock tbh, really surprised he went as he was a key player for us and seemed happy enough. To me him going out of the blue for a relatively modest fee suggested Venkys were trying to get some money in, so I thought we'd sell a lot of players after but that didn't transpire. Didn't seem in the end like we needed to sell him, we just wanted to. Very strange. Really odd transfer. Suspect there was some issue behind the scenes?

Its the biggest town derby in the country - damn right its on TV. Will be whenever its played! Cant actually think of another big derby where both sides come from towns. Anyone think of one?

Really appreciate this - thanks!

Yeah, thought that, but being the first derby in six years and having a good season thought that maybe it could be different. Thanks for putting my fears to rest!

As an aside - I don't have a season ticket as I have kids and live in Manchester so can only get to a game about once a month... Probably got to about 10 games since I moved up from London last October, probs will be up to 12-13 by March. So established on the system if not a season ticket holder. With the return fixture at Ewood does anyone know what the chances of me getting tickets will be? Should I be able to get one for me? And how about friends? How many could I get? Ideally three would be good. Thanks!

Watching the West Ham game a few things struck me 1 - how ludicrous it was on the face of it for a rag tag squad of very young defenders (if you can even call Edun and JRC defenders) who had never played together as back a four to try and pass it out of the back against a very good, very physical, very athletic Premier League team. 2 - despite this madness how we kept on doing it all game, even when we gave it away cheaply a couple of times 3 - how it sort of.... worked. West Ham came onto us, and that meant we could find the balls into the channels and through the middle Maybe we got away with it because West Ham didn't take us seriously enough to properly press us? But on the whole really impressed how calm and confident we were passing out. As we have gone away to a team on paper so much better than us, I think it's safe to say we will continue in the same vein in the Championship, so we are going to have to get used to it. It does look like we are getting better at it.

I wouldn't read into the comments too much... if you could look at the threads when Souness, Mark Hughes or Sam Allardyce had us up in the top six of the Premier League the commentary is much the same... the negativity always outweighs the praise, but thats how it is on any fan board. Usually takes a while to get sufficient perspective on whoevers in charge. If we translate JDT's reign so far into simple factual bullets may be a bit more enlightening Pros We're second in the Championship We just beat a good Premier League team in the League cup in West Ham who played a strong team We've got the second youngest team in the division We've relatively little money on new players (compared to other teams at the top of the Championship) When we go ahead in a game we never lose We have the fourth lowest goals conceded in the league Cons When we go behind in the league we never come back Despite our lofty position we only have the eight highest goal tally... but that's not that bad? Um.... nothing else factual really. A lot of opinion about style of play... we've had some abject performances (Reading, Coventry), but also some spectacular ones (Blackpool, Watford) It's fair to say he has started fantastically well, and if he continues in this vein he's pretty much on course to be one of the greatest managerial appointments in Rovers' history. But we are only under half the season through, and spectacular drop offs after Christmas is something we have seen before, so I think it would be wise to wait till the end of the season until we can really make a balanced judgement! But we're enjoying the ride - welcome aboard! 🙂

I like Mola, reckon he will deputise for Scott Wharton next time hes out. Edun also lioks like he deserves a crack at left wing back if Pickering becomes unavailable. Its really an extraordinary set of young players we have.

And that we already have players who can pass the ball. Thought Buckley and Wharton did really well against West Ham. Dont think really we missed Travis. Garrett came on and was good. I think we have more than enough CMs personally and they have more than shown they have the quality. Im not keen to find the next experienced Bradley Johnson or Corey Evans to keep Wharton, Garrett and Buckley out of the team

Yeah I tend to agree, England have really lost their way in the last year or so. Not looked convincing in any game. Weve got some good players but you dont look at it and think we are competitve with the best. Kane and maybe Bellingham are the only two other top nations would really want. But.... Could have said that in 2018 or 2021, so we can't write us off at all.

Is this game being shown in any territories on iFollow?

Hedges will be expected to do the work of two men in that lineup... Joking aside part of me would love us to play like this. But realistically I don't think we can really do the 433 gegenpressing thing generally, let alone against one of the strongest teams in the division. If you do it well it's great. If you do it bad it's suicide.