To be fair to Southgate, he did that role alongside Howard Wilkinson and others 10 or so years ago. Whilst they’ve made strides with St. George’s Park and coach development we’re still a million miles behind many of our European neighbours.

It’s been the same all tournament, so many are totally incapable of taking the ball on the half turn especially in congested areas. Last night should have been a humbling experience for English football that laid bare the huge golf in technical ability of executing fundamentals of the game. None of which is down to Southgate, that’s a much wider problem

Having worked in academies for over 10 years the hoovering up of pre-academy 'talent' is now being identified as one one of the key problems, with the pre-academy selection in England being so heavily based on biological age. Meaning the vast majority of the players signed at u9 are September - December births with biological ages up to 12 months ahead. There are then a huge amount of technically gifted players left in grassroots football receiving appalling coaching, on terrible pitches with a playing style that is based on winning, again resulting in 'big lads' being pushed to the front. Also, we don't have better players than Spain in my opinion. There is just a huge amount of visibility bias towards players we see week in week out. Before the competition Fabian Ruiz was being hailed as a water carrier, he's arguably been the player of the tournament. The same can be said across the Spanish team. Thats before even mentioning their depth, missing Pedri, Gavi, Balde, Pau Cubarsi. You look beyond Englands starting eleven and it's Conor Gallagher who with the greatest respect is a decent PL player but nowhere near being an elite CM, Zubamendi who is a 3rd choice rotation is far superior.

The coaching set up is far superior in Spain than it is to the UK. Grassroots clubs have incredibly highly qualified coaches and gaining your B and C license is a matter of course over there. Add in the availability of good quality artificial pitches, the use of Futsal alongside football makes for even better technical development. In the Uk providing you do the FA Safeguarding and the Playermaker (unfailable course) you can call yourself a coach and run several teams.

I find all the talk of most successful manager such a small island mentality. Teams play more knockout games than ever in expanded competitions with a diminishing level of quality. When it comes down to brass tacks England have won nothing. They’ve won 2 games in normal time in this completion. However you wish to draw positives from that the reality is there for all to see.

The only worrying thing about these kits is that in recent history our best kits have resulted in the worst league positions (barring the league 1 away kit). I'm thinking the two red collared Perspex style kits (princes trust and Coyle season), both resulted in relegation!

It's hard to say what a realistic valuation, market wise is for Szmodics. I believe there is a significant difference between his value to us and his value to others in this scenario. From a stats point of view, he's 28, played the majority of his career in League 1 and scored over a 3rd of his career goals in a single season. A total of 38 championship goals (32 for us and 6 for Peterborough) across 114 apps, a goal every 3 and a bit games. So it all depends on how clubs view last year, whether it's a statistical outlier or the start of an upward trend. 3 or 4 years ago, you could see someone chancing 15million + on him, a la Armstrong. Those days seem long gone though, clubs less willing to take financial risks due to PSR and the step up from championship to PL seemingly harder by the year. From an objective 'football business' point of view you'd have to say 10 million (plus add ons) seems a fair fee given his age and record. From a subjective Rovers view he's priceless, history tells us the money would not be re-invested and with the greatest respect to Messrs Gallagher, Leonard and Dolan I think they'd struggle to meet his individual goal tally, collectively.

Also being allowed and being willing are two very different things, for every £ they send they've got to spend/deposit a further £ which they seem unwilling/unable to do

Very Palermo

I think it’s smart, bit different. Wonder if the shirts are pink or white? White May break it up a bit, a full pink kit could be a little bit angel delight

With an ST and the club cash thing that was part of 1875 it made it a real softener, I remember one year getting my lads kid for about 20 quid

Sorry, my mistake. Agreed, maybe an argument had De Jong been fit but not sure he’s in the world class bracket with the last few injury ravaged seasons he’s had

True, but the OP said no world class midfielders rather than CM’s. I think Simons could cause England a massive headache

Xavi simons is well on his way to being world class

Stones is world class, the only reason he hasn’t played as much at City this year is down to injury. When fit he is probably one of the first names on the team sheet. England lack a world class CM on the pitch, there is one from Wilpshire not getting a kick though.

Infant kit is 48, which in my experience fits up to a 7 year old. Shirt alone for an 8 year old is 47, shorts 24 and socks 13 with printing you don’t get much change out of £100. Rovers are charging similar to most clubs however that doesnt make it right. Made me chuckle Nike putting out a statement re the lack of England shirt sales due to people buying fakes, well stop charging extortionate prices then for a garment that costs less that 3 pounds to produce

Women’s sponsor reminds me of the Perspex one

In fact, other than the colours and inclusion of red there is nothing 94/95 about it. I love it but think they’ve made a bit of a cock up claiming it’s 94/95 inspired

I love it, but it’s a 92-94 inspired kit not 94/95. It’s a virtually carbon copy of 92-94 barring the collar being solid blue

Indirect free kicks are given for a back pass which is arguably a more ‘serious’ handball so there would be logic in applying an indirect free kick to an accidental handball. The only issue being that ‘accidental’ would become so subjective to the point it would tumble on for weeks on SSN and Talkshite

I’m sure in previous years it’s been revealed a few days before going on sale.

I thought we’d get to see it today and buy tomorrow, not many non local folk likely to get to Ewood tomorrow facing only seen it at 9am

I think calling it 3-4-3 is being kind to Southgate. It was more 5-4-1 or 5-2-2-1 if we're putting a positive spin on it, there were 7 defensive players and 3 forwards.

Released tomorrow on sale Friday, that's been the case the last couple of years too I'm sure.

I think the overly inflated fee for Grayy, etc (you can chuck Elliot Anderson and others in with this) is to make paper transfers at the end of the PSR window to allow clubs to sign other players. Thats not to say that we didn't undersell Adam but I think we're in a position where untested academy players or middle of the road academy products will go for hugely inflated fees this summer. The whole thing is broken, clubs selling off their homegrown products for nonsense fees to comply with a made up rule.