22 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Mrs E fancies him now 🤣 last time I heard her react like that to someone, she'd just seen Daniel Craig walk out of the sea in Casino Royale!

Make the most of it while you can - have a bath, pop on some aftershave  and you might be on to a promise. 

He's meeting the squad for the first time today and  rather worried his first reaction will be "Where's the rest of you?""

Underneath this thread it says "hot" is that referring to the number of posts or JDT? 

1 minute ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

They run with it but they rarely go past people. Gazza took opponents out of the game with his ability to go past players with the ball under his spell.

A better version of Joe Rothwell is what we need

Forden probably the best of them for end product? 

Southgate gets hammered but how many england players have stood up and said "pick me" with their performances this season? Bowen, Rice and James this season? (I don't know much of the lads who play abroad so may be diddling them). So of course he has to rotate the squad this summer.

How many people have said "not maguire"?  fair enough but if not maguire then we have to look at other options which means chopping and changing. Or would you rather he picks a centre back at random and looks at no one else? We've got depth but also a lot of players not in form so there's going to be some tinkering because the 11 or so players who got us to the final aren't doing it right now. 

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

I think we're hoping Ten Haag can start to get a tune out of Rashford on England's behalf.

There's a lot of England players who didn't perform last season. We're hoping for a lot of club managers getting a tune out of the England team. Marcus Rashford is the most notable. 

Of our Euro team

Pickford was in a relegation scrap

Maguire and Shaw were having a torrid time at united

Stones didn't play

Phillips was injured

Sterling back to mediocrity

Grealish off the boil

Kane having a sulk for not getting his transfer

Many had ok seasons but I'd say only a handful had a good season - Rice, James etc

37 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

    Pickford

         Walker.      Stones.    Maguire

James.     Rice.      Bellingham.     Shaw. 

          Sterling.     Kane.    Mount

I think that'll be close to what our line up will be. The weakness there will be that we don't have the Mount that turns up for Chelsea, so when we play so many defensive players we need the attackers to be all out attack and dangerous from the off which we're not getting from Mount. 

Also when it's not working we need to have the balls to take Kane off and try a different option. We seem to persist with Kane when he is blowing out of his arse and not going to score if we played on for weeks. 

They're my two criticisms of Southgates England 

Like "we did warn you" can I opt in to seeing all deleted posts? Always get fomo when I turn up late. 

It's the League Cup of international football

Stupid tournament at stupid time with an England squad, most of whom have had a poor season at club level and we treated it as a glorified friendly tournament. Horrible result but I'm not worried.

In my lifetime Southgate has given us the best tournament results. England are always lacklustre between tournament buy so far Southgate has delivered when it matters. 

I think keep the 45 minutes as it is but when it goes to stoppage time, then turn it into stop clock system so if there's 5 mins stoppage time, it gets played. I'd also be tempted by the rugby rule of the game ends when the ball goes dead. Would add a different dynamic

19 minutes ago, GHR said:

Also, during all instances of penalties, players cannot pause between commencing their run up and placing their grounded leg to strike the ball. Similarly, during shootouts, keepers forbidden from advancing beyond the six yard box between kicks

That's been my dad's pet peeve for as long as I can remember every penalty shoot out "They're not meant to do that!!!!" 

Is it an unenforced rule that the run up should be one continuous movement, no stuttering or pausing etc? 

Something needs done on penalties, GKs aren't saving any in shootouts since they've been told to stay on their line

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jun/13/kick-ins-throw-ins-football-concussion-substitutes-ifab

So it's been announced that they will start trialling 'kick ins' instead of throw ins which is absolutely ludicrous and hope it dies a death. 

However it got me thinking - what new rules / general changes to the game would you like to see in football? 

One for me is that I would mic the refs up and also be able to hear the VAR discussions. 

Second one isn't a new one but an old rule I would like to see enforced. The rule that goalkeepers can only hold onto the ball for 6 seconds I would love to see enforced, it would speed the game up massively IMO and would cut out the 'catch and fall to the ground' tactic that eats up 30 seconds each time. 

Someone in the Facebook group of the town my parents live in is kicking off about fluoride in the water starting a campaign for fluoride free water etc etc. I posted commenting that the stuff coming out of our taps contains a high concentration of Dihydrogen Monoxide (for those who don't get it Google it) and stating alarming facts such as it is a major component of acid rain, corrodes metal, in gas form it can cause severe burns, if inhaled can cause choking etc etc.. I thought it was pretty funny until one sciencey type came in and said "what you fail miserable to comprehend is that there are loads of dangerous substances surrounding us and even in our bodies...." 

I've never enjoyed someone not getting a joke so much especially the arrogance with which he replied. 

Anyway, the DHMO parody is one of my favourite jokes going.

I think on the whole it's a good idea to have a light touch approach to moderation on certain topics. I wonder if making it an opt in system will maybe result in fewer people using it though?

Maybe switching it to an opt out system? So by default people can see it but if they've had enough they can request to be removed (or just not go in there). 

Would be interested to hear from people who have decided to not opt in? 

Still waiting for an 11th hour bait and switch and Mowbray rocks up to take the first training session

With Broughton and JDT incoming they'll be bringing knowledge of Norway and Sweden. I wonder if we'll see any gems coming from that neck of the woods this window? It's exciting for the player pool to extend beyond the Middlesbrough 

6 minutes ago, Mellor Rover said:

Talks about his playing and coaching career. Wants attacking football.

Perfect fit cos we've got no defenders 

9 hours ago, roverandout said:

Grealish has fantastic first touch and technique but he always tries the simple pass

Doesn't have any ideas other than to draw a foul or play a simple ball. Other than that he's no better than any other attacking option we have

25 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

. I think Grealish is a duffer

Massively overhyped

9 minutes ago, den said:

 

Would be a hell of an achievement if he used 40 players in 90 games for us. We'd be raiding the U12s 

This thread needs retitled from "what reject manager...." to "will we ever get a manager" 

2 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Living in Granada or Blackburn ? Let me think about that for a millisecond.

Downtown Baghdad or Blackburn probably comes to a similar conclusion