I stated the other day what can be done, and the potential costs. I now await the list of amateur/professional gobsh*tes, and what % of any potential losses they will legally commit to meeting ...
Against a background where women have been denied the right to play football it will change things just as in the men's game when black players were eventually picked to play, that changed things.
I was too hard on Southgate in retrospect. His record is impressive overall. But I don't like his style and haven't changed my mind about that. A cautious approach is good for avoiding underachieving, and very good at avoiding underachieving spectacularly. But it tends IMO to be a recipe for falling just short of the biggest prizes. England won partly because Wiegman was willing to give her luck a chance.
8 of the top 10 are United players But the hatred of Harry Kane in this country is baffling, albeit not isolated. Ingerland fans have a long and undignified history of trying to tear their best and brightest to shreds instead of just sitting back and enjoying generational talents, as is the custom in other countries.
It's reasonable to assume that a significant chunk of that abuse is from Man Utd fans Fred and Maguire especially
‘Boring’ football wins tournaments if you have some cutting edge. Very few teams win international tournaments playing champagne football, especially with so much analysis these days, because open teams get exploited. Ultimately managers don’t have their players all together for long enough to build a system to the standard that club managers can. Even the Spain men’s team in their heyday, who had the advantage of a base almost entirely consisting of two elite clubs, played a safe brand of football - they were technically magnificent but by keeping the ball so much they strangled teams. England women just won the Euros off the back of a very strong defence that kept the joint most clean sheets in the tournament, joint with the other team in the final. Southgate makes plenty of mistakes but has also had more success than any other England manager in the modern era and is somewhat hamstrung by his lack of good options at CM, LB and CB, both due to repeated injuries and a lack of players of a certain profile and quality. He could make better selections IMO, especially in midfield, and his team have slipped into the old England malaise of not moving the ball fast enough, but he’s doing a good job with what he has.
Frank Rothwell - the oldest man to row across the Atlantic (aged 70+) has just bought Oldham Athletic, PL founder members, who are just about to start life in the National League or Division Five, as it effectively is. The bloke is pots for rags, as we say up North - an absolute nutcase - but seems to see no challenge as being beyond him. He lives in a most beautiful part of the world in the Saddleworth hils, about 4 miles from Oldham town centre and seems to have a great passion for the club. A great story.
Didn't a Brentford keeper (Chick Brodie ) get a nasty knee injury when a stray dog ran into his knee during a cup game in the late 60sor 70s ,think it was the same keeper that had a hand grenade thrown on the pitch next to him during a game v Millwall (who else) , ref stopped the game and the groundsman put the grenade into a bucket of sand and walked off with it held at arms length , ref blew the whistle and the game carried on If it happened today the whole crowd would be offered counciling
Games at the World Cup? Hopefully they will also be all wearing rainbow laces, and Harry will have a rainbow armband.
Surprisingly un-sneery from the Graun https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/aug/04/premier-league-2022-23-preview-no-18-tottenham
The 2022-23 "rwaeb list" is out : https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62354857 Executive summary : 1. Spurs will finish PL 3-4 2.. Dion Dublin is the only one who believes Spurs will not finish top 4 3. Them lot are as equally rated as Chelsky to finish 4th 4. Man Utd effectively not rated to finish in the top 4
Well, the "pundits" can at least claim their predictions align with the bookies (who will have done deep stattery in coming to their opinions) . The comment summary on Spurs IMHO is sound. Specifically that Spurs will be difficult to beat, but that is not likely to correspond to loadsa wins (the long win sequences that champions elect seem to accrue etc) .
Just got a notification from the BBC telling me we've just equalised in the 94th minute against City and Dele Alli scored it
