Whilst I think this England squad is reasonable for the most part, there a couple of iffy choices: 1. Why on earth is Dean Henderson ahead of McCarthy when he doesn’t play? I mean I wouldn’t expect McCarthy to be number 1 but he is currently the highest placed English GK and is statistically outperforming Pickford. Yet he can’t get ahead of United’s domestic cup keeper? (On a side note Karl Darlow is statistically the best performing English keeper by a mile so far this season, so the same could be said for him - apparently Newcastle don’t have a defence). 2. Tammy Abraham who has only scored twice this season and isn’t in Chelsea’s starting XI is ahead of Patrick Bamford (7 goals), Callum Wilson (6) and Ollie Watkins (6). Watkins would have been my choice this time around.
It’s a bit of a hard one I think. If Tammy Abraham was at Leeds/Newcastle or Villa would he be first choice ahead of those players? I think almost certainly he would be, should he be punished because he isn’t as good as Chelsea’s other options? Likewise Henderson based on his performances last season would be first choice at Saints and Newcastle so I can see why you would pick him over others as he is the better player.
You can't change 50% + of the squad each time, you have to have some sort of continuity and you'll stick with the players you trust. Not that I particularly rate Abraham but then I don't think Bamford is either.
Has anyone any more news about the injury to Crawley’s keeper in the FA cup game? Looked nasty and I’ve not seen anything about it. Hope he’s ok.
Discharged from hospital Dave https://www.devonlive.com/sport/football/football-news/crawley-goalkeeper-out-hospital-after-4682381
Cheers, Richie. I looked it up on the Beeb (silly me - they don’t seem to have much on there these days) and the match report ..... all they did was show the goals with no mention of the keeper. Great news that it was only a bad concussion - I was worried it was a neck injury. Hopefully a few weeks off and he’ll be back again. Goalies are made of tough stuff ..... well, most of them anyway .....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54894864 Greg Clarke resigns after referring to bame players as 'coloured'.
I think the phrase "coloured" is a generational thing. Alan Hansen said something similar. I think it was some of his other comments in conjunction that made his position untenable.
Agree that it's probably a combination and that that term is very much generational. Given what's gone on this year and the drive from football relating to racism he should really know better and for certain had made his position untenable.
He is 4 years younger than me, and I would never dream of using that term. Whatever your upbringing, there is no excuse for not keeping up with the times.
Not defending the man because I don’t know what else he said or did, but the word coloured is not in the same league as the n word. It was used when I was young and context was everything...racists would use it in a derogatory sense, whereas most people used it purely as description. I use the word ‘black’ as people prefer it and it is always good manners to avoid being offensive, but in many cases it is obviously ridiculous. I rarely notice anyone’s race and am often surprised when someone is described as black when I had never noticed. Meghan Markle being just one example. I think we should avoid words that others find offensive...good manners as I said....but we also should be forgiving when people slip up....judge them by what they mean and how they act rather than the words used...especially when dealing with different generations.
As OROW pointed out his other comments were pretty poor too, and not those befitting the leader of the national game.
I am not defending him as I said it was probably a cumulative number of reasons and perhaps you are more current but in 20 years maybe "black" will be seen as a derogatory term and whose to say an old person might use the term thinking it's acceptable and meaning no offence but get caught in a furore. Race and gender are very sensitive topics these days and I think frank discussion is better than constantly labelling people as sexist or racist.
Coloured is an emotionally provocative word as it was used as a term/grouping noun with implications during apartheid. It shouldn’t be used. I wrote partly about this for my dissertation and greatly enjoyed citing this: https://www.thelocal.se/discuss/index.php?showtopic=20252&mode=linear
