Recircle

That little group certainly comes across as the lairy lads faction (especially Walker and Grealish); less innocent Gascoignes rather than Beckhams (for all Beckham's love of flash, he's never come across as boorish to me). Rashford and Mings and Phillips all seem emotionally more mature, more socially aware, more conscious of how their privileged status comes with certain obligations in terms of how you conduct yourself in public. I can well believe that Grealish's laddishness has grated on Mings' nerves at times.

The sheer number of things he could've won is a different question. A number here have invited direct comparison between Totti and Grealish as local lads made good, proudly playing for their home city teams, etc, and the fact remains that for much of his time Totti had titles as a tangible possibility, as well as European football as a practical shoo-in every season, which means that his loyalty was not being tested in the same way as Grealish's has been.

There's surely some hindsight revisionism about Totti's chest-thumping. Roma were in the mix near the top of the Serie A table for the majority of his seasons with them (along with the one title they did win, Roma were runners-up nine times, I think, came 3rd once, 4th once and 5th three times during his time there). He also won two Coppa Italias with them, and was a World Cup winner with Italy (which obviously stokes the fire of his legend status a fair bit). Would Totti have stayed loyal if Roma had been bobbing around in mid-table ignominy or worse season after season, making it harder for him to establish himself in the national side?

Strictly only half of the band were from Macclesfield: the singer (born a Manc, brought up in Maccy) and the drummer. The guitarist and the bass player were from Salford.

Yes, but no one in their right mind gets married.

If everyone only produced posts in response to definitive statements, certainties and irrefutable facts, discussion and debate in forums would soon dry up!

There's a limit to the usefulness of the Totti comparisons. Roma were regularly finishing in and around the Serie A top five while he was there; he won the title once with them, was a runner-up about eight or nine times, and was regularly getting European football (he won a couple of Coppa Italias with them, too). In other words, we don't know how itchy Totti's feet would've become if Roma had been finishing seasons and cup runs in a more Villa-esque way during his time there.

Their roots go back to 1880, they first won the F.A. Cup in 1904 and first won the First Division in 1936-37 (Charlton were runners-up!). Yes, they've been transformed out of all proportion, but this idea that they're a plastic club with no roots is puerile playground taunt stuff. New wealth doesn't wipe out what a club achieved in the past, and it's hard to blame a club that has arguably suffered in the shadow of successful neighbours more than any other, grabbing the opportunity to convert itself from mid-table also-rans into top contenders and securing some bragging rights.

He'll have been weighing this up like mad. He's twenty-six in a few weeks, closer to thirty than twenty. If he can 'only' help Villa climb towards titles without getting there himself, he'll be remembered as a club legend and a one-off individualist, but decades from now you'd have to doubt that word-of-mouth and 'Best of Jack' League match highlights vids will command awe in quite the way that a single photo or clip of Dennis Mortimer and co. making their way up to collect the European Cup in Rotterdam in '82 will likely still do. Without either winning medals or turning in amazing performances on the losing side in 'classic' finals, he'll end up a cult hero; the perennial subject of 'What if' pub debates. The clock is getting bigger, or louder. (The prospect or non-prospect of a great run—meaning going deep, and with far greater personal involvement—with England in next year's World Cup, will be another influencing factor.)

'Significant drop' is relative when you consider the teams they're up against at the top. I wouldn't have thought many Leicester fans strongly expect them to win the title again soon (some are probably still getting nosebleeds when they look at the final league standings of the past two seasons). Specifics pertained to that Ranieri-managed run to the title. Their current form of the past two seasons indicates the beginnings of more substantial consistency and consolidation under Rodgers (and is ominous for the clubs aspiring to get in amongst 'em: Villa, Spurs, Arsenal, Everton). It can be seen as representing a more productive version of the kind of run Villa were achieving under O'Neill, if you like.

They've missed out on the Top 4 by a single place two seasons running (they finished four points adrift of Chelsea in 19/20 and only 1 point behind them last season). Plus they're the current F.A. Cup holders (beating Chelsea—aka the current European Champions—in the final). That's a high level of achievement with a solid suggestion of consistency about it.

Lovely. That one Serie A triumph with Roma lends that Totti quote its clout, though. It wouldn't resonate as much if it had read: "Never wining a single Serie A title with Roma, to me, is worth winning 10 league titles at Juventus or Real Madrid"

People genuinely confident that something won't transpire tend not to feel the need to "protest" their lack of concern too much. I think it's fine and natural for people who badly want Jack to stay to have a few niggling doubts at this point in time, it just needs to be acknowledged that someone driven to making bullish assertions that they're not worried is basically communicating that they're feeling the opposite on some level, regardless. Some are sort of trying to use expressions of confidence as incantations.

A person laughing at anyone's medals tells you more about the person laughing than the person with the medals.

Villa fans won't forgive Southgate over his handling of Grealish. United fans won't forgive him for not using Sancho enough (sub-debate ensues: "Yeah, but Sancho isn't a protean, one-off talent like Grealish," say Villa fans. "Yeah, but Sancho is younger, yet has already played in Champions League matches and has won the DFB Cup final with Dortmund. In any case, Villa fans have a distorted view of Grealish," say United fans, etc.). City fans won't forgive him because he didn't use Foden enough. Arsenal fans won't forgive him for placing too much responsibility on the shoulders of Saka. If Atletico were an English club, their fans would be slamming him for being quite sparing in his use of Trippier's calming presence. Who'd be England manager.. (I very much agree that Southgate treated Jack shoddily, btw.)

He was principally speaking up against Roy Keane and his comment about Grealish and Sterling showing no leadership cojones by not barging in ahead of Sancho and Saka in the shoot-out queue.

Makes for lovely reading, despite 'expected' not being ''certain'. Very much hope that that's what pans out.

Euro mini stat attack (worth being reminded of, even if it's already been posted): Grealish finished second on England's assists list (behind Luke Shaw, who played 403 more minutes than Jack). Only three players across all teams achieved the same number of assists in fewer played minutes. (Jack ultimately racked up fewer playing minutes than Tyrone Mings.)

Nice he went to have a word with Pickford, nevertheless. Pickford did well in the shoot-out. Saving two penalties in a shoot-out will see you on the winning side a fair amount of the time. (Hindsight and all that, but it wouldn't have been the most preposterous idea to have Pickford take a pen after saving one; the buzz from saving would've really helped to quell the nerves, plus he naturally seems one of the more confident England players.)

Keane gets to write his script with the benefit of hindsight. Because such-and-such a player didn't score, he was never going to score. But he could've scored, nevertheless. And then Roy's wise-after-the-event script would've read differently ("Saka and Sancho have show amazing character and nerve there, to go up and score those penalties. Maybe being older and thinking about the responsibility and the importance of the occasion caused Kane and Maguire to miss, and you really have to question why Gareth didn't put up more young players, who don't overthink and can just live in the moment to take one"). I just wish Keane hadn't singled out Sterling and Grealish alone when he made his point. Shaw and Stones and Philips were still on and could equally have had a go, if they'd 'shown leadership' and 'ability to step up'.

He wasn't involved enough - wasn't allowed to be - to feel the pain of most of the others were going through, and obviously didn't have to deal with the meltdown that comes with missing a shoot-out penalty . He probably felt unhappy, frustrated and a bit numb. I think even if England had sneaked it in the shoot-out, his celebrations wouldn't have been as wild as the players who played a longer match. He'd have joined in, but not with mad abandon (post-England win he might have offered himself up to be one of the first players to be interviewed after the game, since I don't think he would've been incoherent with joy).

I'm assuming the takers of the first five had been selected before the game began (hence the subs at the end). If Gareth Methodgate's got his pre-agreed, typed up in triplicate list, you can't just disregard it and barge in front (Jack couldn't anyway; he's not established enough yet in the England set-up to do that, and apparently has to walk on eggshells around Southgate). Keane comes out with some good stuff as a pundit, but when big games become tense he too often reverts to hackneyed real-men-step-up-and-take-control Old West gunfight-type stuff (him abandoning the Republic of Ireland squad in the 2002 World Cup over a spat with Mick McCarthy tends to work to undermine his authority here - especially since ROI had to face a penalty shoot-out in that tournament - against Spain in the round of 16 - and so Roy was AWOL when the key opportunity came there for him to lead by example and take one of the early penalties—or any of them!)

Lovely stuff, but if it's settled by a single goal, I think I'd prefer Grealish to have a brilliant assist rather than scoring the goal himself. Whoever gets that winner, if it comes, their life will probably go off-the-scale, public spotlight-wise, and with Grealish already having a reputation for being a maverick and possessing plenty of self-confidence (notwithstanding that fact that he seems good at separating his footballing obligations from all the off-the-pitch stuff), he'll have a hard time staying grounded (edit: or being allowed the opportunity to try and stay grounded).

Doesn't seem to have much interest in Grealish even in training. First looks to his right, then to his left, misses the nutmeg happening in front of him completely and ends up reacting to other people's reactions!

At the end of the game last night, during all the handshakes, Southgate put his arm around Grealish and seemed to spend longer talking to him than some of the other England players with subs vests on. Was he telling him to start getting himself mentally prepped to play a key role in the next game (or hopefully two)?