JPJCB

I agree with the consensus that the city performance was the better one as we completely outplayed them. But there’s a caveat that they were massively weaker than usual (I think they played a midfield of akanji and Rico Lewis) plus we had comparatively fewer players out. Today was the other way round - arsenal at full strength and us much more weakened; plus we were away from home. City was the more impressive performance but today was the more impressive result

I’m not really sure what to make of Ollie’s comments yesterday. Of course they were mostly out of frustration and he can be forgiven for that. I never think it’s a good look though for a player to criticise his teammates, even implicitly. Ollie’s had a few off games as well- he took a while to get going this season. Would we think it reasonable for a defender to come out and implicitly criticise that? It is also worth noting that Ollie’s criticism isn’t actually valid based on evidence. We have an excellent record of winning games having taken the lead. If we have a problem this season that distinguishes us from the “big clubs” it’s not mentality. It’s simply squad quality. As Liverpool will attest today, even the best clubs throw away leads every now and then

Can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him but this should be a cautionary tale for players making moves to big clubs. His career would have been undeniably better had he not moved to city

He’s banging on about having higher XG as if that means more than actual goals. This is where the stats only tell you so much. My guess is that the konsa goalwould have scored something like 0.1 (or lower) XG because barely anyone scores when trying to shoot from that angle. But we all know from watching the game that he was trying to cross- if Duran heads it in or it hits the post and comes out for a Duran tap in then that’s presumably a way higher scoring chance in XG terms so presumably we then win Gary’s precious XG battle

…”all the data*” *except points

Re Bellingham, not sure what to make of the arrogance reports but more generally I think it’s his mentality that makes him such an elite player. He’s got good footwork and is a great athlete but I don’t think his skill is necessarily ballon d’or level. I’d even argue that foden has got more natural skill. But the difference is that Bellingham has elite mentality in games to grab it by the scruff of the neck and make things happen. He craves the big stage and always steps up for England despite being only 20 years old which is pretty incredible while foden and others underperform. See this article as an insight into how he prepares mentally for each game: https://madridistanews.com/en/news/detail/jude-bellingham-reveals-his-ritual-before-each-game Maybe arrogance is a consequence of that. It need not be but if it is I’m happy to take the rough with the smooth given his performance level

Toney must have a world class PR team. For some reason the narrative over his betting scandal is framed as a plucky underdog story when it should be what it actually is: fraudulent behaviour with a just punishment. Because he’s seen as an underdog the media is now on his side when they should be challenging the England leadership at every opportunity on why such a disruptive personality is anywhere near the squad

If that’s right for why are they only linked with managers who are not categorically the best in the world?

I think this is a fair post particularly your last para- I’m not sure there’s an obviously better alternative other than someone like Potter. I always thought Deano would be a great option tbh but can’t imagine broad support for that in the country. Id caveat this bit though. He might be modestly better than his peers but the whole point of people highlighting his poor record against “top sides” is that we ARE better on paper than a lot of them. We were better than Croatia, better than Italy, better than Brazil the other night. And yet he plays into an underdog type mentality and plays unambitious cautious football every single time. People suggest we played well against France in the last WC. I remember watching that game and thinking France barely got out of second gear. When they needed to score they did so, and when they wanted to take the game by the scruff of the neck, that’s exactly what they did. Meanwhile we huffed and puffed barely creating anything and benefitting from two penalties

The media coverage has been ridiculously harsh on Watkins with lots of narrative coverage suggesting that it was practically his fault that England lost and that he’s missed his one chance to go to the Euros. The team was crap as a whole and created next to no chances. And it’s a bold move in any case to ignore the top goal scoring and assisting Englishman in the PL this year I dont mind Toney as a player- he’s a reliable scorer and has decent link up play. But he’s a piece of work who was rightly banned from the game for fraudulent behaviour and has a history of unsavoury incidents. As an England fan, I don’t want to see anyone with that sort of personality near the team. Watkins of course is almost diametrically opposite and has a very good character. It’s odd since I’d previously thought Southgate valued these sorts of things but obviously not

Worth noting we also had effectively a home advantage in basically every game of the Euros. He’s done ok but he’s also had the best possible conditions in which to be England manager: a fantastic squad, lucky tournament match ups; a tournament effectively hosted in England

I’m imagining a similar Buendia training montage but with you preparing your freshest insults. “Soon…..”

As this thread shows, changing the colours of the flag has been done countless times. So I don’t think they could have safely predicted the ridiculous shitshow that the reaction has been

What’s interesting about this is that he’s sort of right. Or more bluntly, United’s ongoing decline means the type of manager they can attract is such lower quality than it would have been 10 years ago. We’re talking about the southgates and potters of the world rather than the alonsos, nagelsmanns, xavis etc

It’s a curious topic for an article. Says as much about Tanswell’s diligence as it does emery’s!

Thanks- good to see your thoughts more clearly. I think the difference in our views largely reflects that there is a difference between the law and how the law is implemented. When such a law requires judgment in its application then that is where there is a case for regulation since the law itself will be drafted too bluntly to properly mitigate the bad outcomes it is designed to tackle. To take your examples. A ban on standing only in stadiums is easy to implement via law alone- there is relatively little discretion that can apply in its application. A ban on certain people owning football clubs is not very easy to implement by law alone unless you are using something blunt like “can’t have a criminal record”. Once you get into the nuances of what makes someone a potentially “bad” owner (financial affairs, reputation, experience etc) then this is where there is a good case for regulation since it can more effectively make holistic judgements based on those nuances. You mention that there are bans on adverts for cigarettes. Indeed. And there is also an advertising standards authority policing all kinds of other edge cases. Maybe this is an example of a regulator doing its job well as you asked for earlier? Anyway, we appear to disagree more about the degree of intervention rather than the type. Though I would note that you don’t like the idea of politicians fixing things and yet most of your proposed solutions (e.g ownership tests) would involve changes to the law which are drafted by, you guessed it,…politicians. Regulators are typically more independent and technocratic than law makers so you might actually prefer that option if you give it a try

Just because there are things happening you don’t like doesn’t mean that things would be better if there was no regulation. Ofwat was mentioned earlier in this thread: if you don’t like water quality as it is today try imagining what it would be like if there was no regulation at all. It’s the same with all industries that are regulated: finance, utilities, transport, food- you name it. Sometimes things aren’t perfect but things would be way worse if the regulators werent there. With football we are currently in that non/loosely regulated world and we can see where the problems are. Fine to say you don’t want to regulate it but what’s your miracle solution to improve things?

What’s the solution then?

These are good points at the end that government shouldn’t be involved in sport. But that view does need to be balanced against the outrage that people feel when 1.) there are teams seen to get an unfair advantage purely as a result of money 2.) clubs end up failing with an impact on the local community (see Bury FC as the most recent example). The case for government intervention is that there’s a public interest in preventing bad outcomes. It’s fine to say that those outcomes don’t need to be prevented. But then people who argue that point (not necessarily you I might add) need to keep quiet when those bad outcomes actually happen

I had to stop watching this halfway through cause it was so dull and frustrating but what I don’t get is why they decided to move on from the offside decision so quickly? They said something like- “it’s probably offside but let’s check the handball first to see if there’s a clear cut decision there”. Why bother when you can just draw the lines and get your offside decision in about 30 seconds rather than than the agonising handball discussion that follows? More to the point, calling offside is surely more clear cut than a handball decision. The comments on that tweet are full of West Ham fans arguing that it’s not intentional

ACLs are clearly bad luck but Newcastle have had a whole load of muscle injuries which are likely the result of howe’s playing style and lack of willingness to rotate

Agreed and plenty of teams have won these tournaments without a world class striker at the helm. The two strikers for Argentina and France in the World Cup final for France were Alvarez and a 37 y old giroud respectively for example

Mainoo has looked really good and all but he’s literally made only 15 PL starts in his career with his first coming in late November. It’s incredibly early to have any idea how good he’s gonna be. As others have said, there’s absolutely no way he gets that call up if he doesn’t play for Man Utd. The way it’s been done is literally as if Southgate is doing it off one game alone (the Liverpool game). More generally has anyone got the stats on which players have got called up for England with fewest PL appearances? This has got to be right up there which you’d normally associate with a generational talent. Maybe Mainoo is that but it seems a bit far None of this is to take away from his performances so far but one of the biggest stains on the game is the way the England set up entrenches the top 6 bias and this is yet another example. Instead of promoting a more level playing field so that there’s greater development of talent across the board, England will repeatedly favour the bigger sides, incentivising players to sign for those clubs and sit on their bench knowing their England career is better off there than actually playing for one of the weaker sides. We were all completely bemused that chukwumeka pushed to leave to go to Chelsea despite doing next to nothing in the game to date. It’s bullshit like this Mainoo news that makes things like that happen