Keep saying it but Lambert so far is very much mirroring Hughes' first season in charge. The number one priority for both was/is sorting the defence out, which its often said is the first thing any good manager does. Very few teams go down whilst being water-tight at the back. Under Hughes we couldn't score for toffee in his first season and he needed the summer transfer window to bring in Bellamy and Bentley to give us some attacking options. Whilst he's made a start with it, to get someone of real quality on his non-existent budget, Lambert will need the same window.

Why should they be? There's no difference between China luring the world's best players over there with money and European clubs luring South America's best players over here with money. English clubs in particular have dominated global spending in the last 15 years. It says something when clubs like Newcastle and Everton can outbid the likes of Inter Milan and Athletico Madrid for players. We've enjoyed global financial supremacy in football for a while now in this country, just as we enjoy it in rugby. But there's been a new kid on the block in cricket in the form of India and the IPL, and now China is getting into football. Fair play to them in my opinion, at the end of the day tv/sponsorship revenue is driven by fan interest. There's clearly a growing passion for football in China and if enough punters over there are prepared to pay good money then why shouldn't they get to watch the best.

Why does it matter how they've been performing historically? Say we'd played Ireland at home last game and narrowly lost, would you be full of praise for England because we'd given the best team in recent history a good game? Or would you be criticising us for losing at home to a side Wales drew against away the game before? The relevant information, i.e. how good Scotland and Italy are in this competition, indicates they're a lot better than usual. England were more comfortable against Italy away than France were against them at home, and were more comfortable against Scotland away than Wales were against them at home. To anyone other than a staunch England critic (which is basically most England "fans"), we're looking good at the moment. But oh no, we didn't play that flawless game against Italy. That one that no team has ever played where you win 100-0, convert every chance, make every tackle, commit 0 penalties, concede no turnovers, find touch with every kick etc etc. And to be honest even if we had, it would all be about how poor the opposition are. Its like a magnified version of Rovers fans, impossible to please rather than just very difficult.

Pretty undecided on...FFP (*ducks*) myself. On the one hand I can totally understand the primary reason it was brought in. To stop irresponsible owners/boards from spending money they don't have and subsequently ruining clubs. On the other hand, I feel as though it spells disaster for football long-term at the highest level. By basically removing the ability of owners to do a Jack Walker/Ibramovich/Sheikh Mansour, there'll be no future way to shake up the established order. Man Utd have by far the most fans, so can generate the most revenue, so can buy the most success, so get even more fans and so on. Same in Spain with Barca/Madrid and Germany with Bayern. I mean imagine the PL in the last 15 years if Chelsea/City had never had takeovers. Man Utd win it every season, Arsenal finish 2nd every season, and on and on into the future. The rule should be different, if owners/clubs don't have the money then they can't spend it, if they do then they can.

Wales 27 - Scotland 23 France 23 - Italy 21 Weaker teams? Evidently not that weak! England have clearly made the best start, the reluctance of some of our fans to ever fully praise us is bewildering at times.

All right 8-9 years then depending on whether part time classes as amateur or professional. Yes I was clearly miles out.

They've been better than Bowyers, and that comparison makes no sense whatsoever. How's it hyperbole? He joined Stocksbridge Park Steels in 2002 and joined Leicester in 2012.

Fought back? As in he was released by a professional club and then spent a decade playing amateur football? If he's as good as you say he is (or even half as good) then taking a decade to work your way back into the professional game is seriously poor. I'd imagine stuff like playing with an electronic tag and having to observe a curfew for 6 months didn't help. I agree he's been superb this season but I'd like to see him repeat the trick before I join in the love-in. Have to say its quite interesting that you're happy to give Vardy 10 years to start producing and yet was on Lambert's back within weeks.

If it wasn't for the fact that us English are constantly criticised for the Empire, being arrogant, being racist, throwing our weight around etc etc I'd find the Celts bitterness pretty hilarious. As it is it smacks of massive hypocrisy that a collection of nations who incorporate xenophobia into their national identity, pass it off as passion and don't even consider it a bad thing, ever dare to criticise any aspect of England. Anyway, good win, good start for the new coach and onto Italy, the one country who don't come with a giant shoulder chip.

He's scored 23 top flight goals in his career at the age of 29. Shearer, Cole and Lampard had managed that by age 22 and Rooney by 19. Vardy is either a one season wonder, and that is still quite possible considering there have been plenty of 20+ goal strikers in the PL who never managed it again, or he's wasted the majority of his career. Although perhaps wasted is a bit harsh, the likes of Ian Wright didn't get picked up until late on as well so maybe he slipped through the net or was a late developer. But I certainly don't think every player should adopt Vardy's lifestyle if they want a full glittering career and not just an Indian summer.

Good to see Buttler the magnificent doing the business again!

Amateur sport is all about fun, so if someone is a good player but a total prat then get him out, you'll lose more but have more fun. Professional sport is at least 50% about winning, so if someone's a good player then attempts should be made to tolerate them. If someone's an elite player then big efforts should be made. You mentioned Higgins and Best as examples, but I expect sport is rife with thousands, even tens of thousands, of objectionable d-heads who their team-mates extremely dislike but who are kept in a team for their performance level. Take Bellamy at Rovers for example, constantly moaned at everyone and apparently gave Pedersen a torrid time with verbals. And when you consider the list of things he's been in court for (although admittedly never convicted), I imagine he was a piece of work. But Hughesy played on his ego and no doubt made allowances and he was beyond phenomenal that season, a level above McCarthy and Santa Cruz even in my opinion. Just hope all the management/psychological techniques were tried with KP before he was thrown out. The Aussies wouldn't have become the best in the 90s without tolerating pillocks like Warne, McGrath, the Waughs, Healy...actually most of the team.

With any sport if its being played at amateur level then I'm all for getting shut of the bad apple. When its professional sport I'm not so sure. If the player is a very good one then I certainly think every effort should be made to manage the player or just ignore their antagonistic behaviour. Suppose we just have to trust the England hierarchy that KP was unmanageable and impossible to ignore, which is a lot easier to do when we're winning without him!

I thought the last part of it was creepy. "Don't blush" implies he expected his comment might embarrass or make her feel uncomfortable but that he finds that amusing if anything. And if by that he meant she'd be blushing/swooning at being overcome by him asking her out, arrogant much? Calling someone "baby" who you've only just met strikes me as pretty creepy too. But I suppose all that's subjective, maybe I'm quite old fashioned or overly polite when asking someone out. Yeah definitely better off camera, personally don't see anything wrong with it then.

I found his comment far more embarrassing. He's a professional being interviewed by another professional as part of his job in front of thousands of people, and he decides now's the time for a creepy one-liner. I've always loved Gayle as a cricketer, phenomenal player sort of holding back the tide for a once mighty but now rapidly failing cricketing nation. But translate that interview to say a large boardroom linked to a conference call to multiple other boardrooms around the world. Would it be acceptable to say something like that? People need to have some appreciation of the fact that they're on TV and are role models.

"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and Tyson Furyious anger". I'm surprised he's never once used this at a press conference yet, pretty sure he could do a truly horrendous impression of Samuel L. Jackson to entertain the masses. On a serious note well done to him, bit of a muppet buy hey its boxing and always good to see a Brit at the top. I'm not as in to it as I used to be. Was a big Hatton fan and loved the competition around that weight at the time. But when money, possibly doping and I suspect some amount of self-preservation scuppered the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, back when they were both in their prime, I started losing interest. Can you imagine Messi and Ronaldo refusing to play on the same pitch, or Federer/Nadal, or Ovett/Coe refusing to race each other. That piddling around for 6 years avoiding each other after Pacquiao beat Hatton was dreadful for the sport and made me question if indeed it is one. Fury/Joshua might get me interested again though if that comes up in a couple of years.

I thought Souness was magnificent in every respect regarding that game. On paper we had no right to even get close to Tottenham and Hoddle for them was a very competent manager too at the time. But before the game Souey kept banging on about how he was a winner, no doubt trying to instill belief into the team. Letting Tony Parkes leads us out was brilliant. His tactics during it were perfect, 4-4-2 meant taking risks but also taking the initiative and the performances he got out of Hughes and Dunn against a 3-man midfield of Anderton, Sherwood and Poyet were nothing short of magnificent. And then after the final whistle he joined in with everything, chucking champagne about with Dunny, getting everyone involved in the celebrations, dragging Hughesy up, I've no doubt he was behind Flitcroft jointly lifting the trophy as well. On the big stage I think Souness somehow transformed from a good manager to an outstanding one. I agree with you Matty, he was no doubt a tough taskmaster and I think that tends to polarise people. Some guys fall out with him, some would follow him to hell and back. After his poor last season with us much was made of his fall-outs with Dunn, Cole, probably 1 or 2 others. But what about the performances he got out of Friedel, Neill, Berg, Hughes, Tuay, Thompson, Duff and Jansen during his time here. I get the feeling those guys would have spoken extremely highly of him.

How are we able? Struggling with that one. It's arguable the start of fundraising on here for an advert in the telegraph to boycott the next home game after Middlesbrough might have contributed to Kean's sacking. That also may be a big overstatement of our collective importance. But either way a mass boycott is the only thing that the fans can do to get rid of Bowyer. But then Venkys will inevitably hire Craig Short, David Dunn or some nomark Shaw met in a pub while at Preston and the slide will continue. Personally don't think the fans can do anything.

Incredible really isn't it. I've always thought there are intelligent fans who can see the long-term (in this case the Allardyce supporters), less intelligent who could only see the short-term (his detractors), and now it appears a new breed of fan who experience the long term as time progresses, and still insist they were right. "but 'it was still the right decision' he said as he looked out on an empty Ewood Park as we sat in the bottom 3 of the Championship" Its almost haunting the magnitude and significance of that statement. We have fans who have witnessed the biggest mistake in 140 years of Blackburn Rovers and who are still adamant it was the correct decision. The cult of "anti-hoofball" really was a fanatical one. I notice there's a lot less of it now amongst fans in general as more and more clubs are abandoning passing your way up the pitch as a consistently viable option.

Williams didn't dither over Souness or Ince, he's just rightly more cautious and professional than most fans. Half our fans would have sacked Big Sam before Venkys did it so keeping a manager on a bit longer than the fans would like should be a sane requirement for chairmen. Think Fergy at Man U for why managers should be given as much chance as a club can afford. Ince got 17 games because that was exactly what we could afford before making survival unobtainable. Souness got over a year because he wasn't putting us at risk of relegation. Exactly the same reason why Bowyer should have been on the Ince timescale to be honest. 1-2 years out of the top flight is all the club could afford.

Its not impossible for the fans to force a manager out under the current regime, after all (in the end) we managed it with Kean. Its just a heck of a lot harder, the boycotting matches bandwagon had to start to click into high gear with Kean before the owners took notice. Venkys and Williams really are chalk and cheese on this matter though. Williams was virtually flawless in his handling of managers. Ince was sacked at the exact right time for me, as was Hodgson. The appointments of Souness, Hughes and Allardyce were superb. The only major slip-up he made in 13 years was the appointment of Kidd. I wonder if him getting his feet under the door now at City has anything to do with their uncharacteristically sane decision to keep Pelligrini on for 4 years.

Still confused as to why so few people seem to consider him a cheat. Slinging the ball sideways the way he does allows him to get a better angle at and closer to the batsman when he releases. If its not cheating then all up and coming ballers should learn how to do it, and we would have an pretty undignified spectacle to watch in 10-20 years.

Well Australia just absolutely took apart the no.1 ranked team in the world on their own patch. Making the removal of Flower an all the more ludicrous decision in my opinion.

Totally agree. Professional sport isn't about building a squad of well-rounded, decent individuals. Its about building a squad of the very best players, regardless of their personalities, and getting it to work. Thats good management. Dumping every "trouble-maker" in the team isn't good management, its giving up and reducing the one thing that wins matches, ability.

Not in my opinion. Australia have by far the best fast bowler in the world at the moment (aided by his ridiculous action which somehow is apparently legal) and he's the guy who destroyed us. Bit like Rovers were destroyed by 1 good team in Man Utd which led to Allardyce's sacking. Flower has worked wonders with this team, a team that was just trounced 5-0 in Australia when he first took over and had lost Flintoff, Trescothick and Jones from England's best side in decades in 2005. Why is it right that heads have rolled? Like I said its knee-jerk. Moyes' head hasn't rolled yet, just as Fergies didn't in his first season for Man U. The media love to indoctrinate everyone with the belief that there must be a reaction to everything that happens. Well thats childish in my opinion, sometimes you take it on the chin and do better next time. And even if you accept the argument that heads had to roll, then Ashley Giles' should have been rolling right along with them, we've been absolutely diabolical in the 20-20s and one-dayers, even worse than in the tests. And unlike Flower that guy has no track record to fall back on, he's been poor to dreadful ever since he first took the job. We appoint him and English cricket will go to the dogs.