Watched the game tonight. Have to hand it to Southgate. It was an innovative set up which paid off. The back three were excellent on the ball and totally controlled the game. The passing quality they had negated the need for a deep midfield play maker. Also playing Walker on the right of the three created an interesting dynamic with Trippier too. Only downside was lacking goal threat up front.

I'd agree with what you say at the end. All the top players are vastly well paid. England are hardly different in that regard. To be honest it's not the case that the English players aren't up for it, or lack pride. It's just that they are not as good. The Spain team that dominated 2008-2012 were stuffed full of Catalans who had little affinity for Spain. But that hardly mattered as what led to their success was supreme talent and a great team system and ethic. It's not about trying hard. It's about being good players. England have never been in the top tier of talent globally as long as I have watched the game. You could point to substandard teams have won tournaments (Portugal and Greece spring to mind) but they won through luck and good tactics. Not because somehow they wanted it more.

Had a read of the expected team in the article. Good goal threat, a lot of athleticism, decent pace and quality out wide. But defensively very weak at centre back and goalkeeper, and no one who is a proper passer of the ball in midfield. Probably player for player one of the worst sides of the last 30 years.

Also - agree Dier is over rated, but he is our only true holding midfielder. All the others are box to box (Henderson, Ox, Alli etc.) and considering our squad is very attacking orientated we need a proper holding player. And those who think Cahill, Smalling and Jones won't go when everyone else at centre back has virtually no international experience - prepare to be disappointed!

I missed that. I can't really see why we would to be honest. It takes a man out of midfield or attack, and I don't think our defenders are that good in a flat back four, let alone a three. Hmmm. I suppose if we did it --------------------------Pickford --------------Gomez----Stones----Cahill Walker-------------------------------------------Rose ----------------------Dier-------Wilshire -------------------------------Alli --------------------Sterling-----Kane Yeah I don't get it. Basically we would be losing one of Sterling, Alli, or Rashford for an extra (Probably quite rubbish) centre back. Any smart team that uses space well (Argentina, France, Brazil, Spain yada yada) will get down the sides of us too I think. 4231 seems a better use of our assets. Despite what Southgate may have said my money is on 4231.

Stuck on a train and bored, so my guess for a team if we do go is --------------------Pickford Walker----Stones---Maguire---Rose -----------------Dier------Wilshire -----Sterling------Alli-------Rashford -----------------------Kane A lot of decent attacking players in there but only two who are top class in Kane and maybe Walker. Key individual is Wilshire for me as he is the only real passer in the frame. If he can perform we will be a much better team than with another workhorse alongside Dier. That said irrespective of Wilshire Brazil, Argentina, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain all clearly superior to us. Think it will be out in the second round. Reaching the quarters would be a good performance.

My gut's telling me that England will pull out. We're going through a massive diplomatic incident at the the moment, we've squarely blamed Russia presumably as there is solid evidence which will filter out over time. It's lose-lose. Either we ultimately withdraw because of the political dispute, or we withdraw due to fan safety as Russia ramps up as the dispute escalates. Can't see it happening.

I'm totally bemused how he's still here. Thought he was nailed on to have left by end of August. Mowbray has done well to keep him.

Agree with this, talented players should get games. The whole team management thing where we play grafters over more mercurial players has hardly worked out for us. King, Cairney etc. were never properly tried. Quality like Chapman should get a regular game. We have enough water carriers like Smallwood, Evans, Bennett etc. to allow at least a couple of more risky ones in the team. Probably Mowbray sees himself as limited to one of either Chapman or Dack but I think we should try both at once. If it doesn't work he can sub one off.

With PAYE income it is straightforward, but with earnings from any other area it is a total nightmare. They essentially rely on self reporting of income backed up with occasional use of auditors Therere isn't a simple way for government to check what is and isn't income outside of PAYE. For example - if you borrowed £200 from your gran, how does the government know that is a loan rather than income? The only way they know it is a loan, short of sending the auditors round, is that you do not declare it as income. It all largely works because by and large people are honest and decent. Though of course there are plenty who aren't.

I have to say this sort of thinking is very selfish, sad and narrow minded. If everyone tried to circumvent the tax system the whole thing would fall apart, it relies on good faith to function. Without that good faith we would have no public services or society. That some scrotes exploit loop holes in the system for their own benefit is wrong, and they deserve to be thought of and treated as utter tossers, including Ferguson.

I don't think they would take a risk on blocking UK banks/billing address as plenty of custom will be from expats who live abroad but will pay via UK bank accounts with a UK billing address.

I sympathise with your point of view, but to limit the internet in the way Tiering suggest would entail effective locking down the technology easily available to people and accepting a massive productivity impact on individuals and businesses. I can't see that happening. The internet is the most radically decentralised network ever created. Any effective regulation of it is doomed to failure. May will have some success in getting Google and Facebook to moderate content, but she we will get nowhere in terms of blanket denial of access.

If I understand it correctly it is virtually impossible to counter a VPN without a total register of all IP addresses. For example - say the government made Wikipedia illegal. They could ask all ISPs to block wikipedia. But the ISPs would not know you were connecting to wikipedia if you are on VPN as the only address the ISP would see is the VPN IP address, not the end website (wikipedia) IP address. Even if they did manage to work a way around that, immediately - due to demand - someone would quickly mirror wikipedia at a new IP address not blocked by the ISPs. Then the government would need to find that new address and block it. Continue ad infinitum. The only effective way to lock it all down would be to somehow register, track and audit all IP addresses as we do - for example - with number plates and cars. The government does not have the resources to do that, and cannot do that for overseas sites, and it would be a huge productivity drain for all businesses and individuals to constantly register websites with the government and sign off on content. In my opinion the government, if it could, would have closed down Torrents, Hate Speech sites, extreme pornography etc years ago. It isn't a lack of will to do it. It's just that it isn't technologically feasible. I recognise you are more technically able than myself, so look forward to being corrected, but that is as I understand it above.

I can't see how they can do anything about the VPN issue. The Chinese government can't do anything effective to stop citizens using VPN, so I think the EFL/club is not going to have much hope.

It will be interesting what happens as the service provider and clubs must know a huge number of fans in the UK will vpn it, plus a flurry of websites will start up and mirror the streams for free. Ultimately they must have decided that its worth the risk. To be honest for circa £10 a month even fans who go to all the home games will probably pay this on top.

Fair point well made.

Well he has experience of saving clubs in our position, and promotion on his CV. Total disaster at Celtic but apart from that he has done okay. Could be worse. What we really need is Venkys out.

Used to be no one left us to be more successful right through to the Hughes era - just Duff I think. Bellamy, Bentley, Samba, Niall etc all went on to the same or lower level. Since then we seem to have let quite a few through our fingertips. Saw Olsson at Swansea have a good game against Liverpool.

Theres no way with either Bowyers squad or the one we have now we should be relegated. Most of the teams in the division would love Evans, Marshall, Conway, certainly Rhodes, Duffy, Hanley now Watt whose come in is coveted. If we get relegated it is managerial incompetence. Its a top half/ mid table unbalanced squad marginally underperforming under Bowyer. PL needs to bring it up two levels.

I think that is the worst contract we have ever handed out. Even worse than Best, Murphy or Grella.33k a week, 4 years, he was thirty and incredibly injury prone. Totally insane.

O'Sullivan is an attacking player but if he's the best of our attacking youth then you can hardly blame Bowyer for not playing them.Since Dunn and Duff came through, fifteen years ago, we've produced three decent attacking players - Derbyshire, Hoilett and Paul Gallagher. Its a really poor return. I suppose you could add Judge to that, not that we made use of him. So four in fifteen years. Not great.

A few points here is 1) Guthrie and Akpan are both new to the club and Evans was coming back from serious injury. To a certain extent Lowe did not have competition for his place. When he returns (which will be a long long time from now) that will have significantly changed. Bowyer signed Guthrie and Evans so he needs to be given credit for finding players who are showing real quality and are a significant improvement over Lowe and Williamson. 2)Olsson was legitimately dropped as he had a poor start to the campaign and previous to this season Spurr has actually been quite good. It was not controversial when he was picked ahead of Olsson. He then played very poorly, arguably should have been dropped before the QPR game then got injured, Olsson came back in 3) Everyone was saying (including me) Hanley should be dropped end of last season. Bowyer stuck by him and he has been very good. It's hardly the most damning set of management decisions is it? You could say Lowe would never get dropped, but if that is the case why have we signed three central mids in the window? That's suggests major changes were forecast in that area. It's a bit of a rubbish argument at the moment. Probably need to wait for Lowe or Spurr to actually come back and be put in the team ahead of better players before really tearing into this one.

Yes, he's playing the best alround football of his time at Rovers in my opinion. Looks stronger back to goal and better in his movement.It really suits him having a physical and mobile striker alongside like Koita. I think Gestede was too stationary for him.

Taylor must have a decent chance of getting in the side ahead of Marshall. How far is he off first team fit?