Mike E

I did like Berget in his spell at Cardiff in 14/15. Most commonly a forward, so might be in mind as the older, streetwise head missing since Graham's departure. Roughly 1 in 4 goal record. I seem to recall he filled in down the left a lot in his Cardiff spell for Conway in midfield (when he joined us) or Cunningham at LB, so could be a useful experienced utility man, too. Can't say I know much about the other fellow, but never played anywhere outside of Malmö. Moved to Benfica and immediately loaned to Palace (0 apps), brought back to Malmö in 2019. At Malmö, however, 15 goals from 178 apps, aged 26. Online, his strengths are described as 'tackling and dribbling', two things we're missing in the middle tbf.

So you're saying we shouldn't try to sign better players than we have?

Happy birthday, Brian the Messiah!

I do agree, he came out with some fascinating stuff at times. I just don't like it when we get belittled as mods for doing a bloody awkward job for free.

He was banned several times for referring to Irish members and players as 'Taigs', and then kept using a metaphor involving rape. His permanent ban was implemented as he kept re-registering to circumvent his shorter ban. So yeah, 'not much'.

Swap A. Wharton for Morton and I think that's our best available side.

I'm not sure the subscription, which is specifically to reduce ads, means any subscribers deserve a say in how the moderating team moderate the site. Sounds far too much like some posters being more equal than others, to me.

They feel like low risk 'you never knows' rather than any real thought going into them. Maybe data over scouting, which is understandable given they had about 7 weeks. I would now hope we use data to back up scouts opinions rather than data-only.

Not so much a 'feeling' but a what if or a why? When Sir Bobby Robson was sacked at Newcastle and moved upstairs into an ambassadorial role, why was Mourinho not invited to replace him? It always bothered me that their obvious close bond was never taken advantage of at the time.

Get a referral from Hyam

I will if you can find someone to look after my two under two. Don't be so judgemental.

You mean the Azerbaijani?

Bloody hell, that Brazil 4-1 SoKorea did a lot of heavy lifting for me! Thanks for organising it @Herbie6590, it's been a blast 🤘

Been banging this drum for about a year now. If he could just sort out when to pass and when to shoot, he could be reasonably lethal. If he could get Dickov's nasty streak (I was thrilled to see him get in Hanley's face) he could be a proper striker of PL quality.

I noticed something of a scuffle with Hernandez and Dolan in which Hernandez appeared to comment while tugging on Dolan's hair. Maybe something and nothing, or maybe I'm allowing my own sensitivities to cloud my thoughts (purely speculative), but given Dolan is a POC I did wonder if something racist had been said to him. I can't rightly think of any other reason someone would deliberately tug on a mixed race man's hair while the ref wasn't looking.

Meaningless in reality. If you only have one transition and it's a goal, vs the oppo having several and not scoring etc. Although (to contradict myself) if you have no transitions it suggests you're overrun by the oppo, or unable to get the ball off them in open play. So your only chances would come from your own set pieces.

(TLDR: First real shoots of JDT coaching results, imo.) I was at the Disables Supporters Party a couple of Tuesdays ago and, chatting to Adam Wharton, I asked him what JDT meant by 'transitions'. As an average fan, I'm a bit clueless on jargon. To paraphrase him, it's getting the ball back and turning it into an attack. Makes sense. JDT said about 2 months ago, he wants to see John Buckley with 'more intensity in the transition moments' before dropping him and I saw exactly what he meant in the Norwich 2nd half. Several times tonight, including for our second goal, Buckley held fort in the middle of the park, chasing down for an interception and IMMEDIATELY passing forward or cross-field. It was great to see and easily Buckley's best game this season, allowing Breo, Dack, Gally, Dolan, Hedges all to press for most of the game and (crucially) our defense to maintain its shape. Almost like a midfield general! We're not perfect by any stretch, but it's the first real evidence I've seen of JDT saying something about training a player and it coming to fruition. I hope it's the start of a wave of these and it's come just a bit later than we expected, rather than it being a one-off. We (and JDT) needed it after the last few weeks. If we get that Buckley every game and (imo) alongside Adam Wharton, we'll have plenty of the football JDT first talked about.

Will the Forest game be on TV at all?

We were actually 2nd place when Kean left.

While I understand your point (and completely agree), I think it hasn't helped our general feeling of despondency that those two pathetic results prior to today book-ended 3 weeks of no club football. Therefore it felt like a whole month without a win.

When our defenders DEFEND, their hard work seems to set the tone for our attacks, from which we get to see some fantastic football at times. No need to overcomplicate it by getting defenders to tikitaka.

Wharton should be in there complementing what is (so far) a superb performance from Buckley. We look much better because we're clearing our fucking lines!

CRO 1-2 MOR FRA 2-2 ARG

The possession football is absolutely fine AS LONG AS it's confined to up front. Looking at where our best results have come from, I think we should line up: Kaminski Hyam Ayala Wharton Carter Buckley Wharton Mola Hedges Dack Brereton Defense should clear their lines wide and forward, and everyone in midfield is capable of creating. The reason I offer little specific physicality in midfield is that our defensive resilience with a back 3 has been enough in many games, while the midfield simply provide 'bodies'. Those bodies might as well be the creative players in our squad.

Put it this way: Come tournament time, I desperately want England to do as well as possible and the only reason I found the France match hard to take is because I completely believe we'd have won the WC if we'd beaten France. HOWEVER I'm currently on a Rovers forum, as I have been for well over a decade, discussing even minutiae of Blackburn Rovers, whereas I only found out Steve Holland's name yesterday as a dark horse to replace Southgate.