I think you should start supporting a different country as your hearts clearly not in it.

Sorry, but that wasn't a recommendation, way to avoid the question. I wasn't in full support when Southgate got the job, but the way he and his team have conducted themselves, both on and off the pitch, over the last few months has won my support in a big way. Will it fall flat tomorrow night, or over the next few weeks, well we shall see. But Southgate has made some big balls decisions, and to still be calling him a yes man at this stage is pretty unfounded. Here's one for you, I bet if Sam was in charge Rooney would still be on the roster. Sam is the ultimate pleaser of heirachy, he just unfortunately for him committed the ultimate sin, publicly embarrassing the FA. There's no coming back from that. Southgate seems to me like a man playing the cards in front him, i.e. all in and either hero or bust. Whereas Sam would hav still been playing "the percentages " at this point. Something in this World Cup in particular is not the road to go down.

What shambles? Walkers was a 50/50, unlucky it happens, and he was in an awful body position. One of Kane's he had his arm round the defenders throat too. The rugby tackle to the ground, yeah was blatant. But it's strange how the folk that hate VAR are now the ones wanting every single decision scrutised at length. The game generally flowed tonight, wasn't broken up by technology, and we had the odd decision not go our way. Thems still the breaks. Just as it was before.

? No doubt. ?

I thought they looked all right against Germany other night. Played some nice stuff, and knocked it about well. But wow, today was garbage. Maybe I was fooled between friendly and competitive. Personally, reckoned today would be 0-0 or 1-1 draw. With some fun gambling due to commence over the next month, good to see me laser accurate as per.

Leave him to it Khod. Him, and the rest of the bitter home nations, can sit in their houses spouting crap like this for the next month: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.independent.ie/sport/soccer/world-cup/duff-englands-players-are-not-as-passionate-as-irelands-36985359.html I mean FFS Damien, give your head a wobble, chatting about would players "take a bullet". What a clown.

Easy. He started on Radio One in 1999. 2 decades in the top level of tv and radio. I think you'd be surprised, multi millionaire is probably a modest description.

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/pcc-rejects-complaint-stan-collymore-over-sun-i-only-hit-her-open-hand-story/ I think the issue was Talksport was bought out by the company that owns The Sun newspaper. And since he had been in some legal battles with the paper as in the link, clearly his contract was never going to be renewed. It's also the reason that Colin Murray quit immediately, because as a Liverpool fan he refused to take paychecks from a company related to The Sun. Which I kind of respect him for, but to be fair, it's a lot easier to be picking and choosing jobs on moral grounds when you're a multi-millionaire. Don't think a lot of the rest of us have that luxury.

Come on a rival clubs messageboard, patronise the members by making sweeping statements about their level of business acumen, all whilst also lauding their much maligned owners as some bastions of high level investment that the fans should be eternally grateful for. Somehow managing to ignore the gross mismanagement and decade of decline that has occurred, the total lack of communication and disdain shown to the long serving fanbase. A tale of such rank bad ownership that even hacks in the most southern based media organisations - (who generally have their heads so far up their own arses they barely mention clubs outside of the Top 6 or London) - use it as a moniker to describe potential disasters and warnings for other clubs. "Careful what you wish for, let's hope they don't do a Venky's". Yep, seems like a hotpot of ingredients, well mixed together and served up that is guaranteed to ensure you are met with a warm reception. ? But perhaps you are the only one that can see the true picture. It must be us Rovers fans and every semi-intelligent neutral in the footballing world that has got things backwards. Hey ho, if only we could all be as "conversant" with things as you.

I'm not a huge fan of it myself, although I would like to see game deciding clangers eradicated somehow. But I'm sorry to say it's coming wheher you like it or not. Can't see anyway it can be stopped now. So, I'm just trying to look at options to make it better, cos I too worry it could be damaging to the game in it's current form. Have to say though, all those people saying they're happy to take bad decisions on the chin - will you still stick to that if we end up getting a howler of a penalty decision in 89th min of playoff final to keep us in League 1 another season?!

That's what I'm trying to solve. I feel like the refs hav their heads up their arses at moment. And I don't blame them. For all the stick we give them, fact is refereeing a top level game is a very hard job to do, and now their heads are full of - should I be checking this, should I hav reviewed that? It must be a frigging nightmare with everything else they're trying to keep an eye on. My way leaves them to carry on as normal, and referee the match to the best of their ability, and a couple of times a match their decisions might get contested, and a final decision will be fed to them.

I totally get this sentiment and I'm with you. Has killed the atmosphere recently. But with my way with no offsides, a goal could only be challenged for a foul - so maybe a handball before scoring, or a foul in immediate build up of play- and how often do those happen. And again, if a manager takes the piss with it, they would be punished. Not saying it wouldn't occasionally kill the atmosphere of scoring, but still think it would be minimal. And a perfect example, Henry's goal would have been chalked off and Ireland would have gone to the World Cup. Or was it Euro? Anyway, that decision would have took about 15 seconds.

To stop bad decisions and make the game fairer. Particularly game changing decisions. For all the stick it gets recently it can actually work. Was watching an MLS game this last week where a stupid penalty was given by lino flagging. Sliding tackle in box, bounced up off defenders knee onto his hand by accident. But obviously, ref had to take linos word. Went to VAR, took about 30 secs , penalty overturned, game back on. Don't we all want errors like that stamped out?

I'm not sure VAR is the issue, it's the incompetent morons in the hierarchy of football that seem incapable of implementing it. It's not a popular view, but I would be a fan of giving managers 2 challenges per game (red cards, yellow cards, penalties, goal reviews for fouls - not offsides as it's become a mess. Just stick with lino decisions, you'll win some, lose some. ) This takes it totally out the hands of the officials who are clearly struggling to decide when and when not to use it. And you generally don't get more than 2 contentious decisions against you in a game. The main argument I have heard against this is managers abusing it. i.e. Mourinho challenging a blatant yellow in 89th min of game to break up the flow and get to have a sideline chat with players. Easily resolved for me. Have a Monday panel, and if they decide a manager has abused it VAR challenge privileges revoked for 1 game. Do it again in a season, revoked for 2 games etc etc. Once a team has a dodgy penalty and/or red given against them in a game and they're powerless to challenge it, they'll soon learn not to abuse the system. Edit- Oh, and after the challenge the VAR makes the decision. None of this ridiculous running to side of pitch to look at a monitor. Manager challenges, ref signals VAR so fans know. Minute later decision comes back, ref signals it, game moves on.

The spring Aussie sponsored blubathon is really gathering speed now with Warners press conference. It shed a lot of light on the situation and I'm impressed with their forthrightness and honesty now they've been found out. Who's idea was it? No answer Was anyone else involved? No answer Has it happened before? No answer Repeats "I'm here to take responsibility for my part in what happened on day three of the Capetown Test" about 35 times. Then scurries out the room like a rat deserting a sinking ship. Bravo. Really nailed that PR exercise David. You know what would actually be taking "full responsibility" for their actions, is for one of these clowns to stop balling for 5 mins and tell everyone the truth. Novel idea I know, but I'm very progressionilist me.

You're making me dizzy. How about picking a standpoint and sticking to it. If you want to try and defend the indefensible, then grow some balls and crack on. Cos at the moment your mealy mouthed fence sitting, and dragging up mainly irrelevant anecdotes from years/decades ago is appearing very weak and contributing nothing to further the debate.

Just for the record, these are the guys I'm supposed to feeling sorry for right?! Multi millionaires that drive supercars and live in beachside mansions. And no, that's not me being jealous of their wealth. It's the point that with this great wealth comes a certain level of responsibility. That's why you're getting paid the big bucks in the first place. To play for arguably the most famous cricket team in the World, to be an ambassador for your country, and an example to millions of young kids that idolise you. As well as fulfilling certain obligations to multi-million pound sponsors that help fund the lifestyle you now have the benefit of living. So, when all that comes crashing down because of your own stupid actions, then sympathy is not what I feel these fellas really deserve. You've got to take the rough with the smooth in life. And they've been having it very smooth for a very long time. Unrelated, the same goes for Ant McPartlin and the outpouring of sympathy that has come out for him in recent weeks. Yes, he seems to be having a rough time, both with his family life, and certain addictions. But, after the privileged life he's benefited from over the last few decades, to get in a car and drink drive putting a family and young child's life in danger, is a grave error of judgment that he is going to be rightly severely punished for- both criminally, financially, and reputation wise. And he has no-one to blame but himself for all that. Why I should feel sympathy for any of these people is mystifying to me. But perhaps I'm not a very caring person in life and need to re-evaluate. It's going to take some convincing for that though.

Yeah, me too. It's gonna proper ruin my Bank Holiday that! That bottle of plonk is going to taste a bit sour..... Bancroft just been dropped for summer by Somerset too.

Well you'v got a big heart then den, good on you. Think I'll stick to being a xenophobic, vindictive git thanks. ?

Do you? Not for me, I'm with Asia on this. And it's not sour grapes. I think they probably did tamper with the ball in the Ashes. But it's irrelevant, they would have beat us anyway. You reap what you sow in life, and their conduct over the past few years in general has been extremely poor, to the extent that their own coutrymen have been turning against them. Just cos the chickens have finally come home to roost, no amount of crocodile tears are going to suddenly make me feel sorry for them. It's karma and comeuppance time. And personally I'm loving it.

A strong fight?! Are you for real? We lost by an innings and 49 runs!! Suppose you thought Browne put up a strong fight against Whyte in the boxing Sat night too. Getting so bored of the loser mentality in this country. It's like some weird tropical disease that's spreading. The rugby and cricket teams have been nothing short of a disgrace recently. And the money that's pumped into them and the backing they get, should hang their heads in shame. I'm sure it won't be but a few months till the football lads follow suit. Very pissed off with all of it. And I feel I've got every right to be.

It's comments like these that are making people look stupid. Yes, they really can say it was onside (was clear for us all to see with the lined replay), and no, they are not guessing. Have listened for decades to managers moaning about wrong decisions costing their team results, and we get the first ever official goal awarded through VAR with a 100% correct decision, and guess what - a manager is moaning and questioning it. Just because the goal was against his team. https://talksport.com/football/average-ball-play-time-each-premier-league-side-201718-season-171127263506 It's exactly because of the time already lost that I don't understand why people are moaning about a few minutes here and there for the odd VAR decision. The link above shows the ball is in play for less than 60 mins of a Premier League match. That's almost half an hour of inactive time in a 90 mins match. So, to me, VAR is going to have minimal impact in relation to that dead time. There are tons of things authorities could do to try and reduce this wasted time - speed up throw ins, stop goalkeepers taking forever, stop players surrounding refs for ages complaining etc, etc. I would prefer to concentrate on cleaning up some of those areas of the game, and increase time that way, and leave a few minutes here and there to use VAR to make sure match determining decisions are made as accurately as possible.

Yeah, yeah i know SG, (edit and Jh)we're crap, still feels a bit like the gods conspire against us sometimes. Although, was just saying to a mate before, on Sat there were 11 championship fixtures. Only one home team failed to score a goal. Says it all about our quality i suppose.

That's 2 late spawny wins in a week for wigan. I know everyone will say you make your own luck, but cmon. Where the hell is our slice?! Norwich and PNE spring to mind. Everyone else is stealing last min points, we get them robbed off us. Gutting.

Talk about a kick in the nuts. I don't think it will make a massive difference in the long run, but that penalty award was one of the worst I've seen in my life on first viewing. Must b nice to get handed gifts like that.