Have to say the BBC VR stream has been perfect, so fair play to them for that. It's a lot of data to send, hence the lower than usual quality.

Have watched the whole thing in VR, it's pretty awesome. BBC have done an amazing job with the implementation. Once they're able to provide slightly clearer feeds it'll be a game changer for sure. It's great now but I am glad they have the TV above you showing the game in clearer quality.

The Saudis seem to be a pretty odd team in general tbh as far as results are concerned. Narrow losses against Germany, Italy and a draw against Ukraine, plus victories over Greece and Algeria, contrasted with defeats to the likes of Oman, Iraq and Peru. Then their heaviest defeat in the last six years comes against a woefully out of form and injury-ravaged Russian side. This is not a team you'd want to put a bet on.

One of my worst memories of WC 2010 is turning on the TV ten minutes into an England match and hearing "Heskey runs down the right wing". You knew it wasn't going to end well. I always felt like Heskey could and should have been so much more, but he seemed to lose courage and conviction the older he got. A shame.

I was a bit surprised when I heard no world cup host nation have ever lost their opening match, including giants such as Switzerland, Sweden, Chile, the USA, South Korea, Japan and South Africa. If Qatar avoid defeat in their first match in 2022 I'm calling conspiracy and putting my tin hat on. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that Russia's opening game was against an extremely poor team whose defence looked like it had been purposefully bribed to play as if drunk.

Saudi Arabia are well below the average quality level. I feel bad for them, losing 5-0 to a poor Russian team is very embarrassing. You wouldn't see that kind of defending in the Conference. It could be a very painful, albeit brief, tournament for them. Once the tournament expands to 48 teams the average overall quality will dip far lower, though, which is good news for teams like Saudi Arabia. Not so much for the fans, but when has that ever been a concern for FIFA?

The reason Sol Campbell doesn't get work is because he comes out with stuff like this:

Just saw Jason Lowe moved to Bolton. Apologies if it's already been mentioned, I did breathe a sigh of relief though.

FFP is doing a good job then.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/inside-story-behind-aston-villa-12655774 Not too dissimilar to how Venky's have been running us tbh. As soon as their money stops coming in (as it appeared to the season before last) we're @#/?ed and end up using emergency loans to cover the costs. Still not entirely sure what was going on there as they appeared to continue funding us again shortly afterwards. Sounds like Villa could be in huge trouble next season if Xia doesn't sell the club or begin funding them again.

Looks like failing to go up this year is going to be pretty brutal for Villa. Apparently they need to raise £45m through sales just to avoid sanctions. They've spent £150m in the last three seasons. Wage bill is horrific. They could be in pretty bad shape next season.

I can see Derby's slash and burn financial scenario clashing badly with the appointment of Lampard as manager. For our sake I certainly hope so!

Papers here have said that Evans didn't think Lampard's coaching ideas were up to scratch. Who knows what the truth is, although if Lampard was asking for silly amounts that would be a good reason to turn him down too. Yet to do anything to earn such demands.

Ipswich turned Lampard down, so I'd be very worried as a Derby fan if that one goes through.

Look at Sheffield Wednesday. Spent big, but they've been getting worse rather than better. In our one season where we spent really big on Rhodes, Murphy, Etuhu, Nuno Gomes, etc we ended up battling relegation. It's not necessarily about spending a lot of money, it's about bringing in the right players to suit the manager's style of football (and having a manager who actually knows what they're doing). Ipswich got into the playoffs in significant net profit paying no more than £10k p/w wages. A healthy budget is important, but a smart and calculated transfer policy is far more beneficial than splashing the cash. Obviously I'm discounting extreme examples like Wolves and Newcastle, as realistically we aren't going to be spending that kind of money.

Well done Fulham. Totally deserved. Showed guts to hang on for the last 20 with ten men.

Actually most of the money "blown" was on Jordan Rhodes - which has been well established as not a Kean signing - and the ridiculous influx of Portuguese players which was done at the behest of Venky's "global advisor" Shebby Singh. So, nice try, but as much as I love to criticise Steve Kean I'm pretty sure we ended up in net profit as far as his transfers are concerned. For every signing we sold somebody to at the very least cover the excess, either in transfer fee or wages. We also ended up with a @#/?ing shit squad but that was an inevitability.

Time catches up with all players and it was pretty obvious last season that Conway's race has mostly been run. He's been a really solid performer for us in the past, but we don't live in the past and time isn't going backwards. A good lad to have in the dressing room, I'm sure, but he'd have to take quite a wage drop for me to consider a contract extension on that basis alone worthwhile. Still, if TM thinks he's worth the extension I suppose we have to put our faith in that and see what happens. If he can justify that portion of his wage budget being taken up by Conway then so be it.

There must be a reason Otzumer has never played above L1 level at age 26? Not saying he can't make the step up but there's a lot of hype on here for someone who's never even played at championship level...

It was indeed. Crazy decision. Speaking of crazy decisions, I think Moyes still technically has a year left to run on his Man Utd contract!

In January during Stoke's initial interest. As we all know by now they aren't worth the paper they're written on (for the club, anyway, usually works out pretty well for the manager).

Part of the reason people are tetchy about budgets so early on is probably because in the past we've literally gone into August with the Venky light still stuck on red and with no indication of what, if anything, we had to spend. Bowyer's final summer and Coyle's only window immediately spring to mind. I'm not overly concerned at the moment (and my expectations are also very, very low) but I wouldn't be critical of anybody feeling that way considering the club's recent past.

A shame he didn't have that attitude in 2008, probably would have gotten at least a few more decent years out of his career at Rovers before Venky's came in and bulldozed everything.

Truth be told the only time he really had a period of sustained form was his first spell with us. Before that he already had gambling problems and injury issues. He didn't make many appearances for Arsenal before coming to Rovers. Obviously goes without saying he was brilliant for us for a couple of years, then it all went downhill again when he moved back down south with Spurs and never recovered. As we saw when he briefly came back here a few years ago he had become a shell of the player he was. Long term I don't think his mentality would ever have let him get far in football. We were lucky to catch him during a very brief two year period when his head was right, but inevitably it got turned again before too long.

They've had, what, two or three seasons now where their campaign has collapsed down the home straight? Something is not right there. It's probably not going to get any better on a lesser budget but who knows? If they bring in a solid manager who knows how to work within a budget and build a strong mentality throughout the squad then they could still get somewhere. Not many of those about these days though.