Have you got tickets for it Gav? I was looking on Stubhub for tickets. Cheapest going is around £140. Can’t justify it Saw two excellent days at Edgbaston - Brook and Smiths centuries and then it was the India show but an excellent watch nonetheless. It has been a great watch throughout

Is Abelousi seemingly incompetent yet?

Tony Mowbray would have loved him 😀 Fair play to the lad. Probably the biggest day of his life so far and wanted to be dressed to the nines. Lovely attitude

Of course you don’t. That’s your vibe. Some are glass half full, you smash the glass on the floor. You can reply back to me to say that criticising you of negativity is stifling debate but I don’t care. Your posts are certainly slanted to the negative - like it or not. It must be your mindset. Some people are like that. I work with blokes who the moment something out of the ordinary happens they panic and they think everything is going to shit. It’s part of life’s rich tapestry. I think both Gueye and Ohashi have improved our squad. The year before we were solely relying on Szmodics. This year the goals spread. It would be wonderful if we found another Sammie but they are few and far between for the money we spend. In general, the proof is in the pudding. Consistently we have been in the bottom 6 for spending but we are challenging for the top 6. That has to be down to the recruitment. You don’t need to understand it because as you say, it is personal opinion. You were talking very positively about other teams’ business this season. Apart from Birmingham City this season - I don’t understand it. It seems, the players we miss are good ens, the players we get, we have “rightful doubts” I have never said we have to be grateful. It is just a forewarning to those that big up others’ business - spending money doesn’t equate to success

I was reading about Hulls financial penalties the other day. It reminded me of the few posters on here who waxed lyrical about their excellent business a few years ago It’s very easy to look further afield and think it is all sunshine and rainbows. Just because they have spent money, does not mean they are doing it correctly Whilst we have the worst possible owners, we do have a shrewd and massively undervalued recruitment team. I will continue to trust them - that isn’t based on being a happy clapper or “supporting the club no matter what” (whatever that means - being a fan?) - but is based on recent history. A minuscule budget, but regular play off challengers. I’m prepared to wait and see what squad they put together this year before exclaiming others are doing better business than us

This is the mindset we have at the moment. It may also be the reason why we still make a draw here I was there on day 3. Some beautiful batting by Brook and Smith but you could tell there was nothing in it. 6 ducks in an innings is unforgivable on that pitch India knew that as well. They would know that for all his bluster, Crawley has it in him to take the game away early when him and Duckett are purring Hence they batted too long to make it impossible to win. Now they may draw the game. Bazball could win once more

“Hard to know much about Kargbo” >proceeds to post everything bad Kargbo has done You don’t think this poster trolls? In the same amount of time Kargbo has also beat two men and drove the ball into the box - three silly errors, three good pieces of play. Which do you focus on? Looks a decent player to me. Another decent spot for our recruitment team, who again play this game with their hands tied behind their backs

Not every signing is a success Yet, despite all of that, we consider anything less than play offs a disappointment whilst also operating with a budget that is within the bottom 5. That is down to our good recruitment, even despite some not working out Out of that list, I’d say Dennis and O’Riordan are the two which deserve to be there. Both poor signings and O’Riordan only so because it was with a fee at a time we needed bodies elsewhere Wahlstedt we moved on; Hirst was not good enough for us but no harm lost; Ennis we got a fee for; Forshaw came ok at the end and is an experienced player and Woodrow was a stop gap for depth and not the worst player I’ve seen either. Again, we have a tiny budget but have become accustomed to top half finishes. That’s down to recruitment. Mixed in there we have had: Dack, Szmodics, Tronstad, Brittain, Pickering, Hyam, Armstrong, BBD, Kaminski, van Hecke, Ayala, Rothwell, Tosin, We have had some players who didn’t turn out the best for us but went on to do well elsewhere - Ayari, Amarii Bell spring to mind immediately. Walton now Ipswich keeper. Overall our recruitment team gets it right more than they get it wrong and with such constraints they deserve a lot of praise for that

As critical as I am of the Club and its senior management this just appears to be critique for the sake of it Our recruitment team has continued to mould a squad that is far better than the pot of money they are given to work with. With a budget that is way down in the bottom 5, we have challenged for play offs more often than not We do not have the wage or transfer budgets to gazump other teams in our league. Teams in the league below us could offer higher wages - Wrexham and Blues. That is not the fault of the scouting team, data analysts or other members of the recruitment department, it is the fault of Venkys. Our recruitment team has to be one of the best in the league

So do you want us to store 4 players of the same quality as Travis and Tronstad?

Experience and know how. Could do a lot worse Looked more like the Forshaw we knew about towards the end of the season. Usual crew in hysterics - in effect, it’s another part of what was a good squad staying. Can’t complain

Domestic competitions are much different. Each round is a lottery. In international football, you can form your own destiny with your qualifying and seeding. Naturally, it is an easier route the better you are seeded and if you win the group I think where me and you differ is where we draw the line on the concept of “luck”. Softer ties - yes. For me, not luck. We could have came second in our group and been drawn against the harder sides; we could have been second seed and been drawn against a top seed side within our group stage The expanded tournaments will bring about a lot of runs like we had. I think Switzerland and Holland was a tough run in really. The Slovakia game needs disregarding as a lot of fixtures were “winnable” - but I’d have played Germany and Turkey over Switzerland so it was kind of middle of the road. Would agree out of Holland, France or Spain I would have took Holland. But again we put ourselves there by winning our group. That’s the way the cookie crumbles in international football and every team plays by the same rules

In the 5 world cups that Croatia have been a part of they have come third twice and runners up once. That was not an easy draw. Drawing Italy wasn't easy either. They were a good side and proved it too. And the same for Holland. Switzerland are a team nobody really wants to face as France found out and Spain almost found out too, only scraping by on penalties. It is not touching a nerve, it is addressing a point you make. Each and every faint praise you give Southgate is caveated with how lucky you think the draw was and that he never beat an "elite" team. Who decides who the 'elite' are? You haven't answered that one yet. None of those runs were out of the ordinary for a typical route to an international final. I don't understand why you keep repeating them - almost all international tournament winners would have faced similar teams in their route to the semi or final. What's your point? That they were seen as favourable? Maybe, but none of that diminishes in any way the achievement of Southgate, but you mention it every single time you bring up Southgate's tournament record. For me it doesn't matter one iota. I couldn't care less if we played Papa New Guinea, Fiji and Wales on the way to the Final. In all of the years before Southgate came, getting to the quarters became a success... Now we are looking at anything other than winning a tournament being a failure. That is all on Gareth Southgate. So lucky, blessed by the Gods, a tactical genius - whatever the Council of BRFC decides - he was a resounding success for the national team and the country as a whole

It is the same with every international manager because they all play by the same rules (we will ignore seeding and group rankings as it doesn’t suit the narrative). So by this token unless that nation has beat sides that roversfan99 consider elite their manager has been lucky Took a while to get there I suppose

In the FA Cup each round is reverted into a lottery. In your example, if Milwall were a country, they’d have faced an Arsenal or a Man Utd in the group stage. As it is, the lottery took that fate away from them Within international football, you balance the odds in your favour by making yourself a top seeded nation. Once you are put into your groups everything else is then decided by the merit of your performances. Had England not won their group, we’d have been more likely to face sides who came first in their respective group, therefore more in form. Most things in international football are by merit - you come Top Seed by merit, you win your group by merit and from there on the route is planned out. If we had come 2nd we’d have played Germany and then Spain. It was the merit of our group stage performances which meant we didn’t. By far the luckiest thing in international football is the country you qualify for. From then on in, merit of your performances are king. And in Euro 24 pots 3 and 4 included Croatia, Italy, Holland and Switzerland who are no mugs. Switzerland especially was a banana skin - as Italy found out in the knock outs, Germany in the groups and France in the tournament before. I was fearful for that game for sure