He's another slightly embittered Celt who has to define his national pride in being anti-English rather than promoting the many achievements and culture of their own country. This causes the sufferer to lose the ability to read and aural hallucinations as everything associated with England is bragging, arrogance and suchlike despite it clearly being the opposite, or merely more measured, cautious optimism.

You do get a vibe that the squad and manager are happy together, and there are no real 'big I am' players like Terry, Gerrard or Rooney. I expect a valiant loss in the second round.

Is John Terry training to be a referee now?

Problem with Morocco is the big shiny stadiums would be useless white elephants. I can't see Fez filling a 60,000 seater stadium every week. And the transport network is probably a bit rough. The USA etc. already has the stadiums and has closed many schools and other public facilities to afford them. In fact, sport stadiums are what Canada and the USA are great at doing.

Mendes looking for another host then. It's like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

Others beat me to it, but Spain sacking their manager is crazy. The under 21 manager is stepping in for now. As for the North American bid, thre was no competition, despite Trump's threats about voting against it. 1994 was a good move, as was Japan and Korea in 2002. However, like JHRover said, China would probably bid in 2030, and goodness knows when a mainstream European country will host it again. I hope we don't bid as it would be a waste of money.

Yep he is pretty pants. His premier league teams played pretty football but had no steel, no spine. All style and no substance.

Why is Paul O'Grady in a Schalke kit? Anyway, I don't understand why so many people love that Nigerian shirt they'll wear in the world cup. It's hideous and reminds me of some sort of early 90s shell suit, or the various awful away kits Scotland wore around that time.

Brazil have won it in Europe. I think they won in Sweden 1958.

Let's hope he doesn't look like a lost boy when he plays for us.

Yeah, you are probably right. It was a full on Premier league wage. He was not able to motivate him though, so he failed like so many managers since O'Neill. Gabby will probably end up in China or Australia.

I think I remember reading here Corbett is a qualified pharmacist. Keith Barker has been doing pretty well for Warwickshire at cricket (saw him a couple of Sundays ago) and Ben Burgess is a teacher.

It might be an awesome game of thrills, spills and belly aches as both teams play crazy football in a 6-5 thriller. Or they might run off the pitch and decide to bomb Yemen and Syria again for a laugh.

Was he only on loan to whichever A League team had him? As for Bruce, he decided to keep on Gabby I'dbangthewhore and co. and did not bite the bullet and cancel their contract like we did with Best. Yes, that would have been a hard hit financially but getting rid of wasters can improve a squad spirit. The signings he did make were not good enough, so tough. Walk away Steve like you have done so often and let someone else pick up the pieces.

I remember Four Four Two bigging up Sonny when he moved to Ajax. It was probably around the time they had that magic team of Litmanen, Kluivert, the De Boer twins etc. The same magazine had an article in another issue showing 50 odd young footballers who will be huge. In with the likes of Rio Ferdinand was our very own Marlon Broomes. All I remember of him was being sent off at Stamford Bridge for fighting with Vialli at a match I got free tickets too from my sister. She worked at the Autoglass call centre, and they were the shirt sponsors. It felt weird being in the posh seats.

He was briefly good, but no way should he have played more than a couple of times for England. He had loads of pace, but it was like he didn't want to shoot, so he ran about until he was dispossessed. And Emile Heskey made you wish he never attempted to shoot.

If that knee injury hasn't made him a dobbin.

A sort of attacking winger, floating about player? Isn't that what I said? He's no number 10 or striker that's for sure.

Sol Campbell is an egomaniac who has a bag of chips on his shoulder. He plays the race card at every opportunity, whether it is why he didn't captain England, or didn't become mayor of London whenever he doesn't get a job. That said, it is very strange how few ex-players who are black or mixed race become top coaches. Sol was not the right choice to use in this case. Sadly Rovers' one black manager turned out to be a complete tool, and we got accused of racism by sacking him. We didn't get many plaudits in hiring him though. And in reply to Mike E, the Rooney rule may end up basically allowing substandard managers like Ince to get a bung to be the 'box ticker' when the club really wants I don't know, Ancelotti. That would probably block opportunities for Darren Moore for example unless he does really well at West Brom.

I'd have Sterling playing wide, and coming off the wing if he plays. He's not a forward of any kind so using his pace to create confusion amongst defenders about who to close down would be good.

It's obvious Russia bribed their way to the world cup. Qatar was much more up front and probably showered the voters with watches, money and gold but Putin would have used more subtle ways like gas deals, blackmail and threats.

Except half the teams in all the sports change city every 10 years. Like the Colts leaving Baltimore for Indianapolis in the 80's, leaving their popular marching band without a team until the Ravens relocated there. Now that marching band plays for the Ravens, and wear their colours.

First time I ever bothered to watch that game, and it was quite entertaining. Better than most Premier league games (not in terms of skill).

The Flanagan Vs Hooker fight was far better.

England are a shambles. Half those wickets were given away, and the bowling was village green standard. Sack Bayliss, scrap the ECB, scrap the counties and start again.