Admiral Nelsen

Definitely, and if that's the most difficult game you have en route to a final then you'd be delighted. Although in fairness the Italian and Dutch fans will be saying exactly the same about England having seen our group games.

Going off what I've seen so far, the Dutch will have a real test in the QF assuming they get there. I'd still make them favourites against Austria/Turkey, but it's very possible that they could be out by the time we would have to play them. Having said that I think that a quarter final with Italy is still a serious test. On paper they're obviously not the team they were but that would still not be an easy game, even if our form picks up.

They won't be going all out attack, but they'll have enough confidence in their own ability to get more on the front foot and higher up the pitch, which in itself should create more space. As bad as yesterday was, we had almost all the ball and were camped in their half for long spells. The better teams won't let us do that, but they'll have to sacrifice some defensive solidity to stop us.

Just to add to this, your average 18-21 year old earns a bit over £22k a year before tax. This goes up to around £30k for your average person in their mid/late 20s. These numbers will be lower in Lancs, but it's obviously the period of your life where you tend to see a rapid change in how much you earn. So then imagine you're a struggling second division club with a half empty stadium, a modest catchment area and adult ST prices which are at the upper end of what is realistic for the area. Having a discounted young adult category to make sure that at least you don't price out fans who have just entered the world of work strikes me as such an obvious, uncontroversial idea I can't believe that we're even talking about it!

Not a coincidence, sadly. Look at the places that have growing, younger populations with a few more quid in their back pocket, and you're mainly talking about London, large university cities and the wealthier areas of the South of England. The opposite to most large towns & small cities in the North & Midlands, so it's inevitable that more investors, players and fans are going to available to teams in the South unfortunately.

The worry I have is playing a team who are still happy to frustrate us, but have the players to hurt us on the break. A team who genuinely want to go toe-to-toe with us will result in a totally different game to those that we've seen so far. Obviously I'd rather have Slovakia (for example) in the next round than the Netherlands, but you almost think playing the Dutch is exactly what we need just now,

No. It's all about which groups the four best 3rd place teams are in. It's either going to be A, C, D & E - meaning that we play the 3rd placed team in group D (Netherlands). OR the Czechs (group F) win tomorrow, replacing Hungary (Group A). Which means we then play whoever comes third in group E, who could literally be any of them as things stand!

Just looked at the different permutations for the next round. I think it basically comes down to the Czech Republic result. They win, we play 3rd place from Romania, Belgium, Ukraine and Slovakia. They don't win, and we'll be playing the Netherlands.

To be fair, that was a game where both teams genuinely wanted to attack each other. I'm not making excuses entirely because the whole group stage has been like pulling teeth for England, but it's going to be completely different when we play a team that wants to attack us a bit more.

Probably rather have them than Austria on this showing.

Switzerland/Italy, surely? I'm in Croatia for the quarters, so I wasn't overly disappointed to see the Italy equalizer go in! Didn't fancy being the sole England fan in a crowd of Croatians... Keeping my eyes on the Dutch and French games for later. Southgate again looks like being a lucky general with the way the draws fall for him.

I sort of agree, but there's a good knock out win against Germany in there. Flip side of that is that it was at Wembley of course (along with most of our last Euros campaign) so that's another stroke of good fortune. I'd have the games against decent teams in major tournaments as Belgium x2, Croatia x2, Germany, Denmark, Italy and France. Of those eight games, we've won two in 90 mins, three if you include Denmark in ET, so in the round it's a pretty poor record for me.

Agreed - and we also probably win if Urs Meier allows Campbell's perfectly good goal in extra time. That leaves us with a semi-final against the Netherlands (tough on paper, but not a game where we go in as underdogs) then Greece in the final.

In retrospect, playing a midfield 3 with Scholes in there would've made a world of difference. Especially considering we never really managed to get Owen and Rooney fully fit and in the same team, so it's not even as though we had to change the midfield to accommodate our two best strikers. But to be fair to Sven, most teams played 442 then, even ones who we associate with being possession teams. And even playing Scholes on the left - whilst not getting the best out of him - sort of makes sense when he drifts in like Cairney did for us. He even did it for United a few times when Veron played.

I think the Italy example is an interesting one. They had a sprinkling of players who were obviously top level, but they had others who weren't. And yet they won the World Cup not by being streets ahead of everyone they played, but by cashing in when the opportunity presents itself. Could've easily have lost both the semi and the final. I think also that Terry, Gerrard and Ferdinand would all get into those teams you mention too. Even if they don't, I think we can look back on the side and say that even if they fell below their potential, and even if there wasn't any depth in certain positions, they were still an excellent side on paper and not overhyped because they were English.

I was thinking of doing the same, but decided against it because I do think we were on the decline as a squad there. The key players were just passing their peak and some of the players coming in were slightly below par for me. You can definitely add it to the list of things going against us at major tournaments that were beyond our control though. Turning to England now, one of the things I find strangest about Southgate is how his popularity is built on his worst tournament. The last World Cup was fine, never really looked in trouble until we lost a tight game against probably the best team, even if they lost final. The previous Euros final was not his finest hour, but we still lost on pens in a final after beating Germany en route. No shame in that. But it's ridiculous that so many people still see that first World Cup as a relative success. We lost to Belgium (twice), scraped past Tunisia with a late winner, couldn't beat Colombia over 120 mins and obviously were outplayed by Croatia who themselves had been taken all the way to penalties in their last two games by Russia and Denmark. We had a ridiculously fortunate draw in that tournament and still didn't leave it with a winning record if you count the Colombia game as a draw.

I don't agree that the England team of the 00s were overrated. Quite a lot of time has passed now and we can look more dispassionately with a fair amount of hindsight, and there's no getting away from that side being comprised mostly of really excellent players. Gerrard, Scholes, A. Cole, Terry, Ferdinand, Lampard, Rooney, Owen at the start of the decade. Beckham. They all shone in Champions League teams (Owen aside), so they weren't just overhyped by playing in a substandard league. They underperformed - no question - but even there I'm a bit of Sven apologist. 2002 - knocked out by a freak goal against the last great Brazil side and eventual winners. 2004 - knocked out on pens to the hosts and eventual finalists after having a perfectly good winning goal disallowed. 2006 - knocked out on pens after playing an hour with 10 men, and still looking the stronger side as I recall. An unfortunate run of tournaments, which preceded a real downturn in the quality of the squad until arguably the last few years. It goes to show the importance of striking whilst the iron is hot, because you're not always going to have very strong sides. The difference between England and the more successful nations is that when Germany, France, Italy & Spain have produced a great squad of players, they have done a better job than us of making it count.

A real shame. We've done a full 180 degree turn in that respect - we used to have a CL winning centre half as fourth choice and not even take players like Johnathan Woodgate to tournaments, all whilst dishing out caps aplenty to forwards like Darius Vassell. The complete opposite situation now.

Delighted for Wharton (and England), but I think leaving Maguire at home is an error.

I don't think I ever thought Derbyshire would be that good, but a year or two earlier I remember thinking similar about Gally and Stead!

Funnily enough, I think someone passible but obviously not brilliant could end up be the most harmful option for you. Lampard, given a good Championship squad like he had at Derby (or will have with you lot) won't be a disaster week on week. He'll look the part and do enough to keep himself in a job and you broadly at the right end of the table, but does he have enough to get you promoted? Much less certain, and at least with someone as obviously awful as Kean, you could have him booted out by bonfire night and start again.

Some big calls from Southgate which I didn't expect, so fair play to him for that. I'm slightly uneasy about leaving Rashford out. He's obviously been very poor this season and doesn't deserve his place, but nobody else offers the pace and power running in behind like he does. He's always been good for England too, so I'd have been tempted to find a place in the squad. Maybe Gordon can be that player coming off the bench.

Take your point, playing for Celtic/Rangers is arguably better preparation for a keeper compared to a relegation fodder prem team. You're not expecting to make 7 or 8 saves a game, but you need to be mistake free under massive pressure.

I've no idea how disappointed to be by this news - but there's no doubt whatsoever that he hasn't been given the tools to do his job.

You can play with a back 3/5 and be more attacking, so I don't particularly mind if we stay like that. I think the issue with McFadzean is he forces us to defend really deep - be it a back 3 or a back 4 - because of his lack of pace. I'd be happy to keep him as back up on the cheap and I respect what he has done for us in his short time here, but if he starts more than a handful of games for us then it tells us a lot about the sort of season that we'll be having. And it isn't good.