Won’t somebody think about the xG!

He was originally out of contract after Qatar. But luckily for him he bagged himself an extension to December 2024 just before this horror run got underway…

Probably spotted sharing a booth in San Carlo’s…

As was John O’Shea…

An international game in a few midweeks with domestic football continuing was the case up to the mid 90s. It is only since then it was decided by the authorities to invent the two worst words in football; ‘international break’

International football has been based on tournament football for nearly a 100 years. Just the way it is and inventing a ‘league’ in 2016 isn’t going to change that. I’d personally only have tournaments and their qualifiers, plus tournament warm up games. All in one block of fixtures and not a constant break up of the season. Though as I largely don’t give a shite about international football anyway. (I.è I’d probably choose Rovers winning next Saturday then England win the WC), I’m probably not the target market and I’ll leave you NL fanboys to it 😁

Just organise friendlies against top sides then, no? Which to be fair to the FA, they largely were doing in the couple of years before the NL was set up.

Friendlies are now also five. Plus, we’ve lost plenty of friendlies away from home against teams like this. If you think they are ‘competitive’ and mean something, fair enough. But in reality the whole ‘league’ and who played who, who won it will all be forgotten by this time next year. Whilst the WC/Euros go into folklore. That’s just the structure of international football, everything builds up to those tournaments, this means very, very little.

Not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing that makes it any different to if friendlies were just organised with teams like Italy or Germany. And as for subs, you can make just as many in these games. UEFA can call them ‘competitive’ all they like and can provide a naff little trophy that is awarded after a convoluted set of games taking about 18 months, but as the players and managers themselves only see them as glorified friendlies, they simply aren’t.

It’ll be reight, we’ve been told for decades that it’s tired bodies in June that costs us, so a mid season tournament will see us walk it…

‘Interesting and sensible’, just what you want from your day out at a match.

Does it, how? How is this any different than just organising a friendly with Italy?

Jimmy Armfield. Spoken and written word. What a career in football he had.

Yeah but at least it’s cheap for them to watch their club tread water for eternity…

It’s the players and managers that have animosity towards it. Personally I’d play all internationals (qualifiers) in one block per season. And some pre tournament warm ups, and that would be it. So we wouldn’t need either an invented ‘competitive’ competition or friendlies attempting to fill up endless international breaks through the year.

I’m talking about when he was at Bournemouth. He left Boro with them on the verge of relegation with 9 wins from 38 games. Ergo he’d be a horrendous appointment for a club like Rotherham with one of the smallest Championship budgets.

Bombed at Boro, then finished in 6th place at the club with the highest budget in the Championship. More fool a club like Rotherham, that operates on a shoestring, going for him.

The Nations League has been a failure, pretty clear that players, managers and most fans don’t give a shite about it. It’s still all about the two tournaments. But I suppose at least this round doubles up as World Cup warm-ups, so not totally pointless.

So? The club does what is right for its balance sheet, not what JoeBloggs95 wants them to do. Just like they did with SG.

No hindsight needed as folk thought exactly that about SG too, a fair few grumbled, the club signed him up on a new deal anyway to protect their investment - and quite right too.

BB should’ve had an offer on the table 18 months ago ago, just like SG had with two years left on his existing deal. He would most likely have jumped at the chance to re-sign back then, as did SG.

It’s swings and roundabouts, as Blackburn’s demographics have changed it has seen our support drop markedly in the town itself, but unsurprisingly it feels to me that there are now far more Blues in the Ribble Valley than I can remember.

It’s the entry price of £430 for any potential new/returning ST holder that really didn’t help. An entry of £365 seems much more reasonable.

Going early is just a habit now for some folk, as traffic is nowhere near as bad as it once was… for obvious reasons! Indeed I’m sure some that do it walk home anyway! It’s the same everywhere. Clock hits 87, right time to go. The cinema thing is apt, imagine leaving before the big twist ending, battle, death etc. So why miss that last gasp winner, one of the absolute joys of being a fan and they’ve missed them all.

You can have two thoughts at once, I.e Man City are a top class football team in every facet of the game, taking it to new heights of individual and collective quality on the pitch … but also such petro-state sportwashing clubs are terrible for the competitiveness and sporting integrity of the English game.