I doubt we'll be selling many female shirts this year!

I know it seems to have been popular in general - I just didn't like it at all.

I agree........ But......IF we played well and got knocked out in the semi final or were losing finalists, I wouldn't necessarily consider that a failure for his first tournament bearing in mind he would have either equalled or surpassed anything Southgate achieved at the World Cup.

"Full kit wanker" Love it! That deserves a new entry all of it's own in the Oxford English dictionary this year. Adj: Elderly male wearing full soccer kit with neither the looks nor the physique to pull it off.

Just out of interest does anyone know how many times we actually wore that horrific pink kit last season? It cant have been many. I hated that particular kit but in general it shows how much the fans are being taken for mugs when they are expected to shell out another £60 for something thats used what, 4-5 times?

*cough* Kargbo.

Yes I do think he can get us to (at least)the last 8 I'm not too concerned at the moment, the last couple of games will probably have been a bit of an eye opener for him and by the time the tournament comes round I'm sure he'll know his best X1. I just don't agree with comments like "If he doesn't win it he's failed" when Southgate never even got us past the semi finals of the World Cup. If he were to have 4 cracks at winning something and came up empty handed like Southgate then I'd probably concede he'd failed.

I'm not actually sure it is cheaper to fund a League 1 side. Didn't someone post a table the other week showing the massive hit in TV revenue you take if you get relegated? Difference was just over £1m instead of £6m or £7m from memory. What they would probably ideally like is to stay bobbing about in perpetuity in the lower reaches of Championship using academy kids and cheap loans. Unfortunately that won't happen as other Clubs have ambition and try to improve instead of treading water or regressing at a rate of knots like we are.

I'm reminded of the character in the waistcoat in The Fast Show who always had impossibly fortunate stuff happening unexpectedly to him and ended up by saying : "Which was nice!"

That's all Southgate managed at the last World Cup.

The shirt itself would look nice enough if it was a normal year but it's an absolute disgrace that this is basically just a normal shirt and the anniversary hasnt been been noted on the front of the shirt somehow with the badge. How can they get something so simple so badly wrong? Par for the course with this regime unfortunately. I'm assuming that if an actual anniversary shirt is released at some point, the thinking is that they will try and rinse anyone who is daft enough to pay £50 or £60 for a top twice.

So by that token then, I take it you'll be praising Tuchel to high heaven if we get knocked out at the last 8 stage of the next World Cup?

Bayern Munich v Auckland......Give me strength. Just noticed it's 10-0 at the moment. They were saying on Talksport earlier that half the Auckland team couldn't make it over to the USA. Either they weren't allowed time off work or they couldn't afford to travel over to the US as allegedly the travel costs were double the Club's annual budget. That's not a competitive football match, it's a piss take.

What evidence is there to suggest that will happen?

Bloody hell, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You hang off Nixon's every word when he says something you like. Now he's posted something which doesn't align with your super positive point of view you're more or less ignoring it. Lol.

Yes I may have heard that mentioned once or twice! 🤣 I meant recently as that was what the poster I replied to was alluding to.

You're better than that jim.

I don't have a problem with him at all. When it mattered, he gave his all and kept us up virtually single handedly. Who in their right mind would give up what might have been their only chance of Premiership football in favour of staying at this shitshow? If I did have a gripe with him it would be that after one season here I thought he was rubbish. In season 2 he proved he was a great player. If he'd performed anything like that in season 1 we'd have definitely made the play offs and could quite easily have been promoted.

No.

If we end up with Argentina, no. If we end up with Croatia, yes, as it is out of England's control, and you would expect Argentina to beat them normally. (Although maybe not as we couldn't beat them either in 2018) Anyway, when did we reach the World Cup Final?

Arguing about semantics and the definition of "impediment" really but I'd still maintain in reality there isn't because there's nothing whatsoever to prevent them from complying with those conditions if they WANT to.

Completely false comparison to compare England to Rovers. Other than a very brief period under Jack Walker we haven't had the choice of the best players in the Country to choose from, in fact for most of the time, not even the best players in the Division. So you're not looking at anything like a level playing field. Despite that in my time we've achieved actual success in 1975, 1979, 1992, 1995, 2002 and 2003. Southgate has never achieved any success at senior level as a manager. I suppose he did get Middlesbrough relegated which I presume was very memorable for Boro fans.

I think it's a bit subjective. I've never rated JRC personally. Conversely I wouldn't criticise anyone for giving Buckley a 5 year deal at the time as again he looked like he was going to be the next big thing. I rate Scott Wharton and again wouldn't quibble about him having been given a long term deal at the time. On the other hand at no point would I have been rushing to offer Pears or Pickering new deals, I don't think you can just hand contracts out to everyone carte blanche, you have to assess who's performing best for you and who has the most potential resale value and prioritise accordingly. Mowbray was particularly guilty of handing out contract extensions to those who didn't warrant them.

Thanks. The only one of those I'd say was a real coup would be Carter's as he looked at the time as though he'd be the next one to leave for big money. His form and fitness have declined somewhat since then though which couldn't have been predicted at the time.

Well, if they needed signing up because we wanted to sell them on for a profit maybe. How many senior players still here did he sign up for an extension? (Genuine question because I don't know) Buckley and Scott Wharton maybe?