RevidgeBlue

Where has that come from?

Based on what? We seemingly cant even put forward attractive enough deals to persuade McFadzean and Fleck to re-sign! (Not that I'd be in favour of re-signing either personally and in particular I wouldn't touch Fleck with a barge pole but it shows just how low we are setting our sights)

Mike Graham will be gutted, didnt he say Fraser Read was "a credit to the Club" and we were "lucky to have him" ? We have so many "Heads" of different things I'm not sure if anyone individually can possibly be left with very much to do. We'll have a head of handing the pencils out and making sure they're safely returned at the end of the day soon. Not bad for a Club that seemingly can't afford to sign any players

Champions League players but a manager who bombed at Middlesbrough despite being heavily backed, getting them relegated from the PL then getting sacked whilst they were in the Championship. That's the problem.

Was it not stated in the FF minutes that a lift in one of the Executive Areas needed replacing? Seemingly can't afford any players but at least we have our priorities right.

Yep, if it did turn out to be France against England, one of the two sides is going to have to try to come out of their shells a bit otherwise the loser is going to get slaughtered. And rightly so imo given the players on display.

Correct, but if you're going to stink the place out, the end has to justify the means and you HAVE to lift the Trophy.

Pretty much nailed it there. In general under Southgate as soon as We've played a "top" team We've been beaten which I would put down to a combination of his innate caution and lack of proactiveness during games rather than the quality of our players. The guy must wear a life jacket in the bath.

My mate who went to the game tried to explain what happened and as I understood it Tyjon came on and was brought off again then we tried to bring him on again in the second half as though nothing had happened. I've never heard anything like it in my life. Talk about unprofessional. Maybe we should have asked Accy if if it was OK if we fielded 13 or 14 players to their 11. After all it's only a friendly.........

No **** Sherlock. What's your point exactly?

The bloke up front who "can't run" scored about 35 goals for Bayern last season so someone must be able to get a tune out of him. Stones and Guehi have arguably been out best performers. Walker is top class and it's Southgate's fault he didn't pick a fit left footed left back in the squad. After that if you can't get a tune out of the likes of Bellingham, Rice, Saka, Foden, Palmer, Toney etc you're probably in the wrong job.

I think in terms of quality it's been the poorest tournament I can remember. Some of the smaller teams like Georgia, Turkey and Austria have been a breath of fresh air but none of the traditional "big guns" have really fired with the exception of Spain and to a limited extent Germany. What's the reason for this? A lot of people will claim the teams are all burnt out but I'd say a major reason is the demise of the traditional old fashioned striker who just wants to get into scoring positions and find the back of the net. Most teams have been loath to shoot and guilty of taking at least one pass too many and on the rare occasions when a dangerous ball has flashed across the area no-one has been looking to get on the end of it. When a team has finally attempted a shot, by and large the technique and quality of strike has been dreadful and of course attacking play hasn't been aided either by the ridiculous practice of VAR chalking off goals for toe nail offsides.

Not better than the original "Golden Generation" who completely flopped maybe but in general terms yes. Since the Premier League took off and financially dwarfed all the other domestic Leagues we have players playing week in week out in what I would class as the best League in the world in the sense it's by far the most competitive.

It's a fair point to make I suppose but it really needs to be looked at in the context of the quality of players available to him. Does it really matter IF we don't win any of them? It strikes me a bit of City/ Liverpool/Arsenal celebrating wildly because they've lost an FA Cup Semi Final or Final.

If they did it would only be the party line of "The owners have reaffirmed their ongoing commitment to the Club and events in India "shouldn't" affect the day to day running of Blackburn Rovers." Whist in the meantime actual events tend to suggest very much the contrary.

And maybe even winning one or two tournaments instead of consistently failing to get it over the line eh?

Why are there only 18,189 "saleable" seats to home supporters? That shows a distinct lack of long term ambition in itself. Anyhow challenge to the Club, keep Szmodics and spend at least £1m on a player and I'll renew my lapsed ST despite my loathing of the CEO. In the absence of the above I'll assume that there is still no desire whatsoever to succeed on the pitch, another grim battle against relegation will ensue and I'll keep my money in my pocket.

That would be the dream but we never seem to get the best man for the job - the prime example being Brian Clough being shamefully overlooked by the FA in favour of the safe option "Uncle" Ron Greenwood. Far more likely to be another uninspiring appointment from within the system like Lee Carsley or heaven forbid a serial failure like Lampard on the sole basis they're English. Hypothetically Klopp would be a good choice as well to inject some tempo and passion into the side instead of this painfully slow sideways and backwards passing game we appear to have fallen into.

Why is that? We are ranked 5 in the World so reaching the semi finals of tournaments ought to be more or less par for the Course.

Definitely - if recent stories are true about an exit for Telalovic being negotiated then that will cement Broughton's reputation in the Hall of Shame as signing three strikers for Rovers who didn't register a single goal between them. Which is a record that is never likely to be bettered or worsened as it were.

All or nothing now - I personally don't rate Southgate in the slightest, or even like him, and think we're progressing despite rather than because of him and also think we've stunk the tournament out and been incredibly fortunate to reach this stage. That said if we can win the thing the history books will record the fact and in fifty years time, no-one will care less that we were crap or within 80 seconds of going out against Slovakia. If that happens Southgate will be entitled to put two fingers up at his critics and say "I told you you were over-reacting". On the other hand if we lose on Wednesday or Sunday without at least putting in a vastly improved performance I think his Critics will be justified in saying overall its been an absolutely abysmal showing on a par with anything served up by his recent predecessors. An incredibly fine line between hero and absolute zero.

On England I'm finding it extremely distasteful that Southgate has created the narrative that it's the fans fault the players aren't performing because they are putting them under too much pressure and making them perform in a "strange" environment. Nice guy my arse.

Predictable and depressing.

Really disappointed to hear Harry Kane's comments this morning about Shearer and Lineker, I previously had him down as being more grounded and a cut above the average modern day player. The latter two, apart from both being exceptional players in their pomp are paid football pundits. Are they only allowed to say how brilliant Harry and Co are even when that obviously hasn't been the case and it's not what they believe? Lineker's criticism of Kane's performances in particular was I thought very constructive and well argued. As a former striker of some repute he itemised the things Kane has been doing wrong and suggested tweaks he could bring to his game to rectify things. Grow up Harry and stop being a cry baby. And P.S. Shearer and Lineker "haven't won nothing" unlike yourself - they've won plenty.

Strange how almost every side at the Tournament, even the so called "minnows" have been playing some fabulous football apart from the two UK based participants who have both stunk the place out. Both sides seem to be lumbered with extremely negative if not downright cowardly managers. As for Scotland, I know Clarke has a limited pool from which to pick from yada yada but Scotland were absolutely dire. They didn't turn up against Germany, treated what effectively was a "must win" game against Switzerland as a "must not lose" game and in what was definitely "a must win" game last night by 90 minutes they hadn't registered a single effort on target and only registered 3 in total over the 3 games. Really poor, irrespective of their relative status and I didn't think it was a stonewall penalty either. Whilst you've seen them given, I thought that instead of concentrating on trying to score the Scottish play was certainly looking for the penalty and was waiting for contact and contributed to the tangle. Always refreshing to see them "home before the postcards" as the Doc used to say. That said had they played well and progressed I'd have been pleased for them.