The9

Cool, can't be many of those around in adult sizes!

The Europa League pricing just makes £50 look like the massive rip-off it probably is.

Yeah, some people aren't prepared to give any credit based on preconceptions of what players are like. I find it really tedious, if Yoshida plays well, I'm happy to say it - even if I think he's a liability some of the time he's still ok against bottom sides most of the time. Targett hasn't been outright "bad" in really, he has however been exposed by a lack of midfield cover on occasion, and clearly doesn't offer an attacking option which seems to frustrate a lot of people. I wouldn't be massively surprised to see us go with a back 5 again OR maybe to see a back 4 with Yoshida instead of Targett. Given the shutout at Watford and the availability of a "better" defender I think the 5 may be on the cards. Could even be Yoshida-Van Dijk-Fonte-Caulker-Cedric which is both defensive and has an attacking side (well, one side). I think the number of defenders may also depend on whether Wanyama is selected. He and Romeu could allow a back 4, without him a back 5 seems fairly inevitable as we probably won't play away the way we did at home to Norwich. Then again, JWP will probably come back from U21s confident... sooooooo, lots of variables for this one.

Lineker scored 10 goals in 12 World Cup Finals matches, his tournament goal percentage is much higher than the others and he played more matches against top teams because of that. Though some of the second tier of "top teams" have changed a bit since then. I think in a 4-4-2 era he'd have just continued as a support striker for longer.

Mmmm, Charlton played exactly the same number of games as Rooney to get to 49 goals - and Charlton would have been substituted far fewer times, seeing as they weren't widely allowed in international competitions for most of his career and even at his his retirement only one sub was allowed.

I was slightly worried when I saw "BREAKING NEWS: Ralph Kruger to..." in my Hooks notifications, but this could not have been less interesting, and in other things I'm doing today, I've been looking at the features in NHL 2016 on PS4, so it's not like I don't even care about ice hockey.

Van Dijk and Fonte (or Yoshida) hadn't as of yesterday, but Van Dijk and Caulker played together in the closed doors friendly.

I'd want the team to be tactically flexible rather than rigid and predictable, but you're right that you'd at least have to go through that process of rigidity, their "system", to build a foundation for those changes without people losing their understanding altogether. Part of the problem is the short-term nature of international get-togethers, there's rarely time to build anything other than simple relationships (especially if you're changing the team or squad all the time, and that's inevitable from the timescale of qualifying and tournaments anyway). That's one of the reasons why managers like to pick blocks of players from the top 6 as well, of course...

As a cynic, I'd claim there were two reasons the Irish FA sought clarification. The first was to try and get the decision overturned if at all possible, seeing as it was easy for them to ask. The second was political, to remind everyone they're one of the 5 constituent members of the IFAB and responsible for the Laws of the game to begin with. And you'd better believe they'll be trying to further clarify that bit at their next meeting... I'm surprised there's been this much discussion about it to be honest, it's always been very clear to me that you can get two cards in one passage of play. You can get multiple yellows for repeated time-wasting too, but in practice the ref's probably never waving the second one.

As an older person (42 ) I can comfortably say England were boring for all but their last 2 knockout matches of 1990's World Cup but beating Netherlands 4-1 at Euro 96 was pretty decent, though I happened to be at Scotland v Switzerland at the time. Saw the England v Scotland and semi-final matches though. I also sold my ticket to England v Argentina in 1998 for FF3000, I have an interesting history of with avoiding England matches at major tournaments outside the UK.

I think part of the Maradona/Messi thing is Messi starting his club career in Spain too, there's no-one with that "we saw him as a kid at Argentinos and Boca" thing like there is with Maradona, he's sort of the overseas bloke - and yeah, Argentina aren't as good as Barcelona when he plays for them. Well, there are a lot of rubbish teams going to be in this Euros finals, so as their thing at the moment is being mediocre teams, maybe England will have the chance to lose in the QFs again. Based on FIFA rankings, Wales are in line to be seeded, lolz.

It's an interesting one about "passage of play" because of course, you can send players off multiple times even after the final whistle for repeated breaches of the same regulation, as Dean Windass knows only too well. So I'm not sure where this "can't card someone twice in the same passage of play" thing came from. I am in no way coloured by your one refereeing performance in my presence, of course. At least it was Kidderminster and not the Watford leg-break game...

I only feature in in-ground long range crowd shots in Arnhem and Midtjylland, our decision to pitch up next to the fence by the temporary bar in the corner of the square in Arnhem was vindicated when the beer bath happened but has cost us exposure in the long term.

I think that's fair, because Rooney's the top goalscorer but longevity is part of the most goals and longevity has nothing much to do with any measures of footballing greatness, which is usually measured from the highs of peak performances. The Messi analogy is a little off though, as if Messi had won the World Cup last year he'd have a case for being Argentina's best ever, and as he played in the Final, that's literally one match making the difference. Messi's greatness in club football comfortably outstrips Maradona winning one Argentinian title at Boca, no league titles at Barcelona, dragging Napoli to Serie A twice and a UEFA Cup. Plus as yet he hasn't had any drugs bans or started a 60 man brawl in front of the King of Spain... So basically what we're saying is that if Rooney can lead England to Euro 2016, people might accept he's the best goalscorer in English history.

There is a reason for this: Rooney's greatest impact on tournament football to date came as a teenager at Euro 2004, when he scored twice against both Switzerland and Croatia before breaking a bone in his foot during the quarter-final defeat by hosts Portugal. Since then, however, he has scored just two more goals at major tournaments, with a winner against Ukraine at Euro 2012 followed by his goal in the defeat by Uruguay at the 2014 World Cup - his only World Cup finals goal. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32053848 He has failed to make an impact on the biggest stage - but at least part of that is due to the failings of the players around him - England could easily have won the World Cup in 2002 and Euros in 2004 with a bit more luck and not much else but since then, they've been also-rans, and lack of goals, which in itself isn't just down to him, is only part of that.

I'd like to hear this list of "good England memories". Obviously 5-1 v Germany, then what?

And yet (ignoring your hatstand definition of "minnow teams") no-one else has managed this supposedly easy feat.

To be fair, saying "if Crouch had played lots more matches he'd have scored more goals" is kind of the point. He hasn't, because he hasn't been selected for enough matches to do so - part of being able to score 50 goals for England is playing in enough matches for England to be able to do that. Rooney started young, has been consistent enough not to get dropped, and scored often enough to reach the target. He's probably going to get another 10-15 more as well, unless someone superb comes along he's going to be in with a decent shout of starting for England in matches for maybe 2-3 more years, he's not 30 until next month. If Sturridge remains as injury-prone as he has been, Kane disappears into nothingness as he seems to have started to do, and the manager goes for the same sort of extended run Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard all got and maybe drops him a little deeper (but still on penalties), with England guaranteed to play a couple of lightweights in every qualification campaign he could get to 60, if not more. I'm not sure I can see him retiring from International football after the 2018 World Cup in Russia, when he'd be 32, but it may depend on what happens at club level. Man U don't have the stability they used to so it's not like you can say "Van Gaal will still be picking him no matter what" and it's a results business after all. He's almost certainly going to do a few years in MLS in his mid-30s too, he's just the type, that's probably going to rule him out for England by the Euros in 2020 anyway.

I dislike the fact that Rooney is England's all-time scorer far more than I disliked Klose beating Ronaldo's World Cup scoring record. Think about THAT for a moment. Anyway, OGs will beat all of them in the end.

Or alternatively, Arsenal do really poorly for a club with their resources due to not being strong enough defensively at key points of the season.

This is very true. But I think Steven Davis playing in the hole and getting criticised for not scoring enough whilst pressing and moving the ball on quickly and being key to our attacking is far preferable to Steven Davis playing theoretically alongside a DM and not defending enough and costing us goals, which is what happens when he plays deeper. Box to box midfielder is one thing, but we are far more secure with 2 sitting DMs, it's just a question of when we feel safe enough that we shouldn't use them.

Different bloke entirely. Pompey Scot is so called because he's Scottish, not because he's called Scot(t). He was also a Rangers fan when I first met him at work...

Adult sizes?

Yeah, the one where "half" equates to 10%.

Les basically said it gives us the chance to focus on the League Cup and FA Cup more, and that whilst you want to give the younger players a run out those younger players are also quite experienced. Plus he mentioned "silverware" as a sign of progress - and I'm fairly sure we're not winning the Premier League this season.