hypochondriac

That's very unfair. If we were ignoring the Guardian way back in 2011, we would never have learnt about all those "dubious claims about Muslim men grooming white girls." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jan/07/grooming-racialising-crime-tradition

Sorry but that's a load of rubbish. There's been a ton of quality games and loads of goals scored.

Apologies I thought he said last six finals.

Brazil?

What a weird way of looking at it. He is our record signing and pound to contribution he is our worst signing by an absolute mile.

Nope. We'd need two yellow cards.

Good shout. They've also looked decent.

I disagree. Both England and Belgium have stood out so far. Uruguay looked good too.

A player I'm really glad played for us. Did well more often than he did badly. The Sunderland game was a highlight and he was pretty great that season in general. Thanks for the memories Dusan and for actually leaving on good terms- makes a change from recent players!

As an example the ref clearly had a good view of the soares handball. Ordinarily he would have waved away the penalty and carried on but the presence of var makes it too tempting to just use the technology and then he ended up reversing his decision which was correct in the first place. If the ref doesn't see something then that's different.

Guess you missed the bit where I said the very presence of var is causing referees to second guess themselves. We won't be getting AI referees for the foreseeable future so I don't think var is the answer when you have the fallibility of a human ref who feels undermined by the technology and has their confidence to make any sort of decisions removed purely because of the existence of var.

Then it should be a straight red if that's what you think.

I disagree. The very presence of var itself is making referees second guess themselves and rely on the technology rather than trusting themselves in way too many decisions. Stopping the game for goodness knows how long over what appears a very straight forward decision is farcical.

I don't think Ronaldo was a yellow card. The fact it's not definitive means the original decision should stand. So that's 2 out of 4 and even the Portugal penalty decision was debated by some.

Agree with that. Get the var officials to make the decision not the referee on a little monitor on the side of the pitch. If there is any ambiguity at all then the refs decision stands.

Except that it may not have been that they thought it was a handball- they just thought there was enough of an element of doubt about it to warrant the ref having another look at it.

Well then the var officials need looking at and how often they communicate with the ref. The yellow card on Ronaldo last night was another ridiculous decision- either it's an elbow and thus a red card or it's nothing. The ref wasn't certain so the original decision should have stood, not giving a yellow just because he feels he should do something.

The problem is now some refs have no confidence in their abilities and would rather defer the decision to VAR than trust their own instincts. It means we have a group of players crowding the ref begging for the technology to have a second look after every passage of play and a ref who looks weak and nervous going to look on a little screen at anything vaguely controversial- clear and obvious my a*se!- it slows down the game and is being used in some instances as a safety feature. In all the var influences decisions last night that I saw, the original decision should have stood.

Competence should play a part with any commentator appointment regardless of sex. Appointing some decent men and then some terrible ones doesn't mean it's then OK to appoint some terrible women. Most women just appointed because they have some connection to football. Personally. I'd hold some open auditions and appoint the best commentator that way. Would solve a lot of the accusations of quotas.

Yep. It's weird though because I think gabby logan is superb and she's undoubtedly female. I think it's true that the register of the female voice does not lend itself well to a game with loads of excitement but then Victoria Pendleton was brilliant at the Olympics so maybe they just need a better female commentator. Choosing one on competence rather than because it fulfills a quota would help.

Agree with that. Why not have a selection of male and female commentators and then let people vote for the ones they find less irritating- plenty of male commentators just as annoying. Let the people decide.

Seems like it's worth a go for such a small amount of cash. Not the lost inspiring signing in the world but our big money buys have mostly been rubbish in the past few years so he's worth a try. I would hope we get at least one exciting signing with the vvd cash though in the mould of a mane or someone like that with raw talent. We shall see.

Our defence and attack is near the bottom of the table in terms of quality and midfield is lower mid table quality. Seems clear to me where the priorities lie but it seems we will be selling what little quality we have...

Good article which summarises the problems on both sides well. The mainstream media and the TV channels in the US could do everyone a huge favour and be less partisan on both sides and try to facilitate some dialogue and try to understand the views of the other side. Fat chance but it would probably help...

I can't say it's anything I've heard about before. It's brand new information.