S-Clarke

Fully deserved thus far by Japan.

Where are these rumours...?

I'm generally of the same view. There aren't really walk overs in football anymore, every nation has improved coaching over the last 10 + years, and even the smaller clubs in the lower leagues when we get into the FA Cup rounds prove that notion. Tunisia were there to make it a very niggly, tight and compact game. But we still carried a threat, I thought we still showed patience. I remember the Iceland game and we couldn't even string two passes together for 60 mins. We deserved to win the match and given that we now have a manager who keeps Harry Kane in the box when we have a corner, we've got a chance.

If it's the same player I've read about, isn't he the next big hope in Belgium football? Could be good from what I've read. Also, didn't we setup some sort of relationship with Club Bruuge when Jordy went there on loan? hence why this deal could be a real possibility for us??

Trust us to have the worst ref of the world cup so far ffs. They've all been pretty solid up until tonight. he was all over the show.

Some people have that idiot on ignore for a reason. Stop quoting him FFS.

He started the season there, but then picked up a standard injury which rulled him out for a while. He never really made his way back in after that.

Maguire certainly wasn't out of his depth.............

Yeah, they were poor. But they weren't going to make it easy, we had to navigate a very nasty 2nd half against a horrible team, they were probably marginally better than Algeria who we couldn't beat in 2010. Wes tuck at it though, didn't get sucked into a lull and the manager actually made positive changes which altered the game.

Thought we played alright, had to deal with a really nasty, niggly Tunisia team. Clearly very limited, so they had to resort to other methods. Harry Kane just scores goals. One of the best strikers in world football without question, Spurs did well to sign him up on a 6 year contract. (Although we know how much they mean...). Big negatives for me were Sterling and Young, really, really rubbish. Young especially. Raises more questions as to why Ryan was left at home to be honest. But get the next game out of the way against a pretty non-team, and we're onto the next stage.

I haven't been this disapointed since John Ralls. He even had a medical FFS.

I think we just need to accept that as the going rate for half decent players now, not much we can do about it. Football has changed so much in the last 2 seasons. £25m gets you a decent player, if he's english and young then the sell on potential is greater - and the fee will be greater.

I think VAR has worked well so far in the world cup. It's the pundits who are making the drama out of it.

Loved that game, one of the best end to end football matches I've seen in a tournament since Euro 2004. (Ceczh's/Holland)

Not sure if they look that good, or if it's Iran who are simply terrible. They do have some nice attacking players though, so they do carry a threat for sure. Getting out of a group with Spain and Portugal is a tough ask though.

They're just playing on the fact that it's already known, so it'll be a bit of a tounge in cheek reveal I think.

Is he your boyfriend or something?

A nice laid out fixture list I think. More ballance than last season for sure. A decent start and a chance to pickup points early doors. December is geared up to be our usual null-points period, but we could get some blockbuster results over that time - maybe. Always like a home game to start and end the season, - and boxing day. So all good for me.

The club see survival as justification that this squad is good enough - IMO. Given how long they took to sack MPe and how slow they have been to bring in additions (not now, but in January and the summer too), it does suggest that they do have a slightly increased view of our squad than we do on the outside. We'll see articles bigging up Stephens during pre-season I'd expect. Good lad, but he is nowhere near a PL centre back and someone at the club needs to show some balls and realise that. How we have gone from finishing 5th/6th to where we are now is nothing other than club incompetence and a belief internally that we are better than anyone else, and we will always be better than anyone else. Money shouldn't be an issue. We are in the richest league in the world, we have bumper TV monies, we recieved the largest fee in the world for a CB. There is no reason why we shouldn't be going out into the market and spending £25/30m on players, as we see the likes of Burnley, Everton, Wolves and WHU start to do. Arrogance rules by the sounds of it and that is one of the reasons why my season ticket money is still in my back pocket. I had hoped that last season was a huge wakeup call and a re-adjustment for everyone after the last two disasterous seasons, but the early signs is that nothing is changing any time soon.

They always seem to win the 'transfer windows' and 'rumour mills', but very rarely take this through to the season. They're a funny club and there are still huge issues internally there - it's still wouldn't take much to have fans pouring onto the pitch again as last season. They're a tad fragile. I always avoid making predicitions on how teams will do based on players they are 'linked to' or trying to sign.

In my opinion the club wrongly believe we have a good squad, and the selection of Bedernark in the world cup squad justifies their position. I'm sure the club will be looking at Bedernak, Hoedt, Stephens and Yoshida and thinking it's enough. That's also not forgetting the car crash in attack. We genuinely seem very underprepared for transfers these days, which was alarmingly shown up in January with the single signing of Carrillo for a ridiculous fee.

wrong thread.

I wonder if he will be able to afford shin pads once he gets a big money move.

We should have been all over Diop.

Would be cool to get some of them, but bigger clubs will be sniffing. Wages will be the order of the day here. I think Rui will join Wolves.