benjii

Agreed. Whenever I have seen Eagle she has come across as a humourless, waspish, embittered, thick-headed little shrimp.

Hoddle had some very good players to choose from for England. Seaman, Campbell, Adams, Neville, Beckham, Scholes, Sheringham, McManaman, Owen, Rio Ferdinand. All much, much better than their modern day equivalents. In fact, the squad we had in 98 is probably better than any of the squads in this tournament.

Likely rating = 0%. Sorry.

Great post! And add a gutless prepared resignation speech into the mix as well.

It's Paul Jewell FFS.

This is all a result of Chinese whispers. It's Paul Jewell.

Stupid question. Farage never made a promise. He's not even in government FFS. It's very weird how people, throughout this debate, asked questions of the campaigns which one-supposed they were running for government. They weren't. Obviously. This is one of the major problems in having an "in"/"out" referendum when there is no government which has stood on an "out" manifesto. Frankly, we have no idea what the government is going to do for the remainder of its term. I'm not sure what the answer is, other than running the referendum in parallel with a general election where parties give an "in" and an "out" manifesto. Also, I echo the sentiments from someone earlier about Corbyn's performance in this. Leave has won due to big votes in Labour heartland areas. Corbyn's bemusing, disinterested, half-assed approach for someone who allegedly supported "remain" has been a disgrace, frankly. His resignation is no less compelling a requirement than Cameron's.

PS. I had spaghetti it was nice

Decided not to vote. I don't think there is a positive long-term case for remain but I think a leave vote will lead to some spectacularly inept political bungling, whilst politicians create a hideous unconstitutional Frankenstein's monster of a compromise. It's a crap choice.

Not long to wait.

Lallana has shown zero prospect of playing a telling pass or scoring a goal. That's why he went off. His effete running style and ostentatious Cruyff turns make it look like he's contributing a lot - and, in fairness, his work rate and movement has been good - but he has fluffed his lines at every crucial moment for three games running. I don't understand why Rashford wasn't used last night. Against Wales he stretched their back-line and created a lot of space by beating his man. Kane for Sturridge was pointless. Anyway, we got through the group. The third-place qualification route is causing a lot of defensive play. Had Slovakia needed to win, rather than draw, we would have created more chances, I suspect. If we can make it through the next round it will be interesting to see how we do against one of the better sides in the tournament.

Don't mind rotating the full-backs as they are all pretty similar anyway and I think Bertrand is better than Rose. Kane and Sterling also deserve to be dropped so not bothered about the forward changes (although I think I would start Rashford instead of Vardy, with Sturridge central. However, I think it could be a mistake to upset the midfield balance. I'm not Rooney's number 1 fan but he has played well so far.

I think the suggestion is not that he was expected to name a certain quota of academy players in the team (as you say, he did use Targett as back-up and I don't think he could realistically have picked anyone else other than Reed), more that his handling of the first team didn't embrace the philosophy of a "clear pathway". That doesn't mean picking players without merit (the club aren't silly enough to think you need to throw kids into a top-half team if they aren't ready), but it does mean involving them on the training ground, applying time to help improve them and generally showing an interest in that side of things. I think was something Poch was well into but perhaps Ron saw it as outside his immediate remit. Personally, I think Les Reed deserves the respect and gratitude of the fan-base. He is the one constant of the post-administration SFC and if a condition of being Saints first team coach/manager is that you have to adopt the philosophy and vision that he has been trying to implement, then I think that's fair enough.

I know what the home kit and away kit looks like. I shall not tell you though.

The problem I have is that if there is a "leave" vote, our politicians will not have the gumption or balls to follow-through with it properly. There will be panic, scurrying and frantic attempts to essentially reconstitute our membership but with a few special concessions. That is not what the public will have voted for. If there is a leave vote I think there should be a general election with clear post-EU manifestos from all parties that embrace the fact that there has been a no vote and set out clearly what a government under that party would do in terms of EU exit. We should not move to instigate formal de-coupling procedures with the EU until after that election. The worst thing that can happen is we vote leave and then end up stitching something together with the Germans, French and Italians which dilutes the benefits of leaving and causes a residue of dissatisfaction. If leave wins, we need a pro-active Government that will go to Brussels and say, "this is what the UK is going to do...".

Pressure on early home matches. Overall though, that's nice fixtures. Home first day, last day, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve. Awesome.

If it was just two to qualify it wouldn't matter but with the third place qualification route I think they would have to award everyone a walkover which probably makes it quite likely that all remaining teams would go through.

I think Ox is a better player but he probably earns three times as much as Redmond. Would you sign Ox if he required to be paid more than Virgil, Fonte, Forster, Mane etc? Not sure that would be worth upsetting the apple cart over.

Apart from that header, Pelle has been excellent.

Schauble is the archetypal personification of much that a lot of leave voters hate about the EU. He's a dogmatist and a zealot with minimal respect for democracy. He is exactly what Boris Johnson was talking about when he alluded to Germany seeking control of Europe through nefarious means. Anyway, given the abysmal recent efforts of the remain campaign I don't think a few crusty utterances from Schauble are going to prevent a leave vote.

I had no idea they have won 9 league titles. If I had to guess, I would have said something like "2". I've been watching football closely since 1989. I just checked, and 5 of those titles are pre-WW2 (indeed one was in the 19th century and one was during WW1). 2 in the 60s. 2 in the 80s. But thankfully, due to this excellent article, I now know they are of a similar stature to Juventus (30 league titles, including 7 since 2000, alone)

I'm watching the debate on delay but it's pretty depressing stuff from the Remain bints so far (why did they choose such an awful bunch of women? Very annoying). Lots of party-political jibes from them and attempts to focus on irrelevant history. Bet Remain wished they had some personable characters on there; not these dry old hags.

Arrigo Sacchi.

The law making process in the EU is driven by the unelected Commission (save for a few very limited areas). The democratically elected element cannot do anything other than approve or amend what the Commission (unelected stooges) proposes. Our system obviously has flaws but it allows for bottom-up lawmaking. The Lords doesn't determine what the Commons spends its time doing. People drawing false equivalencies between the two systems are as guilty of misinformation, ignorance or zeal as the sign-writers for Boris' bus.