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Was in Barbados when he turned 80 and there was a celebratory T20 match in his honour between a current Windies side and a Gary Sobers XI. Plenty of speeches beforehand paying gratitude to the great man. In between the showers (was in the party stand so it didn’t matter if we got wet as we were all very merry to say the least), watched a great game of cricket which eventually finished with torrential rain at 12.30 in the morning. Great memories and the only time I saw him in the flesh. Too young to remember him playing but watching clips of him playing I suspect that he would be the same dominant player in all formats today.
I’m on holiday at the moment three hours ahead of the UK and the game kicked off last night at 11pm local time. I could have stayed up to watch it but I couldn’t be bothered as it was obvious what would happen. Tuchel is no better than Southgate. This World Cup apart from the odd 15 minutes here and there England have been bang average. Tuchel picked the wrong squad and the biggest laugh was when at the start Livramento got injured he had a chance to bring in another right back so what did he do? Brought in another of his North Battersea favourites in Chalobah, a centre half who didn’t see any minutes at right back at all. Cûnt. The squad was unbalanced and we have a number of players who really are overrated. I’d get rid of Tuchel tomorrow after reading both the reports and also thoughts of posters on this thread.
In addition to this the biggest culprits are the FA. What Southgate gave them was eight years to prepare a succession line like Spain has done, and look where their former youth team coach has taken them! They brought in Lee Carsley on a caretaker basis and apart from one game where he looked to experiment with a false nine and lost to Greece, which he put right in the return fixture, the football was of a far better and progressive quality. Tuchel has lost at home to both Senagal and Japan for gods sake and struggled against Uruguay. Struggled to break down Andorra both home and away in qualifying, he ain’t a good manager. He is nothing special in a time when even German managers are average. England should have stick with Carsley as he knew the young players coming through and he as successful with them. As Southgate did.
They now need to get Eddie Howe at any price and properly invest in younger coaches that can get into managing PL sides and making a name for themselves. Until then England will continue to be flat track bully boys, qualify for tournaments and then trip their was through until they meet a half decent side as they have done so since 2018. I’m bloody glad I spent the hours between 11pm and 1am last night getting some good sleep. Much better use of my time.
Couldn’t be bothered to stay up last night especially given the weather forecast issues so instead had iplayer ready on my iPad to wake at 6am. Woke without the alarm at that time picked up said iPad, front screen comes on automatically and there in the middle an Apple News Alert ‘Ten man England cling on to beat Mexico in five goal thriller!’ Bar stewards! 😡
Starmer, the biggest hypocrite ever. When England Ladies got to the final of the World Cup in 2023 he was all for calling for a national holiday to celebrate if they had won. Once in power and the England Ladies team had again reached the Euros final such a suggestion to him was firmly batted away.
We live in a road which is only accessible from one end. Round the corner of the end that is accessible is a pub. The road has no pavement whatsoever and is quite a narrow road. Wednesday evening people decided to use the road as an overspill for the pub car park. It meant that anybody wanting to get out of their drive didn’t have a chance. Any emergency vehicle would not have been able to get down the road either. Still Starmer is alright. Nobody is going to bother him in No.10.
I’m going to do a ‘Likely Lads’ as got a 4pm flight to Mauritius in the afternoon. Leave my iPad on BBC iplayer for when I wake up. And as part of the grand plan to ensure that England win the bloody thing, yep flying back the night of the final and will be somewhere over Africa when it kicks off!
No better than under Southgate. Slow, sideways and backwards and playing players out of position because the manager didn’t pick the right squad. I bet TAA is laughing at the moment, ending with Rice and right back. So when Liveramento pulled out what was the point in picking Chalabah? The guy has been nowhere the team. Apart from Kane we really do have very little. Don’t fancy our chances against Mexico at all. Won’t bother to stay up for that.
Out thought and outfought again. Spence is a joke. Would have been better with Kyle Walker than that idiot. Rashford is a waste of time, the two centre backs don’t know what the time of day is and Mandwake, well, if we as a nation have to pick him in a squad I don’t know what the hype is about. Shame this lot ain’t on collision course with the French because it would be an absolute slaughter.
I immediately thought of Barry Davies and his commentary on the final of the men’s hockey at the Souel Olympics. When GB scored their third goal he said “where are the Germans and frankly who cares!’ Brilliant.
Always loved the commentaries on TMS and even my partner when in the car with me will turn the volume up to listen. Brian Johnson was unbeatable. Jonathan Agnew has been excellent over the years and remains great to listen to, and his wind up of Boycott over his 100th 100 being struck off due to a previous 100 in and England v Rest of the World test in 1970 no longer being counted as a first class century is pure brilliance.
The management of this team has been appalling, culminating in the embarrassment of the Ashes last winter with the total lack of preparation made us look like a pub team at times. And now with Stokes gone, unless we revert to Root as captain then I cannot see anybody else in the team that has the experience or leadership qualities to take over. Absolute joke, exemplified perfectly by that idiot Brook giving his wicket away. You’re supposed to value your wicket especially in test cricket yet Brook sells his for next to nothing like a cheap tart. That bloke for all his scores he has made is a liability. He was the one responsible for losing the last test against India last year and although he scored a big hundred in an earlier test he was very lucky not to be out on the second evening for four from a no-ball from Bhumra, which he skied.
The bowling department is like a game of musical chairs. Not one bowler you could say is the leader of the attack, I thought Atkinson could be that person, but he has no gravitas whatsoever, Tongue, seems more happier skittling out the lower order and Robinson is a sick note when he’s not plainly unfit. Archer, well, great bowler, when fit but if he prioritises the IPL over England then he can do one. And as for Bashir? What more can be said. Nowhere near test quality and had to move counties because he wasn’t even first choice spinner at his last county.
So now we have to replace one of the best all-rounders the game has ever seen? The cupboard looks very bare and the only person I can think of is Rehan Ahmed.
Remember getting a home shirt, no badge in the early-mid 70’s from Ron Springetts sports shop on the corner of Percy Road. Also used to get the orange Wembley footballs. Plastic and were very susceptible to rose bushes!! Punctures repaired by heating up a metal skewer and then melting some of the plastic over the offending hole!
I find looking at the BBC site the article headlines half the time I’ve got to re-read and re-read again and still haven’t a clue what they are trying to say. Have to click on the actual article just to find out what it is all about. Some of the English and grammatical usage is shoddy beyond belief for such an organisation.
Sounds like a daft excuse but with the constant rain and FIFA’s insistence that the pitch had to be watered pre-match as with all other matches the pitch ran slow compared with the other matches I’ve seen so far making one touch football more difficult. Always difficult to play against a team with no ambition. Shame that the energy we showed in the last 10 minutes though wasn’t replicated in the first 80.
Diakite’s debut was something to behold. I think everyone in the ground knew after 5 minutes he wouldn’t last long. Was a fantastic half hour of maiming.
If Grant Handley is the answer to Scotland’s centre half debate then Liam Morrison certainly isn’t the answer to ours. Hopefully now we won’t be bombarded with the ‘Scotland supporters best and loudest in the world’, seeing men dressed in skirts with dead ferrets hanging from their waist and that miserable dirge of an anthem. bowlocks.
My neighbour is a sweaty and bumped into him last night. He wasn’t going to stay up to watch but get up early and watch it on repeat. I did the more efficient thing. Went to bed with my iPad. Saw Morrocco score and then next thing I know it’s 7am.
A decent enough player but for me was not strong enough as a midfield destroyer/disruptor, but saying that neither is Varane. Hopefully got a good enough fee given that he had three years left on his contract. Best all round that he leaves. Hopefully with what we get and if we are able to get a good fee for Varane if we sell him then there’s a few quid to get in the player we need in that position.
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