Duracell

2 hours ago, nottingram said:

Could anyone tell me a time where someone has had to beat all of the top teams in order to win a tournament. Given there only tends to be a handful of “top” teams at any one time I would find it surprising if there have been many occasions.

In the end Italy didn’t have to beat many top teams either because lots of top teams got knocked out by lesser teams. Maybe the lesser teams are getting better. Just a thought.

It's not an argument worth your time. Semi-final and a final in the last two tournaments, and some fans will do anything to move the goalposts to make the achievement seem lesser somehow.

We played the best team in the tournament yesterday and we didn't lose. The team played for each other and defended resolutely. We also bombarded Italy early on, but inevitably, they grew into the occasion.

People bang on about Southgate having this incredible bench, which he does, but how useful is it having loads of wingers? You can't play them all at once. I totally get the argument that bringing them on earlier might have asked more questions of Italy, but that's still up for debate. Our defending kept us in a game against a much better side.

And Italy are better than us. While Chiesa has been outstanding, he is not significantly better than our attacking players, so that is not why they are better. Bonucci and Chiellini are fantastic defenders, but they conceded more goals than Stones and Maguire, who were imperious throughout the tournament. So that is not why they are better.

Italy are better because they can control the ball. We can't. In 2018 Modric was the difference, and last night it was Jorginho. These are the players we just can't seem to produce in this country, for whatever reason.

Qatar will play out much the same. But that doesn't mean we can't win it.

2 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

You can only say it as it is. Yes we beat Germany, yes we thrashed the mighty Ukraine and they received plenty of praise for both of those performances.

Sadly though, like it or not, we were second best for most of the game last night. Not a poor performance, just not as good as Italy on the whole. 

There is nothing wrong with telling it like it is. By some distance, Italy were the best team all tournament and absolutely deserved to win it.

And at the same time, by some distance, this is the best England side in half a century.

Telling it like it is not happening with some people. For them, they are framing the narrative of last night as if it’s akin to not qualifying in 2008.

Being second best to the best team in Europe - and, when the South American teams are not on top, that also means the world too - is not a failure. 

Disappointed, but not surprised, to see some crawling out of the woodwork to criticise the manager and the team after the defeat.

Where were you when we beat the Germans?

Where were you when we thrashed Ukraine?

Where we you as we only conceded one goal in the build up to the final?

Where were you when we reached our first final in a generation?

I cannot stomach talk about “negative tactics” from fans who are just waiting for us to fail and revel in “I told you so’s.” The most crushing part of this defeat is that this team had the potential to silence these types, but instead they are basking in it.

duck off.

I know in the grand scheme of things this isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s so long since we’ve heard any sort of vaguely positive new (I’d really like to give the club my money, but even something as normal as buying a season ticket is out of reach) that my overwhelming reaction to this is “meh.” That’s a mark of how much we lurch from one off-field shenanigan to the next.

13 minutes ago, Duracell said:

Local journalism flourishes when news outlets can afford to have bright, hard-working journalists with decent resources. Those people aren't working for local newspapers anymore, if they are journalists at all.

Supporting your local paper is only half the problem. Even if circulation of the DET were to increase dramatically, targeted advertising on line still delivers much more bang for your buck. 

Hard to see this ever-downward spiral reversing. 

I would defend the Athletic actually, I have been meaning to re-subscribe because Conway genuinely puts stuff out there about us that you can't get anywhere else. He's often the first to break stories too.

PS hope that no local journalists perusing the forum think I am attacking their intellect or work ethic! Far from it. I'm saying they would have a much wider circle of colleagues if local journalism was held in the same esteem it was 25+ years ago.

Local journalism flourishes when news outlets can afford to have bright, hard-working journalists with decent resources. Those people aren't working for local newspapers anymore, if they are journalists at all.

Supporting your local paper is only half the problem. Even if circulation of the DET were to increase dramatically, targeted advertising on line still delivers much more bang for your buck. 

Hard to see this ever-downward spiral reversing. 

I would defend the Athletic actually, I have been meaning to re-subscribe because Conway genuinely puts stuff out there about us that you can't get anywhere else. He's often the first to break stories too.

3 minutes ago, Spanish said:

What was the commentator saying last night, you’ve all had it rough for a year go out and celebrate you deserve it?  Is he some sort of national leader, I don’t know because I don’t live in UK.

Yeah it's pretty crazy, Sam Matterface is our de facto leader now. Lee Dixon is the only check and balance on his unprecedented power. Don't come back, you won't recognise your home country in the Matterface-era.

6 hours ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

Seen a lot of bitterness around about the penalty. A reminder to anyone outside of England moaning about it that not only was Denmark's free kick equally soft, but the goal shouldn't have stood because the Denmark players were too close to the wall when it was taken which should have resulted in a retake.

Also, is anyone really going to expect us to give a toss after the incidents we had against Argentina (twice), Portugal, the ghost goal against Germany? Nah. I'm loving this.

Also, huge difference between all of those objective errors in officiating and/or miscarriages of justice which was plain for the whole world to see and Sterling's penalty, which you need to slow down to a crawl and see from several angles and look at it a certain way to come to the conclusion he dived. It's massively up for debate. Any contact looks small when you slow it down as slow as most replays I've seen.

Anyone putting that penalty in the same bracket as any of those other instances just can't handle that the best team won and are looking for a narrative which suggests that they shouldn't.

2 minutes ago, Dethorn said:

That could be a lot worse though - you could be the mate who got talked into it...

Very true. Mind you, in early 2010s rural Northamptonshire, it’s not like my mate had a long list of better offers...

12 hours ago, maxjam said:

Yeah it gives the lesser nations the chance to get knocked out of an expanded Euros in the group stages ? but for bigger nations if you're relying on the League of Nations or whatever its called to qualify for the Euros, you've got bigger problems.

Unless it develops over time - which to be fair it could do, I can't see it being anything other than glorified friendlies for a lot of countries.  A kind of Europa League that none of the big teams really want to be in.

Isn't that the point? Something between a qualifier/tournament game and a friendly. I genuinely don't care about international friendlies but the nations league grabbed my attention slightly more. I guess it's the international equivalent of the Carabao Cup?

17 hours ago, Pearl Ram said:

They’re just part and parcel of forum life, the mods could stamp them out but as they do a first class job in the main, I think they’ll let us express our views both pro and anti. 

This forum hasn't been moderated sensibly for years. Living in the past mate. 

I remember when I was 15, I convinced my mate from Market Harborough to get the train up with me from Kettering to watch Nigel Clough's Derby train at Loughborough.

Took me 90 mins to get there. Watched the squad run around for a bout 10 mins, then Robbie Savage gave me a look which said "wtf are you doing here?" and in that moment, I thought "I genuinely don't know what I'm doing with my life" and I went home.

From that moment on, I vowed never to spend my pocket money on watching Conor Doyle and Saul Deeney run around a university campus ever again.

1 hour ago, DCFC1388 said:

One thing for sure is we would need the pace of Mengi alongside either one of these.

Bit of a myth, this, for Jagielka. He's definitely lost some pace but Jagielka was the fastest player in the Prem.

Thanks for taking time to respond @RadioactiveWaste @Chester40 @RoyMac5 @86 Hair Islands

Understood the idea behind why the Yellow jersey mattered most but before @RadioactiveWaste explained that sprinters are usually weak climbers, it didn't make sense to me how the sprinters weren't also the yellow jersey winners.

Makes sense now, thank you!

Can I ask a few dumb questions? Well, I'm going to ask it anyway. I've got Covid so I'm gonna watch loads.

I love following Le Tour casually, but one thing always spoils my viewing. How come the green jersey rider is not winning overall? I don't get it.

How can the person with the most points - which suggests the highest average finishing position - not be winning overall? Is it that every single year, the green jersey rider's stage defeats are so bad, it prohibits him from having the quickest time overall? 

Second question: the yellow jersey rider usually seems to be somewhere in the peloton, typically nearer the front. But how come that means they end up several minutes ahead of the entire field? And how can I follow that pattern developing as I follow the tour?

We'd have to roll out the red carpet for this one.

Do you treat the world as it is, or as you expect it to be? Because those are two different things.

I'm a teacher working in a deprived area of inner city London. I'd love it if parents 'did their job' and sat down with their kids and read with them, but some won't and many can't. Do I just let those kids sit there struggling in my English lessons? Or do I do everything I can to help them catch up?

Exactly the same applies here. It would be great if parents could parent their children, but given there's so much obesity in adults anyway, it's hardly like our general population is educated on the subject in the first instance. We could let kids stuff their faces with a bargain bucket and shrug our shoulders and say that's their parents fault, but they're too young to make their own decisions and it's a ticking time bomb for the NHS, which affects us all in the long run.

This obviously won't fix the problem, but it's a start.

1 hour ago, Alty_Ram said:

I'm an unapologetic Hamilton fan but completely understand that people want to see some change of faces. Verstappen has been outstanding in a previously inferior car and is now being outstanding in a superior car and good on him, a champion in waiting without a doubt.

My only slight regret is that we are not seeing a gradual shift in power and lots of wheel to wheel battles between Max and Lewis, just a passing of the baton, for this season at least. Red Bull have pulled a rabbit out of the hat with their car for this year and reinforced it with good upgrades but Mercedes are standing still and Toto Wolff basically said that all their efforts were going into next years car so I don't expect Mercedes to close what seems to be a widening gap, even since the start of the season.

I'm sure that Lewis will wring all that he can out of his car but just as Max has experienced in recent years, sometimes you just find that you are outgunned and all your skills will not be able to close that gap sufficiently. I'd expect Hamilton to still be around the front row or two but any wins will surely be down to Red Bull getting a strategy call wrong or race circumstances with crashes and safety cars etc because all things being equal, this Red Bull is a great piece of kit that as it stands is just better than the Mercedes and with a driver of Max's quality at the wheel, he'll not be throwing anybody any lifelines and I really think he'll win this year at a canter.

We've had Bahrain, Portugal, Spain and to some extent France as direct head-to-head battles. Yesterday was the first time that Verstappen was clearly in front of Hamilton. Plenty to look forward to still!

The gap between Verstappen/Perez and Hamilton/Bottas is scary. At each race, they're essentially fast enough to have an extra pitstop on their team-mates. 

Hamilton has proven that he doesn't need the outright fastest car to win, but neither does Verstappen. I know it's disappointing that Mercedes are seemingly falling behind, but I still think it will ebb and flow. Hamilton typically hits his best form - and set up - in the second half of the season.

We can stop panicking when the rest of the Football League have had their way and AFC Derby County are lining up against Lokomotiv Spondon in the xtermin8 Rat Poison Premier League Midlands, starting our journey up the ladder again. That's when we've hit rock bottom.

What's the lad who made the 'meme' of Mel pulling the strings of the other clubs and the EFL up to now? 

What really concerns me with this whole saga is the fact that with every passing moment that this dark cloud hangs over us, the chances of someone sensible buying us slashes.

Why would you touch us with a barge pole if you had your head screwed on? We're attracting controversy and bad press at every turn. And we have no players.

Already, last season, we had a Fake Sheikh and Senor TikTok stalking the club. Those sorts of characters will see our desperation, the low price of the club and the lack of consequence and will swarm in to massage their egos or have a pop at running a football club.

The Three Amigos. It can happen again.

It’s remarkable that in one transfer window under this ownership and leadership, we spent more than Borussia Dortmund.

We’ve broken our transfer record. Twice.

While the legality of what we have done is up for debate, the fact it was a high stakes gamble is not. We had half a decade to get promoted before the losses caught up with us, and we didn’t get promoted.
 

The main reason we are in this mess is that vast sums of money has been spent on players, management and compensation, none of which has made the footballing side of the club any better than it was in 2014. It’s kept us competitive for most of that time, granted, but it’s a hopelessly inefficient way of doing it fraught with risk.

Just because the EFL have behaved abhorrently does not mean that we can’t look inward and acknowledge the reckless mismanagement that has squandered tens of millions of pounds for zero gain.

I'm looking forward to finding out exactly where our defeats will be taking place each weekend.

13 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

What about if GB news launches a history channel? What do we do then?!

That's tomorrow's problem.

I know this will come as a surprise to many outside observers, but this thread has descended into politics-thread style chaos. 

Absolutely fine to discuss GB News and its news output, but arguing about history is in fact the very opposite of news.

Hope we don't have to lock this...