Numero Uno

That’s where you need an owner who has the football knowledge to say “hold ******* fire a minute, why are you asking me for £4m and £20k per week out of my sky rocket to pay for a player when we already have two covering that position? How does **** off and go and strengthen another position sound?”.

Tomori was decent. Otherwise it had a distinctly second string feel about it……including Grealish who is starting to have that unfortunate look of being an impact player and not a starter.

What a wonderful game that was………..

Grealish and Trippier look like League 1 players chucked into an international side. Trippier to be fair shouldn’t be at left back, Grealish unfortunately is proving Southgate right. Our left hand side is ruining the team as a whole.

Trippier having a nightmare. Every Italy attack coming down our left. Is there not a left footed Left Back we can pick?

2-1 down on direct chances tbf. Grealish not doing himself any favours and just missed a sitter.

Have to agree. With Grealish out there we were able to retain possession and dominated the last 15 minutes. We could easily have won that in the end. Bowen being direct (direct is good if done the right way) also helped us out.

Which tells me he’s an 18 year old kid with a football brain. Once the inconsistency disappears he will take off.

We out-Germaned the Germans tonight. Not at our best but stayed in the game, picked up a result and home we go.

All the anti-England are out in force on social media tonight so if it was a questionable pen………I bloody love it.

We don’t half need Foden in our side, that’s what I learned from tonight. Grealish and Bowen made a huge difference. Saka is an athlete but where’s the quality? Mount was a passenger. Bellingham plays like an 18 year old, world beater to panel beater to world beater etc. but give him three years and we have a right player there. Ridiculous for his age really.

The interesting bit is that judging by the mood on here I was expecting around 11.5k, especially when the anecdotal evidence is “me and my 14 mates who all sit together aren’t renewing”. Shows that this place is a bit more negative than the wider fan base as a whole and that many comments are hot air made for effect in the light of a bad performance or result.

It’s brilliant that, when adjusted for the 5k on here who swore blind they weren’t renewing, we’ve got so many new fans!!!

You worry far too much. I couldn’t give a fuck personally as last night has no bearing on the World Cup whatsoever. How some can overlook the fact that many of those lads have played nigh on SEVENTY games in the last 12 months, lots of them as high pressure as you can get, and should have been resting up nowhere near that stadium last night is staggering. Southgate badly messed up team selection last night that’s all there is to it. Northern Red was 100% right, a very tiny minority of miserable clowns totally over reacting to one poor performance and result.

This is a football forum and can't be that arsed to argue about cricket but entertainment, quality of the fare/players on show and ticket prices are directly linked, particularly when the prices are nothing other than stupid. Cricket is going the right way, certainly in the Test format anyway, in making itself a truly elitist spectator sport at those prices. The players certainly aren't that interested in Test cricket it seems, many games barely last three and a bit days nowadays.

It's human nature to be fair. Take Pickford as one example. Played in the Euro's every game, plus most internationals since and a whole season for Everton where for the last six weeks every single game he has been involved in (bar the last one) has been absolutely massive and carrying huge pressure not to make mistakes that have dire consequences. That requires top level concentration and nobody can tell me, regardless of your bank balance, that doesn't take it out of you mentally. It only has to affect you by 5% and if you replicate that over 7 or 8 players in a team then that team has a lot of sharpness missing, just like England did earlier. Whilst Pickford was obviously not to blame tonight what possible disadvantage would there have been in playing Ramsdale who would clearly want and need the game time? I'm not sure what Southgate was thinking with that team selection...........and tbf it wasn't hindsight either.

Your middle sentence nails it. The point being the Manager could have showed some balls and picked a team of players that wouldn’t have seen this game as their 70th most important in the last 12 months and been happy to play.

It should be at £150 per ticket…….and it’s only brilliant because only three or four players out of 22 can bat.

Not sure he’s inept but certainly way too cautious. Tonight should have been a team of his freshest and second string players and leave the rest for Munich. Instead it was a mish mash team, neither one or the other and we played like it.

Well they are millionaires like it or not and even millionaires can be flogged to the point where performances and motivation suffer. Pound coins don’t affect that.

Nothing to get annoyed about imo. Some of them shouldn’t be out there, they should be on a beach somewhere.

Can’t blame some of them tbh. When you count the Euro’s, 60 odd domestic and international games and then you still can’t have a rest and have to play in the Nations League one or two could be forgiven for wanting to be anywhere but playing football this week.

Yeah, the one we didn’t sign.

Agreed, they’ll be back doing “pre-season” in a month!! I know clubs are a bit more scientific these days but you won’t learn much watching the likes of Kane trotting about when he could be resting up.

About standard for a number of players who have played 60 odd games over the last 9 months and would rather be in Marbella “resting and relaxing” with a few mates tbf….