RoystonFoote'snephew

A real battling performance. Everybody put their body on the line tonight but given the differing experience of the midfields 'the kids are alright'.

My problem with T is that he never does the simple thing but tries to play a 'worldy' every time. Wonderful when it comes off but it's low precentage.

There's a good player in there somewhere and he did well today, but I tend to think of him as a left footed Howard Pritchard. Flashes of brilliance but often stumbles past his opponent than showing dazzling footwork. He has to be one of the most unbalanced wingers in the league more often than not ending on the deck. Refs seem to like him though giving him free kicks that others don't get (Martin for instance). As ever the question will be can he show consistency.

I'd go along with that but once Daniel Ayala came on its likely success rate was much reduced.

Stand there in golfing gear and continuously shout 'In the hole!!'

Abi Harrison off. Tactical or injury?

It's not easy breaking the news but Bristol City are still in Europe. Leaving the EU has not seen us leave for Asia, Africa or the Americas.

They hardly have the same opportunities. Not only did they not get qualification at all for many years but now Europe gets 13 guaranteed qualification places from 55 member States (24% chance of qualification) whereas Africa gets 5 from 54 member States and Asia 4 from 47 member States (both 9%). Only South America has better opportunity with 4 guaranteed places from just 10 member States for an incredible 40% chance of qualification. Its all about money.

I'd be happy with such a group. Its a cup competition and as such everyone should start equal. Let's not pretend that FIFA and its Confederations give a stuff about footballing quality, its all about the money. The expansion of the World Cup to 32 teams is to generate more income and provide a greater opportunity to pass around brown envelopes. Africa and Asia remain incredibly underrepresented compared to Europe but we know where the money lies.

Held Italy to a 0-0 draw tonight meaning the European Champions gave to enter the play-offs. Didn't concede a single goal at home in their WCQ group.

Not this again. I'll never agree. They pay their dues to FIFA like anyone else and deserve to be treated with equal respect. Personally I don't think there should be any seedings at all. If that resulted in a WCQ group of England, France, Belgium, Germany and Spain then so be it.

Switched over now to watch Norn Iron play Italy.

Apparently 'a gaggle of 150 or so unofficial England fans have set up camp on a sort of hill behind the goal'. Makes it sound like a bunch of travellers have arrived.

Even if its a penalty by the letter of the law the booking is ridiculous.

Do we really need to play 20 passes in our own half against San Marino. They are the lowest ranked team in FIFA never having won a competitive match. So few england players seem prepared to commit the opposition.

Forget the men, I've just finished watching England's women against Canada, Ist v 3rd in the world standings. Hell of a game. Although 51-12 looks like an easy win for England it was anything but as the Canadians came to play, took the lead at 5-7 and actually managed to stop England's rolling maul. Woman of the match (quite rightly) was the Bristol tight head Sarah Bern, a one-woman wrecking ball. Scorer of two tries she just gains yards with every carry but is not just big and strong but has great handling skills and has a step.

Stay strong John. Wishing that you and your family gets all the support needed.

What has happened? To say I find the current level of match reporting disappointing is a massive understatement. There is no consistency in what is provided with often just a few lines on what happened and in some cases a total lack of line-ups, statistics etc. We used to get a time line of events including goalscorers, bookings, substitutions etc, a proper full report and a full set of statistics. The current reports get 2/10 and only that because there's a report at all. I suppose I shouldn't be shocked as the club increasingly abandons its OS for social media.

As City don't sell Clark's the best pie I ever had at a football ground was at Bury. Don't know the brand but it was a meat and potato pie to die for. Runner up has to be the hot pork pies I used to munch on at Bishop Auckland when I lived in Norton, Stockton-on-Tees. All the melting aspic jelly, wonderful. Blackwell's in Norton used to sell the most wonderful home made pies. Never got used to the northern thing about eating Steak and Kidney pies cold though.

If its non alcoholic is it really beer or just a malt based drink. Its like calling Cydrax a Cider.

That's why discerning drinkers dismiss Bulmers as a cider. If you are going to drink a fruit drink from Hereford make sure it's Westons.

I'm not surprised by the jobsworth response from the PL. I wonder though what colour clashes it could bring. What is Luton's away strip?

Sad news. One of the better commentators.

Absolutely correct. You can feel good about it if you like but English football fans reducing their travel doesn't amount to a hill of beans in efforts to save the planet. We may think that a 300 mile trip is a long way but its nothing compared to distances travelled across Europe. It's not as if we're not trying anyway with electrification of the railways and electric cars. Football specials are a nice idea but even if the rail companies wanted them (which they don't) where are the trains going to come from. They struggle to run services now without adding to them.

All Fake News then. Perhaps Donald Trump has bought out SL.