Bris Red

The German national team is in need of a major overhaul - they have been consistently poor since winning the Wc in 2014 to be honest.

We do tournament football really well under Southgate, the man knows how to grind out and get results at this level. Would not bet against us getting to at least the semi’s again.

Not a great draw but not horrendous either. I’ve quite enjoyed the atmospheres V Swansea over recent seasons - the game feels like it has more edge than the Cardiff games these days for me.

This. Your Wasting your breath though pal, many in this country just don’t get international football.

Have you lived under a rock for the past 56 years or what? Have you not seen the countless managers that have tried and failed to get us to be competitive at international tournament level.. Just getting to the later stages of tournament football has proved impossible for the vast majority of previous England managers let alone winning things. Some have had better squads than what Southgate has at his disposal right now. Some people in this country unfortunately are fairly deluded when it comes to international football. If people think winning world cups and euros is all about playing scintillating attacking football every game then they are very mistaken. Just ask the Italians or the Germans - both countries masters at grinding out results and winning trophies not always playing pretty expansive football.

Wasn’t vintage from England but the same bed wetting happened after the 0-0 draw with Scotland and we got to the final of that tournament and came within a few spot kicks from lifting a trophy. Yes Southgate is negative but so far the guy has taken us further in tournaments than any other manager. His England teams aren’t pretty to watch but i really wouldn’t bet against us getting to the semi’s or final again in this tournament.

Fair play to Fam, unfortunate it ended the way it did here as for the most part he was a very good striker for us.

Indeed! People are absolutely clueless in this country. I have another good feeling about this tournament for us, we look like a team and a country with a manager that finally understands tournament football. Who gives a **** about how many qualifiers you win or what you do in the nations bloody league. Get results on the stage that matters and Southgate has done that extremely well since he has come in. A semi a final and i wouldn’t bet against us at least getting to the semi’s again this time around.

Never really understood the hype regarding James to be honest. He reminds me of slightly better version of Ivan Sproule, blistering pace with not a lot else..!

Yes..

As I’ve said earlier I don’t understand why the club shop hasn’t been expanded or even 2 shops put in. Surely with the size of the stadium now there must even be room for an independent City shop and independent Bears shop?

Fair play to him for getting a call up - i do always get that feeling though that as soon as a player who can qualify to play for the ROI hits championship level and plays a run of games irrespective of it the player is mediocre or not will have a shout with the national team..

I even heard Scott Parker’s name bandied about on here the other week. Absolutely comical that people think these managers would even entertain the position here given the constraints. As i have said previously the time to of given LJ and MA the boot was at the end of the 17/18 season. We were asset rich and our stock generally as a club was high. We would have had the pick of many many managers at that time and i genuinely think we could have been propelled into the play-offs or gone up automatically in 18/19 or 19/20 if the right person had been chosen. All hypothetical now but again the buck stops with the owners - SL’s blind faith and dithering is what has got us in this situation.

Indeed. With Man City, Man Utd , Leeds Liverpool etc all within about a 50 mile radius aswell they aren’t badly supported to be fair.

Is there still plans to move/expand the shop at some point? Surely there has to be scope to have a bigger club shop somewhere in the South or Lansdown stand.. It’s fairly embarrassing from the club that with a multi million pound re-build of the stadium that we have ended up with a smaller more understocked shop than the old megastore that used to be next to the Atyeo!

You only have to look at the Italians or Germans to see that being cautious wins you international tournaments. I think as a nation we need to focus on actually winning things and continually getting to the semis and finals of tournaments as opposed to just playing ‘exciting’ football.

What did make me laugh was the fact Ronaldo said Sir Alex Ferguson knows better than anyone else that the club ‘isn’t on the right path’.. People seem to forget that it was SAF that originally set the club on this path with the ‘hand picked’ appointment of David Moyes arguably the worst manager out of the lot and supposedly the Glazers had nothing to do with it. I think United fans have far too much of a simplistic view when it comes to the Glazers, yes they have made poor decisions in regards to Recuriment but they have also made some bloody good ones aswell that just haven’t worked out. Mourinho and Van Gael on paper were 2 excellent choices and both managers were backed in the transfer market reasonably well. Neither worked out, thats football. Solskjaer and Rangnick are the ones people will obviously highlight as being poor and admittedly Rangnick was a baffling one but Solskjaer was backed like no other in the summer of 2021. United spent £172m in that summer..

Nicked it I’d imagine.

Maybe not straight away but if he fails at Hibs and gets the sack at some point, i can’t see him returning to England at any higher of a level than League 1/2 IMO. It’s then a long hard road back to the championship and he would almost certainly need to then add a promotion to his CV to stay relevant and on the radar of Championship clubs. I can see him following a fairly similar career trajectory as his father did after leaving us to be honest.

It’s probably his level to be fair.

All well and good but i struggle to see where he goes from Hibs if and when he does eventually get’s the boot.

Without a doubt Andi is a key player for us but i do feel irrespective of him getting back in form it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than just that to get us in the top 6 IMO - our problems run deeper than just that. I still think lower mid table should be the aim with anything in the top half being the absolute ceiling of this squad. Anywhere from about 17th - 12th is where i see us ending up.

Indeed. We should and could have quite easily beaten SU Watford and Swansea at home and that would have the table looking an awful lot different. We Played really well in all those 3 games. Pearson is doing fine for me under the circumstances. The defending finally seems to be improving aswell which was my main concern.

Fantastic attendance once again. Our support has really been impressive since the re-build.

Decent performance. Another game we should have one though. How we have only got 1 point from that and the Sheffield United game is a mystery.