FoxyLeon

I still think some don't understand the extent of decline our players have experienced. The best comparison would be the way we dispatched Brentford in the Cup, when they were a top Championship side, to how Blackburn dispatched us, when they were an average Championship side. The standard of coaching this summer will arguably be more important than our recruitment, as currently, even if we kept the rest of the squad for next season, I don't see us getting top 2, not even top 6, because our fundamentals as a side are so so poor. We haven't been a decent side for about 3 years, we've been reliant on some individual brilliance, and now we've lost so much of that. We're not going to handle a "Cold tuesday night in Stoke" unless we become something we haven't for years, a team.

For some reason people think number 10's have to be technical players who can't run around the pitch, like Maddison. Which is odd because Shinji Okazaki was a number 10, who won a Premier League title and was a pivotal player in that side. I think Maddison/Tielemans compared to Okazaki/Kante shows just how overrated players are that are slightly better on the ball. The willingness to harass, press and win the ball back by both Okazaki and Kante led to us being able to compete in games. I think Maddison and Tielemans would have to contribute about 4 goals between them every week to make up for the amount of chances they give away by not being able to compete with the opposition off the ball. It's similar with Castagne vs Simpson. The Belgian may get you two goals a season, but he will also give up a minimum of 1-2 chances a game more compared to Simpson, which means that extra offensive output is a net negative. You don't see Brighton/Brentford have a number 8/10 that produces the same number of goal contributions as Maddison, but you also don't see them carry midfielders who give away as many chances as he does by not offering something off the ball. It's not surprising to see Caicedo/Rice being big targets this Summer, and neither being goalscorers. We have a game now where even strikers can't 'Just score goals', so there's no way that midfielders can get away with that. Let's face it, for the better part of 2 years all Tielemans has offered is the chance for a World Class strike, his ability to control a midfield is pretty non existent because he's not good enough technically, nor can he replace those technical deficiencies with physical quality, like Kante. I've mentioned before, but Klopp has on at least two occasions gone up to KDH after we've played and singled him out. There's no doubt in my mind that if Klopp was forced to take one of KDH/Maddison/Tielemans then he would take KDH. He's coachable, he has an engine and he's the only player that knows how to press. I could see Klopp doing to him what he did with Robertson.

My problem with Castagne in the last couple of years is that he's not really offered any threat going forward, and given the fact he's poor defensively, that's a real problem. Ricardo Pereira too is weak defensively, but when he was exceptional for us when he got POTY it was because his attacking play was his best form of defence. Now that Castagne isn't offering a regular attacking threat, he just gets pushed back and pushed back highlighting his weaknesses more. If he was braver, and pushed his winger backwards, his defensive issues wouldn't get exposed as much, as was the case with Ricardo, and even JJ when he had that 3 month spell where he looked great because he was so adventurous. Once you don't have that attacking threat you get exposed. It reminds me of Albrighton, who's selection meant we just got deeper and more negative because his opposite number didn't respect his attacking threat so just attacked him all game. This led to people saying "Albrighton is great defensively".....Not realising the best way a wide man can help the defence is by going the other way, as Mahrez always did. We haven't had reliable full backs since Simpson and Fuchs, and Pep's willingness to play 4 centre halves over full backs this season shows there's plenty of room in the Modern game for defensively sound full backs.

It's a shame we've got such average central defenders. I'd love us to try and line up like Man City do. GK Walker CB Shaw Stones Rice Bellingham Saka Foden Grealish Kane We're going to be forced to play Stones as an out and out CB though, when he's probably been the most impressive midfielder in Europe this season. He was the best player on the pitch in the FA Cup final and the UCL final. I wished we had the balls to try Kane deeper too, as for me he's very similar to De Bruyne and probably our best player on the ball. It's a shame Toney is banned, as I'd like to have seen Kane play off him. Even Pep this year has gone for physicality over technical players, and an England side like the one above has a lot of that, especially if Toney was in over Foden and swapped positions with Kane. I don't think Bellingham is a huge drop off from Gundogan, nor is Shaw significantly worse than Ake. The big problem is there's nobody as solid as Dias and I think our number 10s are extremely overrated (Maddison/Mount/Foden) so much so that I'd rather play Kane there and have another striker in front of him.

There's no way that non-cricket fans are talking about this England side more than any other sides. I switch on during the Ashes and I would be a target audience to try and get more interest in Cricket. So I switch on to this "Brand new and exciting" England side....And I watch Ali and Broad walk out to bat just like when I last watched the Ashes, with one side batting all day and we're nowhere close to a result. Once Cricket fans accept Test Cricket is boring and dead, then maybe Cricket might just experience some growth. Cricket fans are off their rocker if they think kids are going to watch 40 hours of a pretty mundane and slow sport over a weekend in 2023.

At least there's no subjectivity with the declaration. If they don't take at least one wicket then it's the wrong decision.

Root in great form, all of Cricket knows he's capable of 150+, yet the morons he's batting with want to try and knock the ball out the ground. This 'Bazball' term is an excuse for horrific decision making which has plagued much of these players for years. Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad were doing this before Baz was in the job. The thing with Broad is that at least he offers something with the ball, Ali is like playing with one less. Now Robinson is reverse sweeping, wtf is this?

Can't expect anything less from Moeen Ali. English cricket must be dead if you're bringing him back from retirement. Every time I watch him play he looks nervous and levels below every other player out there. Mcgrath's 5-0 looks a decent bet right now.

How long did Sissoko have on his contract?

His playstyle seems more like Iheanacho rather than Vardy. A foreign name gets people more excited though compared to 'Jerry Yates', just based on the highlights I'd much rather sign the Blackpool forward.

Clubs can sign Maddison for a free next year, I'm not sure why people think we're going to get £50 million for Maddison, it's like Tielemans all over again. We're gonna be in a situation where we have to take around £30 million for him or lose him on a free. Just like with Youri he's not good enough for a side that will pay a huge fee, and he won't want to join a side who would offer a decent fee like Brighton for example. Last summer we had "I wouldn't sell Tielemans for less than £50 million"....Look how that worked out. The truth is there were no bids for him even at half that.

People seem to forget that both our best players (Vardy/Schmeichel/Mahrez/Kante) and the ones we sold for huge money (Mahrez/Maguire/Chilwell/Fofana) either came from the lower leagues, or were developed there. In fact a lot of the players we've missed out of came from there, Bowen/Benrahma etc. The biggest problem I have with this type of signing is that we didn't make more of them in the Premier League. That rawness is something we've not had for a while and we miss it. Even Maddison and Barnes that we want big money for came from development in the Championship. We've been relegated because we've let players with a lack of desire grow stale, from the footage it looks as though Yates has a directness and rawness that could add something to our frontline. People forget we had Nugent, Wood and Kevin Phillips last time. If Yates is 3rd/4th choice and chips in with 5-10 goals then it seems a bargain.

He has a two year contract, if we tell him he can't leave during the contract, as I wrote above, then how does he get back to the Premier League quicker than with us getting promoted next season?

He's got a contract, so enforce it and let him know the quickest route back to the Premier League is with us.....Unless we get an offer of 'X'. For me, we absolutely have to keep Barnes to get promoted next year, he's capable of 10 goals a season out of nothing in the Premier League, you have to think he could push 20 in the Championship. We could get 40-50 goals out of Barnes and Iheanacho, they could fire us to promotion, we have to prioritise keeping them. Getting rid of Maddison/Castagne/Ricardo are a necessity in ensuring that happens.

Eni Aluko really isn't likeable is she? Giving the ball away every time she has it, then having the audacity to throw her arms in the air and strop at the non pro players in a charity game. Also refusing to give the ball to Alex Brooker. Could do with taking a leaf out of the Ben Foster and David James book, just having a laugh and not taking it too seriously.

Some bitter Man United fans tonight, going on about them being 'lucky', Inter didn't try and score until they went behind. The better side won. John Stones MOTM.

Stones looking to drag this Man City side on his own. Gundogan has been poor tonight, Haaland too.

Foden is exceptionally average.

Man City faded the last 20 of the FA Cup Final, Rodri was out on his feet, be interesting to see who fades first. Man City's movement to keep the ball, or Inter chasing it.

Surprised there are so many Man City fans there considering they boo the tournament. I hope they win though, can't stand the arrogance of the ex Man United players who think Man United should be successful in 2023 because they won a few trophies in the 90s. There will always be an asterix next to Man City's success anyway.

Still amazes me that there's people who don't rate him. The only time Tielemans/Maddison looked decent in recent years was when KDH was doing all there running. If Ndidi could get back to what he was, I think he can now he's not going to be doing all Tielemans/Maddison's running, then we'd piss the Championship with 2 KDHs either side of him. I think he's a bit like Okazaki, you don't realise what he does until he's gone. We were good under Smith when he played, but when he was out the team Maddison/Tielemans were dire. I'd like to see him given a go as a number 10 so we can press from the front.

Been the definition of average since his debut. The same people who give Thomas stick, seem to give Castagne license to get away with the same errors/flaws despite being way more experienced. The big problem is that he can't defend, hence 352 at Atalanta...But he doesn't get forward enough now either. As with the Tielemans links to Liverpool a few years back, Castagne to Arsenal makes just as little sense. Arteta has been playing with a 3rd CB out there, with White and Tomiyasu and Castagne's weakest area of his game is the same as their strengths.

You never watched him, he was often the only player in our team trying to progress the ball forwards. It's why I don't respect the opinion of anyone claiming Tielemans is a 'Top class midfielder' and Amartey is some kind of 'Donkey'...When they played together, Tielemans would give the ball to Amartey and pass all responsibility to the Ghanaian. If I was given the choice between keeping either of the two for next season, it would 100% be Amartey. The one thing you couldn't throw at Amartey is a lack of commitment or ambition, you have to be a serious hater, be completely unaware of what either means or just trying to look 'cool' by picking on an undeserving scapegoat. I've seen plenty from Amartey to think he'd be a perfectly capable Premier League player. Probably similarly to how Morgan excelled once he had someone next to him that could organise him to play to his strengths. But when you've got a midfielder in front of you that makes it seem as though you're fielding 10 men every game, and you've got full backs either side that can't defend, then anyone would look poor. His Blackburn performance summed him up for me, I don't like the criticism he got for giving the ball away that night. Nobody in midfield or attack could get their foot on the ball, so I'm not going to criticize a centre half for having the 'ambition' and balls to actually try and help his team mates out. If the 4th/5th choice CB is the problem....Then the 4th/5th choice CB isn't the problem.

I disagree. VAR has solved the problem and highlighted the issue, that the refs aren't good enough. For years referees hid behind the excuse that they needed technology, now they've got it and their bluffs were called, they have nowhere to hide. The fact Tierney and Cootes are on this says everything. Webb, Clattenberg and Oliver were/are all levels above.

We're at the point now that we have to seriously consider refs from abroad, these just aren't good enough. If the Grealish one is a pen then so was the one on De Bruyne, and Casemiro should be off. Plenty of consistency, just consistent shite.