mancunianfox

It's a shame because the two games have had a lot of action and have gone down to the wire which makes focusing on all the gimmicks even worse. Even my wife noticed how bad the music performance was in between Rockets innings last night and she was in another room! I have tickets for Old Trafford on Monday and one of the other matches so hopefully the experience in the ground is a bit better than the BBC production. My son (eight) loves it though and it is the only sport he is interested in going to so not going to discourage it.

Whichever option give us players that want to be here and are up for the challenge. There is at least 6 or 7 premier league teams Iheanacho could go to and improve their squad so he is probably a cut above the championship. If he wants to play in it I think he would do really well but I am not sure he will be up for it. It's not like the Vardy situation where he is a club legend and has played in the lower leagues before.

Does anyone really think Kane is going to Munich? If he wins the Bundesliga nobody will care as it is a) abroad and b) they win it all the time without him. At this point of his career, would he not be better to sign a new contract at Spurs and chasing Shearer's top goal scorer record?

I know it's easy enough to criticise bazball and losing easy wickets but at least most of the batsmen have given it a go. England's bowling, often in favourable conditions, in both of these tests has been utterly dreadful. Based on the lack of success pre-Stokes and the struggles so far in 2023 maybe bazball was just masking talent problems that the tactic alone wouldn't fix?

Drinkwater and Matty James were excellent in the Championship, if Winks is as good as MJ was for us in the promotion season this will be a good signing. Whether he will be or not remains to be seen but not the worst player to be compared to.

So £60m then

It is weird but the difference is that technically the league is owned by the team owners which is very different to our sports and they are more heavily involved in running the league than in Europe. They would need to be the ones to vote on changing the rules on the presentation and they probably won't anytime soon. Other than the obvious money they can make, the prestige of being the winning owner and lifting the trophy is a big part of why the teams are valued so high. Generally, nobody cares who the owners of Walmart are but they'll happily pay $4.5 billion to get their moment lifting the superbowl trophy on international TV because it is the ultimate flex for rich americans.

The argument for Pearson is where the club was before he took over and where it was after. Rodgers, obviously Raneiri and even O'Neill inherited the club in a significantly better position than Nigel did. They have all left it in a better place than what they inherited but none more so than going from being relegated to league one to a squad capable of winning the Premier League. Might not be the the best manager tactically but he is the one who transformed this club and I dread to think what that league one season could have been like in different hands. We could easily have been a Sheffield Wednesday or a Coventry without any hope of getting out of the Championship.

It makes very little sense why Payton isn't the Chargers HC for 23/24, surely he would have taken that job over any of the options on the table Not sure if the division is that tough either - all three teams are snookered a bit while Mahomes and Kelce are in it and the Chargers, Raiders and Broncos last year all had poor head coaching situations last year even though there is talent on the rosters. I think this is a good as it gets for us, no way they were going for a fourth consecutive first time HC after the way the last three panned out and should be a step up on what the other two have.

He has been one of the best coaches in the league for a long time. After three first time head coaches the Broncos wanted an experienced coach and someone on the offensive side. There wasn't really a lot that fit the bill but Payton does. Plus it gives the new owners the big statement they wanted. I imagine the team will be very active in free agency, not sure if that is a good thing though.

After living through Denver hiring Hackett as Rodgers bait only for it go really badly it is kind of hilarious that the Jets have hired Hackett as offensive coordinator as Rodgers bait a year later expecting it go well.

Dak is on the Kirk Cousins level. Could maybe do it with a great defense but probably too good to just be a game manager so always a risk. The Bills just need to sort out their run game next year. Been very patchy all season and Allen means they get away with it but they need to be able to run it better when they have that kind of home field in January. Think Bengals will beat KC, I don't see Mahomes being in great shape next weekend. Eagles v Bengals SB.

It'll be interesting though. Lamar is amazing but does he have twenty games a season in him? They didn't pay him last year and there are probably more question marks now than twelve months ago so maybe not impossible. It's weird because nothing really leaked about the negotiations last year so nobody truely knows what is going on.

Jackson didn't travel either which is really really weird. Unthinkable before but I can't see him being on the Ravens next year now, I think he will get tagged and traded.

That's an all time playoff loss. They need to ditch Staley, Payton would jump at the chance to coach that team. I am once again yet to be fully convinced about Herbert is close to the level of Mahomes/Burrow/Allen as well but he needs a better coach.

Bills were good when they got to the those four superbowls and that is the time period where a lot of the UK interest comes from. The Texans at 10 is mental though, I can't come up with an explanation for that one!

Good post! It does remind of when Tom Brady came in initially in New England when he filled the game manager role for the first few years of his career. Unlikely they will have the same development but sometimes just running the scheme and not making bad decisions goes a good way - it is a good platform to build off. It will be very interesting tom see where they go and what they do with Lance, who on what I have seen so far looks like an a bust.

Brock Purdy is mint though, no idea why this hasn't been a bigger story as it is pretty unprecedented. My favourite moment yesterday was Lovie Smith's smirk when the texans won as he knew he was going to be fired and they lost the number one pick (ironically to his old team Chicago).

I am shocked by this too. The PR from resuming the game and things getting worse while they were on air would surely have been unthinkable so no idea why they wanted to continue. Glad that the coaches and players of both teams stepped in and told them to do one but it is a position they shouldn't have been put in. Apparently, Goodell is terrified of a player dieing on the field but perhaps not so much about from an injury as long it is away from the stadium which is bizarre. I hope for postiive news about Damar Hamlin

The Jags are this year's Bengals!!!

Sad news this. Sad that two members of that team have passed away in the last year.

To be fair Denver's D and offense are like completely different teams this year so I don't blame them for trying to find something to celebrate. They have been excellent and with how often they hold teams under twenty points the team should be in the wild card spots if the other side of the team were even close to average.

I suppose it depends on how deep Newcastle want to dig in to their pockets for him, they would need to put in a monster offer to tempt him. No chance he goes in January, those kind of signings never happen midseason anyway. Agree on Youri - we would get about £10m max which doesn't seem worth it versus risk of relegation. It's in his best interest to stay at City - playing the way he has been he will get his choice of clubs and can get a huge signing on fee too. Hope he doesn't stay in England and goes to Italy or Spain.

Brady is a weird one because he doesn't look bad like Peyton did in his last year but he is having to get the ball out so fast and there have been so many drops. Was cool to see the old magic at the end but the Rams should have won that game. They somehow need to find someone who can run the ball. Bad weekend for the AFC leading contenders too - Jets getting a bizarre win and Chiefs inability to run the ball could come back to haunt them in January. Hard to make superbowl predictions, there could be another weird matchup this year.

To be fair to Kolo, Maguire got an £80m move, Evans has been solid when not injured, Soyuncu improved massively from his first season to replace him and was good until losing his confidence/desire to be here/whatever happened to him in the Euro's. Fofana was class for us and made us a load of profit and Faes has come in and done well too. We have even won games with Wilf playing there. That's a pretty good track record with centre halves, the only real miss has been Vestegaard.