The Doctor

this is it, I was interested in the idea of him, Braybrooke and page as a 3 man midfield. Braybrooke as the deep lying playmaker, page as the 10 and Cartwright as a combative 8.

short sighted move from us, you'd rather gauge how good he is and have an academy lad in that have winks or hamza play again

eh, every football club is losing money, have been for decades. Living beyond your means is the footballing pyramid these days. There are plenty of fair criticisms for her around the commercial aspects, the dodgy crypto sponsors etc, but I don't think "we set budget based on this delivery, Jon shit the bed and let a manager actively undermine the planned delivery" is a bad reflection on her.

I mean, that quote isn't wrong? budgets were set based on what the sporting set up was delivering and was forecast to deliver, unless we're saying that it was up to her to sack Rodgers when it was obvious that he was under delivering rather than Rudkins, it's once again an example of the PE Teacher grossly failing at his role

comeback implies he hasn't just been lingering round like a fart in a lift for all this time

while some of the clear and obvious errors are still not being corrected, I do quite like this "using var to correct clear and obvious errors" stuff rather than relitigating every incident like in the PL (my footballing conspiracy theory is that PGMOL are deliberately running VAR badly so fans turn against it and their incompetence isn't front and centre). only complaint is the ad breaks because the American mind can't comprehend 45 minutes without being sold something

what's the first?

if the alternative is homelessness (to stretch this metaphor, if we're down here for any sustained length of time, or worse, fall lower, then we're facing a financial oblivion) then yes, you make do and mend

oh aye, he sold the family silver for maybe a bit less than market value. What did he do with that money? invest it wisely to give us a sustainable future? nah, let's spend it on magic beans like Oliver Skipp. great financial management

when it saves his own guts. Insecure man like that will push anyone under the bus to feel liked by a group of people. Currently there's still, bafflingly, a ton of King Power In folk who think he's an unfortunate kid learning the ropes after a tragedy rather than a fully grown man who couldn't run a bath. If they finally start to turn after we drop to our lowest point ever (that's 7th or below in this division), he'll go into self preservation mode and push someone under the bus so those fans back off and blame that person. the obvious choices will be Rudkin (but he's staying in position as a permanent scapegoat for Aiyawatt), McCarron or Martin.

I think there's a huge difference between wanting him to fail and expecting him to. I don't want any Leicester manager to fail, because that would mean we do as well, but pretending in the face of all available evidence that Russell Martin is a good manager rather than an ideologue who's last job finished 8th in a 2 horse race is just ridiculous.

well, at least something positive came out of this tournament. it's not the best team in the world, but there was a reasonable core of good players to build around. Instead Clarke played constantly afraid, was lucky to beat Haiti due to his refusal to take the game to them and set up to defend like idiots v Morocco and Brazil (who asks Grant Hanley, who looks like an easter island head and runs like one too, to play a high line, or Scott McKenna to play it out from the back)

eh, the way Scotland played v Brazil is pure brussball though - kamikaze defending, trying to get very limited CBs to pass round good players. Ok there's no one on a par with Vini Jr in league one, but Okoli is no more capable of playing like Beckenbauer than Scott McKenna was. Might have been Jurassic Clarke rather than Brussel setting it up but the philosophy that killed Scotland that game is one Martin subscribes to

people calling him Martin Russell is gonna be pain, like with Justin James. Never hire a bloke with two first names

giving Clarke a contract extension pre tournament was a mistake, meek all tournament

first one since the mcginn goal v Haiti. And clarkes got another 4 years to do this...

failing to qualify for either tournaments or the knockout stages is scottish tradition tbf

gunn making Ward look like Oliver Kahn with his reading of crosses. Goal obviously and where the **** was he going from that corner?

carry on playing out from the back like that and can we leave Clarke in Miami

dicking around at the back again

talk about him being ill prior to Haiti and he's playing like it

yes, that's the ridiculous part and not "Scotland score a goal"

3 points will be enough if: Czechia fail to beat Mexico South Africa fail to beat South Korea Ecuador fail to beat Germany Curucao fail to beat Ivory Coast Egypt beat Iran Spain beat Uruguay 6 results and there's 4 groups all on no more than 2 points for 3rd position. All feel very plausible, so the out on goal difference as 9th best third place side is gonna be a whole new form of "glorious failure"

playing out from the back like prime Russell Martin.

that goal doesn't happen under Russ, it was an attempted forward pass that lead to it