Dan

It's why I supported the Tuchel appointment (and crucially have not fallen into Southgate revisionism - as if he didn't serve up some rubbish himself). He's flawed but he's got this way of getting a team to go on a run when you need it most. Always remember how he took over a Chelsea side in a bit of a mess and had them as the best side in Europe for a few months in time to win the Champions League. There's method in his madness. Before tonight we have been crap and I do think there's a chance we stumble against someone crap in the World Cup but that was a huge green flag for me tonight.

Somebody on here a few pages ago said something along the lines of how we're building to look pretty unconvincing against the crap sides but ruthless against the better. Obviously Serbia are nowhere near a top side but we took them apart with total ease tonight. That being said Serbia didn't set up at all like a decent side. 5-4-1 at home reminiscent of a minnow. Serbia were pathetic tonight.

Tuchel's sides have a very high ceiling. Was often the way with Chelsea where he'd set up with something fairly bizarre on paper and they would just tear you apart over and over again. Can remember one time where Chilwell was basically playing as a striker he was that far forward.

This has been barely believably easy. It's like we're playing Malta.

11

Norway winning 9-1

That's a very good half. Been easy.

Haha that has potential to be a disaster appointment.

The club need to give the fans freedom rather than trying to manage it all themselves. I was thinking about this the other day though, I do remember specifically during the great escape every time we conceded there'd be an encouragement cheer from our crowd and that's just completely alien now - something's not been right in this way for ages.

3 goals in 2 games against Andorra abysmal.

Agree it's open but can't help but think we've blown our best opportunities. We've had some very favourable draw luck and not converted it. Don't think next year really suits us either condition wise. Do feel like we could win 2028 mind you.

Good grief we're bad.

Been saying for years we should sign him.

Jesus what?!

Did it a year ago (5th October funnily enough) and it was piss easy - just sign up and buy. Insane idea, would never catch on here.

James & Carranza have to start. I get you tend to want signings to bed in but we are horrific in midfield and attack and they really can't do a lot worse. I like what he's done with Winks though. Rate that he hasn't just tolerated him and treated him like he's above us. I'd imagine eventually he may come back in but absolutely fine with him not for now.

Reckon it'll be a crap game and we win 0-1. Not dissimilar to Charlton. These do look pretty bad though.

My ideal plan for this is to do 4 games in 4 days. Thursday go to a European game in Bologna or Fiorentina. Now astonishingly, and this is barely believable bad luck, the rest was to get to a Cremonese home game at the weekend after but after all five European games either one of them are at home - Cremonese are away. 5 times out of 5. Genuinely unbelievable. This means to keep this plan I would have to go in March 2026 and hope that either of them finish in a particular place in Europe. I think they either need to finish 9th-16th, or finish 17th-24th but win their tie. It's a bit complicated. The ideal for me is something like... Thurs: Bologna Fri: Genoa Sat: Cremonese Sun: Atalanta There is a chance it becomes doable. I may end up dropping the European part and just going anyway. Or maybe even go somewhere else like Slovenia, Croatia etc.. for Europe. I've been to the San Siro. I'd go again to be fair but that isn't the priority. That would be very easy to tie in though. Inter v Cremonese first weekend of October would be a good one. They've already played AC Milan away (and won!). Weirdly falls the exact weekend I went to Inter last year. We're at Swansea too so it's not the best fixture for us.

I do want the match engine to be decent but graphics aren't a dealbreaker here. New leagues on it apparently are Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia and...... Lithuania.

Born 1993 and will probably overlook some of the MON team due to age at the time really, but... Schmeichel Ricardo - Evans - Fofana - Fuchs Kante - Tielemans Mahrez - Izzet - Barnes Vardy Centre halves are really hard. Fofana I think is the most talented CB I've seen at Leicester but obviously it went a bit pear shaped. Evans I think probably had to be the most rounded we've had and I think he could've played in the 2016 side. It does feel really harsh leaving out Huth though. If there was a bench of 7 it's probably Hermansen, Huth, Lennon, Cambiasso, Maddison, Albrighton, Heskey. I've almost certainly forgotten someone. Matt Elliott seems to be the one who is getting rated higher than I thought he would be - and that's absolutely not a disagreement that's again what I refer to in the first sentence.

It's just astonishing to me this team didn't only not finish bottom, but didn't even finish second bottom. I think last years PL had three of the worst ten all time PL sides. A proper anomaly.

I don't recall a manager ever who had a higher ceiling but lower floor than Rodgers.

Van Nistelrooy was set up to fail but he's ultimately secured us a record that will almost certainly never be broken in any of our lifetimes.

That's a pretty good profile from admittedly quite a small number of minutes.

It's another example of how successfully they've reduced expectations really.