Dan

There's a reason I specifically didn't say Hungary. We seem to always get Poland/Switzerland and I can't ever recall losing to either of them.

England should keep Southgate until the draw has been done as that guarantees our pot one side will be Poland or Switzerland then sack him.

I've been betting more using xG tables to find what I believe to be value and I tell you what, it's not perfect but I'm convinced I'm doing better from it than just looking solely at form, tables etc...

Regretfully it's Leipzig.

All those defensive players on the pitch yet he's able to pick his spot, on his stronger side, from that distance. Absolutely clueless. The media in this country being harsh is the biggest myth in football. They're the wettest of any supposedly big side.

He'll still play a back 5 against Iran. Absolutely covinced that'll end 0-0.

Watford have got to be viewed as a free hit to your reputation at this point. You can't even look and say it's working anymore when once upon a time you could've argued so.

Maddison isn't necessarily the answer to all problems, but what we do know is that whatever his alternative is isn't even close to working, so it's another L for Southgate.

That game on Monday is going to be awful. Bet he still doesn't give Toney a proper go.

HARD TO BEAT Well, in the league anyway. We kick our season off with a convincing 5-0 win in the Sudamericana against Zamora but we have a huge choke in our trip to Uruguay and lose 2-0 at Defensor. We're at their mercy from this point, and we know that now given only the group winner goes through we need to basically win every remaining game. I beat Nacional 6-0 and it hits me that, while we'll win the goal difference, I don't fancy the other two to put up much resistance to Defensor. We beat Zamora again but we go into the Defensor match on 9 points to their 12. We basically have to win it. We don't. We're stifled and they claim a priceless 0-0 draw before beating Zamora at home on the final day. We're out in the groups. Absolutely horrific. This means we have a very generous schedule in the league. Well - generous by Brazilian standards, which for context is probably on a par with as bad a league season as you can have in Europe. We've still got to cram 38 games into 7 months. Given that though, I want a strong campaign and given our kindest route into the Libertadores has gone, I demand we make it via the league. --- Luckily, we look good to do so. We've picked up where we left off. I spent a bit of money over the past few months so I'm quite happy with my squad, albeit it's not ideal yet. I fill out my foreigner limit. The rule here appears to be a simple five maximum at any point in the squad which makes some sense, so no restriction on registration but you can 't play over five. We keep the unbeaten run of last season going into next, in-fact, further than I imagined... In what started as making us tougher to break down we seem to have developed a real cohesion and defensive solidity. As per a lot of sides I manage, I feel that once there's a bit of a momentum we become very hard to stop. Lots of these games were at home to sides you would expect us to probably have the better of by now, but most eye catchingly were wins at both Santos and Palmeiras - I seem to be making a habit of getting results at these places and ultimately, they're big scalps for us, but we still haven't beaten the real top sides and that's where the challenge will be. July was going to be a real test of our credentials though. We passed, with flying colours. It was after the win at Atletico Mineiro, one of the real juggernauts of the league that I thought that we actually had a shot of winning the league. We're just stupidly good defensively and we seem to be good at taking our own chances as well. This stretched our unbeaten run to a remarkable, improbable 32 games in the league. We followed it up with another win, away at fellow overachievers Bahia, dubbed the battle of Bahia following the absurdity of the refereeing performances that saw 14 yellow cards dished out, 10 of them including a red to us, but we held out. We also brought in Real Madrid midfielder Fabao, and Aldosivi striker Alberto Carabajal on free transfers - the latter is a real coup, our best striker now by a mile and somebody I'd contemplated paying £5mil for before I realised he had so little left on his contract. We stumbled a little this month but the fact I consider another unbeaten month a stumble is enough in itself. If we avoid defeat to Fluminense in our next game, we've gone 38 league games without defeat which is a whole year, which is absolutely mental. In-fact, the 2-3 win at Goianiense was the first time in the whole run we'd let in more than 1. We beat Fluminense 2-0, but that would be the end of the road, we were tamed by an old foe. Their winner was the literal last kick of the game as well. I thought we had the point, but they stole it right at the death. Those bastards. I hate them. So there are 13 games left, we have a quite nice lead at the top, but I do think we're going to face a real fight to hold onto it. We still have to play Atletico Mineiro (on the final day), Corinthians, Flamengo, Santos, Internacional, Palmeiras and Gremio. I think we may just get pipped to be honest. We have the points on the board but the others, Mineiro and Flamengo the two biggest worries for me, are on fire now. Their schedules are also getting quieter. I fear their quality will shine through. But it's a lot of fun. We've once again totally exceeded expectation. But did we make them celebrate. They're probably the biggest club in the continent and it was a huge deal for them. We've come a long, long way.

For me he's done about par, which gets overestimated because he's the first England manager I can remember who wasn't under par. But he's going the way of under par now and you also feel we had two extraordinarily good opportunities, particularly in the Euros for silverware and we didn't deliver it. He's been neither great or a disaster. Just average for me. You can't judge his time entirely against predecessors because there are so many mitigating factors. It should be always relative to the squad you have against what you're up against. For me only Spain in the Nations League and Germany in the Euros are that impressive as results, and even the latter I think needs caveating with the fact Germany were going through a bad phase themselves and we were at home. His time is definitely up though. They won't change manager before the World Cup, but they should.

Honestly of all the things you can pick at England for it's such a bad choice. It's a harmless song. The original to something teams up and down the country use as well. Just no idea why that of all things winds anybody up.

I can see a scenario where something like 5 points tops the group. A load of draws and not many goals. Iran have near enough home advantage which helps them a little. I wouldn't be making too many bets on this group.

I think it's quite plausible England don't win the group. It's a kind one on paper but you're licking your lips if you're one of the other three and seeing that's your pot one side. I can see the Iran game being the most dire of 0-0 draws.

It's coming home really isn't deep at all, I wasn't even sure it was self deprecating (the actual lyrics within the song are) but the main bit, is it just not the same as any song the fans sing? I highly doubt for example Plymouth Argyle fans truly, hand on heart believe that they are the greatest team the world has ever seen.

Correct. He's the luckiest England manager I can remember. His luck is out though. This World Cup is going to be shocking from England, absolutely no doubt about it in my eyes.

My escapism from a manager needing to go is fucking Southgate. Jesus Christ. End me.

Paint watches Gareth Southgate dry.

I think three main things. 1. Poor recruitment but largely putting players on silly wages - we overpay our squad fillers to a point we can't shift them. 2. Covid has probably hit us as hard as anybody because Asian travel still hasn't fully returned to normal, and our owners' wealth was primarily made through duty free in Thailand. 3. Infrastructure improvements like the training ground and stadium expansion. We have been weirdly shit at football since that training ground was built mind.

That above all is what scares me. You haven't got the Norwich / Watford safety net. I think Bournemouth will go and I think Forest probably will too, but even those two I put a level above Watford or Norwich. You made a point a while ago about us which was true, in that we've timed our good years almost perfectly. Well I fear we may have timed our bad year equally as badly. I really don't see anybody obvious dropping. I think if we didn't have such credit in the bank many would write us off. I keep flicking between thinking this has all the hallmarks of a relegation season and that we've got enough quality in the side to pull well clear. I think what's so infuriating about him not going over this break is our next five games are excellent. They would've been perfect for a new man to come in and pull us well clear. Now though all I think we're going to do is hand Forest and Bournemouth, the only two sides the bookies deem likelier to drop than us, extra points and put ourselves further in the shit. They've massively dropped the ball here. That Forest game could be the most toxic of all time for us I think. If we collapse there it's going to be really, really ugly. Frankly they deserve it.

We have a deadly combination of what I'm increasingly to believe a naive owner, and a manager who is a master of spin. I think our owners heart is in the right place and I don't like slating him, but I do think he's demonstrated some naivety since taking over and I think you're starting to see the price being paid for it now. I've no doubt Rodgers will get a decent job again once he leaves us. I said it in the summer that he's no fool with these kinds of things and he's a master of framing a situation to protect his own reputation. He's already got a substantial proportion of the footballing world convinced that he hasn't been backed here so even if we go down, he will escape blame in many people's eyes. Now while that is true for this season, it conveniently misses out the part where he's a large reason for that. Last summer was the biggest net spend in our history. For that we got Soumare, Vestergaard, Daka, Lookman (on loan) and Bertrand, although while this isn't so eye catching the main reason is that we usually make a big sale and last summer, we didn't. So he has been backed, and he ultimately failed to deliver. It wasn't a disaster of a season but it was underwhelming and the big takeaway for me was that his time should be coming to an end fairly soon. We have a director of football but I've never been convinced by him to be honest. The more time goes on the more I look and think people like him were overcredited for the work of previous regimes. He's been here for years but he's ultimately overseen all of this, and if he was up to much we would never have allowed things to get to this situation, nor would we have been foolish enough to give a man with a pretty shoddy track record of 'building' a club near enough free reigns to do so. We have clawed back some of that power from him I feel, but it might be too late. I don't think we're a big enough or powerful enough club to withstand the hit of such shoddy recruitment, and while people point to last year I think it started before then. I don't think we've had a better than average transfer window since summer 2018. Some successes within it but more failures than successes. I've a strong belief that a teams recruitment dictates probably 90% of their progress and their managers a part of the remaining 10%, unless you have a truly elite manager like Klopp or Guardiola. Well our board thought we had one and they've paid the price.

I need to get my Pentagon on 22 done before this is out! On 23 I think I'm going to do another Andorra / Annecy save, aka pick probably the shittest possible side in a big country, I'm thinking something like Verl in Germany.

It's basically down to that and how long they let this madness go on whilst doing nothing, but I'm increasingly concerned they just don't see it the same way. I've heard the odd rumour saying it's to do with a severance payment but he should've gone a while ago for me, I've no faith in them to make the right decision. It's completely crazy. I've never seen anything so stupid from this regime. I'm losing faith in them day by day. None of this is irrecoverable but I really think we're playing with fire.