Dan

It just reeks of the Perez deal all over again so I really hope it isn't true. I cannot tell you the last good value signing we made from a Premier League side that hadn't just been relegated. I don't think he's bad but if that's the best use we can put together of £35mil then it tells you everything about why we've fallen to where we have done. If that is genuinely the best they can serve up then we need serious changes. I mean we do anyway but that would be just total lunacy. It would be desperate.

We'd get such paltry money at this point that there's no point. See it essentially now as paying a loan fee to keep him here for the rest of the season. We've started moving which is good. Rumours of Tete from Shakhtar are encouraging, it's the right type of names but we need confirmations rather than rumours. Kristiansen is a signing I'm happy with but I think again, why could this not have been done on the 1st. I just don't think we're much good at getting deals done. Souttar being linked with us. Cannot tell what I think of him but the Stoke fans' comments do encourage me about him. Last time we signed a centre half off Stoke in January we won the league 16 months later so there is that

I also just think his attitude towards everything is so wrong. It's such a loser mentality. If he's that horrified by the conditions he's working in, then leave. Only he won't because he's on massive money. So given you're on this massive money, why don't you try and actually bring something to the table for it? He would sooner throw his toys out of the pram than try and build up any siege mentality or work in adversity, and I think that tells you something about him. We don't have the poorest squad in the league by anywhere close, but I think what he's done has sapped all confidence away. Look at what Eddie Howe is doing with a Newcastle side that has some quality and some pretty limited players. Their side has no business being that high up. I don't think it's a better squad than we had when we were pushing to be honest. People might disagree, but I don't think it's the case. Now they're an extreme example but just look at the difference. Then look at what we serve up against them. I think most Championship sides would play better than we did against them. There are ups and downs in football. We had hard periods under Ranieri, under Shakespeare, under Puel, yet at least we acted, at least we didn't let it go on. We are being held to ransom by our own manager. It's completely humiliating.

The net spend argument is just classic Rodgers and sums him up to be frank. It's a notoriously easy point to spin so it's no surprise that he's gone for it. The thing is, I don't think he's entirely wrong in everything he says, I do believe that we are in danger of being left behind simply because we don't seem to have the money behind us plenty of teams do (I mean you're paying more for Rutter than we've ever paid for anybody) and that in itself is an issue. To me it's about two factors, how much you spend, but how well you spend it. He is deliberately choosing to focus on the first point because it suits his reputation to do so. He's had a bigger hand in the second point given he brought along his head of recruitment when he joined the club, and we have absolutely nosedived in this regard. We're not only being surpassed in what we spend, but we're now getting far worse at spending what we actually do. But he can very conveniently ignore his role in that second point. Our owner hasn't fully lost me but he's going that way because our answer to everything just seems to be do nothing and hope it gets better. Maybe that's a complacency we have because of the fact we do often seem to get away with it. I've had long-held suspicions we've been fortunate on occasion and I've never been fully able to shake them, and they're looking more and more to be true. I mean just look at this window. How the hell has nobody come in yet? Rodgers was making noises again that three players would come in this window. So was he lying again? If he was - why is this not being reigned in? It isn't the first time. If he was telling the truth, where are they? And where is the urgency in getting them done? One of the reported links is a left back from Copenhagen for 5-8mil. We are the only club in this division who could make hard work of a deal so simple. Rodgers for me needs to be sacked because he's as I suspected he would, actively looking to drag the clubs reputation down to save his own, and the problem is the longer he does this without any repercussion, what he says sort of becomes true. He's also massively underperforming with this squad no matter how many people pretend otherwise. Nobody would've put us in a relegation battle in preseason. Yet as it is now I look and look and struggle to see the three worse teams. We're 13th in the table but the trajectory is scary and the bottom 8 have hardly anything between them. We have 1 point against the top half all season and don't play anybody in the bottom half until March, other than Forest away - a place we're notoriously dire at. I think 7/1 on us to go down is seriously overpriced. We were never fully out of it.

Rodgers is at it again with his bleating. The transfer window opens and it's like we're right back in the summer. I'm glad I wasn't totally fooled by our upturn. He still without doubt needs to go. The thing is though he isn't 100% wrong in what he says, I just don't think the chief arsonist can be the one moaning about the burned building. I could write an essay on the shambles of the last couple of years. Somebody did write a very good article on it recently, will dig that out if I can find it. Something seriously wrong with us though. Once again we're in a transfer window and appear to be being left behind despite plenty of talk we'd be having deals done. I'd take 17th this season at this point. Disgusted that the mismanagement at so many levels has reduced us to being happy with that again. An absolute joke of a decline - we finished 5th two seasons ago for fuck sake.

They'd never go for him. I'd love to see it though I can't lie.

That's an absolutely shocking list really. The majority of those flopped.

The number of mad injuries we get, never known anything like it and it's by a mile the most frustrating thing in football because no matter where you end up you will always think it could've been better. Particularly one like this where it's totally avoidable. Fingers crossed karma comes back twice as badly for that oxygen thief. He should never feel safe here.

It should be a rule that the manager follows the same rules to be eligible as players. But it isn't so why impose it on yourselves.

The nearest thing we have to a guarantee is that Southgate is going to come up short. I would roll the dice on a manager who could totally flunk but could also go further and I believe Tuchel could do that. I think in a tournament it's worth shooting for the stars. They aren't frequent. I would genuinely be less annoyed with the FA if they gambled on Tuchel and we ended up having a crap Euros than stuck with Southgate and had another 'okay' tournament. I think if you asked 100 people in this country who had had the better last four years out of England and Italy, the vast majority would say England. I'd personally take two shockers if it meant the other was a trophy. England need to triumph against adversity before being considered a serious contender. Qatar was another failure to do that. Southgate staying absolutely typifies everything about England. Cautious and don't truly believe we can mix it with the best.

Exact mentality that keeps England as nearly men. Not saying you're wrong either as this is the FA's thinking. Southgate for me is just par. It's been par every time for the opposition we've faced. But as ever that's enough.

18 from 2 rounds is fucking mental.

Go with a back 5 against Iran and I can see it being 0-0. I think it's what he'll do as well.

I can see it being Justin. He's got a lot of versatility particularly in a back 3/5. The Burn shout - I'd take him anyway personally. He's been very good for a while now.

I love that going quite viral, was done by somebody who has been anti Rodgers for absolutely ages On a more serious note that's actually one way you get the message through. My concerns are becoming less about Rodgers and more about the blindness of the club.

It's a perfect storm of bad things happening at once, just like the title win was but the opposite way. It's why I think we're right in the shit. I know you're quite into analytics and whatnot - well our performances in that regard last season were largely rubbish so this shouldn't come as a major surprise. It just appears to me that the club weren't quite as alert. The owners income is a problem but they've generally run us quite self-sufficiently. They aren't pumping loads in. I don't think they've put any money in for transfers in about 10 years. We were never top 5 under O'Neill. I'd have said we were more of a Stoke under Pulis type of side but excellent in cups. Heavily relied on set pieces, siege mentality. It's not a criticism at all, I yearn for that kind of togetherness when I see what we are at the minute.

Our decline must be one of the sharpest in ages if we continue at this rate. I'd argue it's one of the most scandalous relegations ever - since I've been following anyway. I've always had this weird feeling that if we were to go down it would be another odds defier like this. We seem to deal in extremes like no other so if anyone was going to go from 5th, 5th and a trophy, 8th to finishing bottom, it would probably be us. What goes up must come down, I guess?

They're qualifiers. We'd rack up a goal difference of about 40. We'd then draw to Slovenia in our opener.

Nah drew at home but beat them away. I don't think either side are rubbish but they're just the obviously kinder teams from pot one. It'd be Southgate like draw luck to avoid France or Spain to get a side we usually beat. It's actually possible to have Faroe Islands, Malta and San Marino in the same group. I think if anybody can do it it's Southgate.

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...

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.

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.