Black players weren't as prevailent even 10 years ago. The proportion of players who go onto manage is small anyway. I bet the statistics would hold true (now, not a few years ago) that the number of black managers is actually representative of the number of black players that were playing during t...

England need to play more friendlies against teams of similar quality, I imagine that half of what happens is that we are so used to playing lesser teams that we get into bad habits and when it comes to playing the sides at our level they take advantage of it all. There is a certain truth to that. ...

Any system that awards more points for failing to qualify than it does for qualifying is far more flawed that what already exists.

Surely qualification for a tournament would only increase the number of points as team plays more potentially high scoring games?

namechecked.



with Baines

T.R.O.L.I. I thought a law was brought in this season to stop "breaks" in penalty run-ups.

Few years ago - certainly around when John Aldridge was doing it

Cattermole at International level? LOL no f*cking chance

I read somewhere that he'd been booked in 1/3 of all his professional games.

As they put it, he is that sort of a player.

Too much weight placed on championship qualifiers by the looks of it. Friendly = 1 Qualifier = 2.5 Euros = 3 World Cup = 4 It is here and in the Confederation rankings where human opinion comes in and wherethey get a bit screwed. Euros is probably a similar level to World Cup, I think they over-rat...

wrt 2, they played something more technical than hoofball and every player knew their job within a system. I'd also go as far to say the system wasn't kick it and hope, but something more refined. Plus iirc, the coach beasted them on fitness, so they'd be more than the match of most teams they'd pla...

repLOLy aLOLLOL

When I was there in the early-to-mid 2000s, a carabinieri office was bombed in Iraq and that loss of several young Italians seemed to really shock the country.

All I can say is that I found Naples to be left- communist posters everywhere and lots of commie graffiti. Ischia had a communist library and two communist parties each with their own office, and lots of posters around again. I don't know Ischia at all, and barely know Naples, but that could easily...

I think, had it been any other manager, and the player acted like that, we'd have all basically called the player a spoilt prick.

Which has more of which? My experience of this is limited to the Bay of Naples (South) and Genoa (North). I got the impression that the North is more right wing, Naples and Ischia certainly both appeared to have strong Socialist and Communist traditions. Genoa has or had some left to it, but that w...

Working in a pub with no telly.

At some point in the night, a rumour went around that England were 4-1 up.

Cue mocking.

Later on, it went to 5 and we had to work out how to rig up a telly for the highlights.

No, racist is my south african mate Herman laughing that SWP might trip up over his lip if he ran too fast.

Clearly, there is a balance to be struck but I feel Reading have gone too far in the direction of caution and I would like to see them roll the dice occassionally. On balance, I would rather have lived through Portsmouth last four years than ours as, simply, it would have been more exciting and sti...

St Pauli
So what if he's from a WC roman suburb? The Italian working class has a history of far left, left, liberal as well as far right parties and political strands.

less so in Rome and places further south.

more so in places further north.

Is this Bellamy thing correct?

That worked out so well last time.

It's probably because, as your own initial comment admits , he's not actually done anything racist ... (and not just in this situation. The worst thing I can see he's done in his career is push a ref and a facist salute while at Lazio, but he's from a very working class Roman suburb. What do you exp...