England and international football

Rogers to United, Gibbs White to Villa.

I will probably be completely wrong - but I don't see MGW going this summer.

If I am - hopefully all outs are sorted early in the window to give time to replace as best we can

My son has the view, if he went elsewhere he's a squad player not a guaranteed first choice and that may not be what he wants. Let's hope so!

That's never how players see it though.

He'll think that if City (or whoever) want him (especially for the price Marinakis will extract), he can go there and force his way into the team. If he didn't have that self-confidence, he wouldn't have made it this far.

Some of his thinking will also be about his family. I know his wife had difficulties with pregnancy, so how she feels about her friends and support network will have an impact. The Gibbs-Whites are often seen around and about the area doing family stuff. Hopefully, it may be that together they decide that the best thing for them is to stay where they are.

Snatch that hope away!

He's definitely gone then. Hope we have a good plan to replace them. When can you get odds on relegation for best year?

She's from SA I think, not sure if her family are over there or here. His family are Stafford way I think, seems more accessible if you live south of Manchester than east of Nottingham.

Fuck you and your geography facts!

And as I pointed out, Anderson is in the squad and he plays for Forest. So im not at all convinced by that argument.

He’s just picked people he likes, he’s already banging on about squad chemistry etc. he’s a cunt.

If he is playing 4-2-3-1 I guess I can see why he has gone with those players tbh. Rogers and Bellingham for the 10 with Eze as wild card backup that offers something different.

It's hard to find anything much to like about this England squad and leadership, apart from Anderson, and personally I need to have some engagement with a team before I can give much of a fuck about it. Southgate was at least a decent man that I could get behind. With Tuchel, we seem have reverted to being a dull, fairly dislikeable lot that will no doubt be boringly functional and efficient. I don't think I'll be watching with much interest, if at all. Hope they/we get knocked out early on.

They are regulars at Ed and Molly's.

Southgate's team was boringly functional and efficient, much like Southgate himself.
He just got a lot a positive coverage from the Press because he indulged them and gave them special access to the players. The fans had turned against Southgate's set-piece football (the blueprint for Arteta) for a long time before the press did.
(Venables was the same - used to ring journos the night before and leak the team to them. Capello, for example, was never given the same chance because he didn't give the England hacks special treatment).

He must really hate Alexander-Arnold given that he’s picked quite a few unfit (James / Livremento) and non-playing (Spence) full backs in front of him.

And I’m no fan of Harry McGuire but surely you’d take him over Dan Burne??

There was also the unprecedented rate of qualification for finals and semi finals.

The two tournaments before him, we went out in the groups and in the first knockout round (to Iceland). Under him we did semi, final, quarter, final. If we revert to the norm now, Southgate will look even better.