I don’t think Wright was taking the piss out of his accent actually. In the first interview it was hysterical they way Keane was lambasting Wright and Neville for being over confident and arrogant when clearly they were having a laugh and said something like “England should be concentrating on their next game and not worrying about the Quarter final, semi final ... glances over and stares at Wright and Neville and says FINAL” then they burst out laughing. The way he said final was hysterical and I think that’s what Wright was just trying to say rather than be spiteful

With a midfield anchored by 'this game's crying out for' Jordan Henderson I don't think Ingerlund, sorry England, have much to be arrogant about. Plus that waistcoat is frankly a fashion disaster.

Wright doesn't cover himself in glory by mimicking Keane's accent but his general point is a good one. Not one person I know was taking it for granted that England would bear Croatia. Hoping, of course. Assuming, absolutely not. And Keane sits there saying we shouldn't be celebrating until we've won the trophy. If that's the case Roy the only goal celebrated in the whole tournament should be the one that wins the final? Utter nonsense. The whole point of getting to the tournament is to enjoy the journey, for however long as it lasts. And as a country we've done that. Guilty as charged, sorry Roy. Miserable *%^@.

Wright wasn’t taking the piss out of an Irish accent he was imitating Keane’s portentous “final” from before which is why they’re all laughing so much.

Keane deserves it 100% and the laughter was great. TBH I thought Wright was restrained in not using the obvious retort to Keanes jibe about never having been to the World Cup finals.

It’s almost pathological!!! If you’re not a “Celt” you definitely qualify for honourary membership.

You’re probably just missing Sergio “more sinned against than sinning” Ramos right?

Roy Keane is the sort of guy that wakes up in the morning and falls out with his cornflakes

If he won the postcode lottery he'd moan about the size of the cheque

It takes a special type of wanker to walk out on his team from a World Cup finals

Lets just say Ingerlund is not my country of origin. And surely any football lover would miss a player of Sergio's quality

1) That is actually a serious relief. Bromley is so quintessentially England that I feared your self-loathing would end up destroying you.

2) I would crowdfund any player who nearing retirement wanted one last payday for breaking one of Sergio Ramos's legs.

I am curious as to your origin now but would not be so indelicate as to ask - does the King of Trolls have a specific nationality it's a puzzle.

By the way, Dejan "humble" Lovren was seen belting out a song by a bunch of Croatian fascists just after their win over Argentina #justsayin'

Forget the final, it annoys me that those English flakes *%^@** up the chance to send those Ustashe wankers back home...

My dad, an engineer, moved the family down South (a very long time ago) as the shipping industry collapsed on the Clyde. Despite dire warnings from the family about how the English hated us and how the move 'wasn't fair on the children' we were welcomed warmly and my elderly parents are still here in Sussex, and my son was warmly cheering England last night.
However, all the stick I took at school during the annual fixture with the Auld Enemy has meant that my love of England and the English doesn't extend to the football team. I'm a lot less rabid about it now than I once was however

McTroll huh?

That’s interesting. My affection for the England team has blown hot and cold over the years. But when it was cold it was because they were horrible wankers and not because they were English. I support Wales at rugby. But some of the anti-England stuff I have seen in Wales is just embarrassing and unpleasant. To be fair it tends to be restricted mostly to sport unlike your mob. Friend of mine who went to work in Scotland- a tolerant and amiable bloke - found it unbearable and left in the end. Maybe not typical but still really depressing in this day and age.

Sadly what you say is true - some seriously unpleasant behaviour goes on up there, my Aunt was part of some group of idiots who were on 'white settler watch' some while back - basically harassing English people who moved up there. A shameful business.
A bit of gentle friendly fun about the football is more my level. Unless the bloody Americans get involved, obviously.

Keane is such a d******* , and a hypocritical one at that. I think he genuinely believes everyone is afraid of him, I'd say he was absolutely fuming when the lads were sitting there laughing at him.

Sabir has told me that today is Steve Williams' 60th birthday. DOB 12th July 1958.

Thanks for sharing Bromley, I have a bit of experience with this stuff. I have 1 English parent and 1 from a huge Scottish family so I’m not a pure blood but consider myself dual nationality but mostly English.

Basically growing up I had Scottish uncles calling me an English b****** (not vitriolically but still) because I lived in the south and supported arsenal and my English family wouldn’t have barely understood it if I explained it to them.

When it comes to World Cup I always support all the teams in the UK and Ireland and actually when Ireland in particular don’t qualify I always think the tournament misses something.

Love Scotland which is the most beautiful country in this island and it has amazing people there with real values that people don’t possess in the south but in my opinion it has a massive problem with overt nationalism and sectarianism in the most illogical way. I find it depressing so you can imagine my thoughts during the indie referendum

Great player. Strange to think apart from Arsenal he made such little impact

Beautiful country for sure, some lovely people too but some aspects that are not so appealing. The Old Firm derby is something to behold - was 6 when my uncle first took me. Nobody in the crowd paying too much attention to the carnage going on on the pitch, too busy hurling abuse at one another. I was too young to understand the songs but vividly remember the sea of Union Jacks at one end and Irish flags at the other. My dad refused to buy me a Rangers kit (he also refused an invite to join the local lodge) so my first kit was Greenock Morton.

Not at all. You can see that Keane likes Wrighty. He has an incredible drive to win. Clearly, he takes it too far to the extent that he probably never actually truly enjoyed all his successes with Man U. He was dead right when he said that England had missed a huge opportunity.

He was a right a****** in his early 20s and I thought he was totally out of order at the 2002 world cup. But he's not the psychotic ball of rage the media portray. He's a also far more interesting than 90% of the ex-pros pretending to be pundits.

You have a point there. Neville and Keane definitely get on and Neville was laughing the most and urging Wright to do his impersonation of Keane. That's also why I don't think for a moment it was Keane's Irishness being mocked but Keane's Keaneness. Wright's laughter was also not especially snide, it all felt quite natural. Keane also knew he had to play the straight guy there and did - especially funny was when he told Wright off like a naughty kid at the end.

Wright definitely wasn't mocking his Irish accent. The joke was about Roy. They obviously had a few laughs off camera. Keane can be very funny too. When Scholes first turned up as a pundit, Keane was on Irish radio doing a general interview about the Irish team, Man U, the PL etc. He was asked about Scholes the pundit and said when he was a player Scholes did everything possible to avoid media interviews and now all of a sudden you can't shut him.up. He said it with his trademark wtf is that all about tone too.

Do I bang on about it like a childhood moral choice? Sure I've mentioned it but if your comment was true, wouldn't I have mentioned my reasons more? I was once asked what the reason was so explained it, from memory once. I don't think that's banging on.

Never went to an Old Firm but saw Arsenal play a friendly at Ibrox years ago and It will always stick in the memory as the ground in the UK I saw our players getting the worst racial abuse I’ve witnessed. Ian Wright in particular was getting monkey noises every time he touched the ball and people around me (I was in the home end) were shouting stuff about coconuts and things. Since that day I’ve always been desperate for us to draw them in the European cup or something and absolutely destroy them.

Celtic aren’t much better to be honest too. Their fans see themselves as some kind of trendy IRA lite freedom fighters or something. Have a look at this you tube to see what I mean

https://youtu.be/BzHSr2-QFlo


The whole thing in Scotland is the most utterly pathetic thing I’ve witnessed from a bunch of grown adults behaving like school kids.

Reports that Conte has been sacked by Chelsea. No real surprise but I thought it would have happened at the end of the season.

Is Scotland really that screwed up? Daz, you mentioned that in Wales the anti-English sentiment is confined to sport. The same applies in Ireland apart from the extremist republican loons. And with sport, it is mainly the rugby and soccer teams. Even at that, I would say the support for England's opponents in football is largely influenced by years of ridiculous hype by the English media. For my generation the genesis of this was the 1986 world cup and Jimmy Hill laughing on commentary as England scored a second or third goal and then the explosive reaction to Maradona.

After that, it was tournament after tournament of England talking about winning it beforehand and frequently based on no reasonable assessment of the team. It's worth pointing out that the majority of Irish football fans were cheering for England in 1966.

All of that bears no relation whatsoever to how the Irish view the English. To the majority of us, you are our greatest friends. Just not on the football pitch.

Also, international qualifying campaigns might be a slog but Euro and World Cup finals are far more enjoyable than PL and CL football.

https://arsenal-mania.com/how-many-unai ... ns-demand/

Another piece of good news. As expected, the cursory appointment of Kos as Captain, out of respect to both Wenger and Kos. But, the comments he made, is very clear what he thinks of Kos as Captain. I am happy he has these thoughts. We have had ineffective Captains/Leaders for too long now.

Who is Steve Williams?

Was kind of my point although I only focussed on the English side of it. Equally Belgium could have easily lost to Japan if they'd been able to shutdown defensively.

Like you said the margins have been very fine which has contributed to it being such a good a great World Cup to watch.

And England.

I didn't realise you are still so young you must still be at primary school.

Tough to call the Belgium vs England game. I think it depends on whether or not Belgium are still bitter. If they have some pride and I am going to assume so..then they will do enough to win.

Im also guessing England wants it more. 3rd place would be over achieving for their expectations. 2-1 Belgium in a tough game.



Apparantly Ive been going about it all wrong.

http://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/20 ... -online-ha

Particularly this year, don't you think? The tournament has felt utterly hollow without that undefinable whatever-it-is that Ireland provide. It just been cheap, meaningless thrills.

So you Brits have made the US president feel unwelcome. Breaking all the protocols of over 200 years of friendship. Jeopardizing the 'special relationship'. All because of Trump eh?

No not really it’s been great I just personally like it when more of our teams are present that’s all.

Scotland are also missed, with heroic defeats and comical mishaps being their specialty at one stage. They went out of goal difference in the first round three times running in the 1970s and 1980s when they actually had a great team. It was like Culloden every time

I went to Culloden as a kid. We had a holiday in Scotland and when we went to Inverness, visited where the battle took place.

My grandmother was from the Black Isle.

I've only ever visited that part of the world once, back in 96. I hiked down the Great Glen from Inverness and then around Skye ... quite the most beautiful and evocative scenery I have seen. Even South Africa and Zimbabwe (where I grew up) can't quite match it.

I didn't get to Culloden, however.

Edit: actually it was '92--Denmark were winning the Euros

South African guy I worked with at Gove , one of the very few South Africans who did a bit .

One day we were sitting chilling out , waiting for the kiln to be turned .

He's looking at his fancy arsed phone , one of the one's you dial up NASA etc bit more of a rarity eight years back .

He said ....... "Hey Piet ... do want to have a look at my house back in Durban " He lived in Perth but rents his house back in SA

" Yeah sure Steve "

He dials up Google Maps ...scrolling down the street ... "that's my auntie's place " ... couple of doors down proud as Punch " and that's my place " .......

" Hey that motherf**cker , he hasn't mowed my lawns "

That Trump protest march, I never thought it would be possible to look at thousands of people and see such diversity of weirdness. It's like the Cirque du Soleil tryouts

So many Spurs players in this 3rd place match