The Americans seem to do that with their baseball player stats.

"How many left handed, third baseman Capricorns have caught a pop fly with the sun in their eyes"

I fail to see what they are hoping to achieve here. If the game ended 1-0 to City perhaps they'd be looking for some or validation because the game was close but they were well beaten and completely outplayed.

Common sense seems to have prevailed and our game with Everton has moved back to Saturday 20th Dec to allow more rest ahead of the League cup QF with Palace on the following Tuesday. Palace's league game also moved back to the Saturday. both games kick off at 8pm

A lot of good points that I agree with raised here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/ar ... 2y3j1924xo

The VAR being given to captain/manager appeal is essential

The handball law needs simplifying

The offside is harder as it’s easy to say don’t give marginal ones but this won’t take away the problem of having a threshold and there will be marginal decisions with any offside, as a law without a clearly defined objective threshold can’t work at all

I like the idea of a captains challenge. With the proviso that like cricket it is exercised within say 20-30 secs of the decision and you get a limited number per game. But if they reverse the decision and you win the challenge you don't lose one of your challenges.

The other change is I would like them to move to AI VAR. Start the process now of entering correct decisions into the database. Ultimately and in not a very long time, most decisions would be made automatically. This would stop in the majority of decisions of the ref having his old mate in the VAR backing him up on incorrect decisions.

Also I think there should be more looking at games after the event. In a game a ref could make a decision to refer issues for consideration after the event where no action has been taken in the game. Fouls behind play as an example. Cards and suspensions could be the sanction. In the case of exceptional bad decisions during the game, such as a yellow when it was clearly a red the further sanction can be imposed. If you think this will ruin the game: its already f...ed with money, the media and the control by TV channels. May as well go the whole hog.

If you wanted a good laugh this morning

Early onset dementia.

Agree Gaz

The retrospective punishments is something many fans have wanted for decades, I agree it is needed

FIFA are dicks as they have resisted this claiming it is ‘re refereeing’ games - it should be brought in for violence and diving

Part of reason for insidious creep of diving is failure to punish it over the years

Look at Doku’s dive vs Pool, it was blatant and now diving is just accepted

If there are no consequences of bad behaviour then it thrives.

It was a penalty.

Your calling it a penalty demonstrates my point nicely, 20 years ago 99.99% of people would have called it the blatant dive it was

Culturally diving has become acceptable and people don't even point out dives when they re blatant, Doku makes no attempt to go onto get to the ball, he leaves his leg in there deliberately to engineer a tiny bit of contact and he then pirouettes down

Blatant dive

Alan Pardew: "My midfield three for the World Cup, at the moment, would be [Declan] Rice, [Jude] Bellingham, [Morgan] Rogers… and then Palmer playing the left side."

Thank goodness Pardew isn’t England manager. Sadly I think there are loads of English fans and pundits who would agree with him to some degree. Show horning in our supposed best players.

Thankfully Tuchel has his head screwed on properly and it putting balance and players in their natural position well ahead of reputation.

A lot of Englands starting 11 should be pretty fixed

Pickford
RB Stones Guehi LB
Anderson Rice
Saka AM LW
Kane

Right back is currently Reece James but others can challenge him
Left back is wide open, MLS, Lewis Hall, Nico O’Reilly might make a late dash- different profiles can suit how Tuchel wants to play
AM is between Bellingham, Foden, Palmer - pick only 1 of them
LW should only be between Gordon and Rashford - they must have natural pace to bring balance and to make the most of Kane’s skills

Done

Tuchel dropped MLS from the squad because he told him he wouldn’t be picked for England if he wasn’t playing enough for Arsenal.

John Stones starts tonight having played 64 minutes of Man City’s last 8 premier league games

Switched over to football just in time to see a wonder goal from Bukayo.

Eze scores on 90 mins and it's 2-0 to the Arsenal..............

Ireland 2 Portugal 0.
Feck off, Ronaldo

Foden is so overhyped - so predictable and so one sided and so lacking ability to beat a man - at a high level he just looks so mediocre

Eze scored after Bellingham and foden finally stopped over hitting passes or losing the ball. Bellingham, a wonderful player, somehow you get the feeling isn’t as good as he thinks he is. And Foden yeah, bit of a show pony sometimes tbh. I’d put money on Saka every time to come up with the goal or assist over Foden who does something flashy that comes off 1 of those times - for England at least.

https://x.com/itvfootball/status/198908 ... -j6VVZXEoA

The commentary here is crazy. I’ve spoken for ages about Foden being over hyped by pundits, he can play terribly for an entire year last year and it’s never mentioned, 1 good thing and they’re all over him again. Eze’s goal is all about Foden….its Lee Dixon who I know is a City fan but he’s an Arsenal legend and it’s an Arsenal player scoring and he spends the entire time waxing about the most simple of 5 yard passes.

Just read any write up in any media tomorrow, you will be forgiven that it was Eze and Saka who scored two wonderful goals to win the game as most of the talk will be about Bellingham and Foden - I can already see it. So why is that?

England’s official Twitter….Foden apparently ‘puts it on a plate’ for Eze.

Why report it like this? It confirms all the small bias I see in football journalism and pundits and fans more generally because they are sheep who will parrot what they hear or read.
White, working class background, northern club = good

If this is continually there, even in small subtle moments I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to think these biases are in referees minds too.

https://x.com/afcjxmes/status/198914084 ... -j6VVZXEoA

Reporter to Eze…’and was the key to your goal Phil’s pass?’

Outrageous

Incredible bias

He’s such a one dimensional player and it gets exposed against decent teams

Saka has 14 goals and 9 assists and 15 man of the match awards for England. He’s one of the first names on the team sheet along with Kane, Rice and Pickford

Eze was asked about it afterwards and you could see what he was thinking. Class finish but it’s weird for some reason the press want to elevate anything Foden does.

Wonder if now Madueke is back and we rest saka for a few games tuchel would drop bukayo because of his lack of game time. Would he *%^@ the stupid German turbo div

Have you ever watched Foden? On his day he is a top top player.

I have indeed - massively overhyped

Good left foot and a very good finisher, but one dimensional - very one footed and struggles to beat a decent defender

I would also add his decision making is often poor, frequently takes too many touches and slows moves down

His assist yesterday was nothing much, ran into space, didn't have to beat a man and a simple easy pass

Totally, it's also one eyed - the finish was way harder than the assist - the work pre Foden was way more impressive, Foden didn't have a great deal to do

Tuchel needs to pick his team around those 4, Anderson and the two CBs. Kane in particular is world class if he is the right attacking structure. If Tuchel persists and doesn't try to force all the 'stars' into the team, England will be formidable.

Amen to that. Talk about the proverbial bad smell. Also a trumper now, although he does emphasise he is more famous than the Don.

And well done Ireland.

Yeah that Ronaldo thing was *%^@*** brilliant.

The fact it was the Irish lads makes it even more enjoyable.

Hilarious stuff

Yes, it is ridiculous. It was a sumptuous finish and a very ordinary assist.

Eze's shot rated as a 0.06xG, so 6% of the time a player scores from that position

100% agree. Then he has a lovely job of filling in the gaps around those players. He has an embarrassment of riches for the 3rd midfield spot, Bellingham probably leads the way but he also has Foden, Palmer, Eze, Rodgers. At left wing he can pick the pace of Gordon or Rashford or even Eze if he wants a different profile. Plenty of good full backs. James looking like he's cementing the RB position, Spence and Livramento can play both sides but appear lower down the order, Trent is out of favour but is incredibly talented, on the left Nico O'Reilly has been playing really well - there is a lot to like about him and Pep has done really well to mould him in to a left back. There is also MLS and Lewis Hall.

To come back to the idea of 'points of failure', to me it would be CB and CM, that is where the depth is the weakest. Also a Kane injury would scupper any chance England have, the guy will score goals against any team in any game

It will be interesting what the make up of the 26 man squad is. There is usually space for players who are able to cover multiple positions even if they might not be first choice in any of them. Also, you need to take attacking players who can change a game in a moment.
With both those things in mind (and my bias Arsenal hat on) I'd be taking Rice, Saka, MLS, Maduke and Eze in the squad. The first two being nailed starters and the last 3 falling in to the versatile or game changer category.

I think 1979's analysis of Foden is a tad harsh as I'd agree on his day he can be a top player, but the problem is 'his day' are few and far between at the moment. At some point you have to ask whether the great form he once displayed was actually the anomaly and what we've seen for the last 12 months is more the norm for him. In 23/24 he carried City to the title somewhat in the run in, I kept getting annoyed of the 25 yard arrows in to the top corner he kept hitting - 27 goals that season. His record in other seasons is clearly very good but the way the media talk about him is as if his 23/24 season form is every single game......this is particularly prevalent when the English pundits talk about him in England games, his record for England is very poor - 4 goals in 45 appearances across 6 years.

I think that is fair. He does lack consistency. You look at Kane, Rice, Saka, Pickford they are consistent season after season.

It might be that Foden's best season (for City not England) is better than Saka's best season (for Arsenal) - if we use 23/24 season I'd say that is probably true. But Saka is far more consistent and hasn't had the long fallow periods Foden has, and has been miles better for his country

I just don’t buy comparing a winger to a central forward/no10 by number of goals scored - it’s not valid on any level

Foden is overrated - he’s better in PL as he’s played for a dominant side and his talent is a great ability to finish with his left foot

Against decent defenders and this is exemplified more in international football because of generally less space being afforded etc - he’s better struggles - he’s very one footed, lacks pace and his decision making in terms of when to release the ball is not great

Saka is miles better, different player and different position, but he scares top defences, Foden doesn’t

Top of the PL and knockout stages of the CL are a far higher standard than international football. It’s been years since the international game was stronger.