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Like who? My point isn’t just about England. Malta should not be playing Spain/Netherlands or the Faroe Islands playing France/Croatia. Why not have 2-3 stages of qualification where highest ranked teams enter qualification at a later stage?

They were and there’s no denying that. However, there’s no ‘magic of the cup’ in these fixtures and the Nations League has played a role in developing the smaller nations than the traditional qualification format. What do teams like San Marino get from their annual 5+ goal drubbings? I don’t...

It’s no different, in principle, to how the FA Cup has staged entrance. When we played Maidstone, they earned the right to play us despite it being a complete mismatch. In international football, we’re forced to play against teams that aren’t fit to play against us or the other elite of European...

In the international game? Yes and the structure already exists via the Nations League. I would structure qualifying around this somehow so the level of international fixtures reflects this. We want to see big games like: Spain v Portugal France v Italy Germany v Netherlands We’re one of the...

There’s a massive need for reform to the international qualifying process. We’re not getting anything out of playing teams like Albania who just want to sit back and defend with 11 people all game. The question is more often ‘how much will we win by’ as opposed to ‘will we win’. We playing...

This team in 23/24 and 24/25 is overall better than the playoff team, overall. However, the star quality in Hamer and Gyokeres meant we had the arguably the Top 2 players in the league that season. If you put Hamer and Vik in this team, we’d be in the automatics. Doyle would start over...

Feels good to be in the top sale date for this one! 😂

This cracked me up man! 😂 Electing an activist solicitor to lead the Labour Party was a huge mistake. I felt that Starmer in particular is very poorly equipped to govern the country in this moment. His biggest weakness is on immigration and that’s the biggest source of discontent in this...

I’m the same. I do not trust the tories and do not find Reform to be credible at all. If an election was held tomorrow, spoil your ballot. We’re coming to the end of the ‘Blairite’ consensus, that’s for sure.

The ONS is reporting that the treasury has borrowed £63bn more than forecasted before Labour came into government and £20.4bn than the OBR projected (the ever reliable OBR). Growth projections have been halved, the £ is down 0.2% on the dollar… this government is utterly clueless. Cheer up...

Draws work for us if we keep winning! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Your assumption is faulty because it assumes that if inflation goes up, the entire operating costs must go up in line that. Which ignores things like long term contracts and so. Ironically, this is actually an argument for a monetarist fiscal policy which prioritises inflation as the most...

It’s possible, but requires teams below us beating or drawing against Sunderland so unless we’re winning every game, we may want Sunderland to do us a favour here and there.

This is all well meaning stuff… how is it being funded? Again, if 45bn in unfunded tax cuts can bring down a government, it really limits a government’s ability to spend without making cuts elsewhere.

I’m sure Spain felt that before going into last summer’s Euros.

He talks a good game!

I genuinely think this next election could be the collapse of the Tory party. If Labour loses power, they could be on the path to extinction themselves because many Labour voters probably see them as a Tory-lite government. Just as many people backing Reform this last election viewed the Tory...

‘Real term cuts’ is a blatant manipulation of statistics. If my employer gives me 5% pay rise and inflation is at 7% (for arguments sake), I’ve not received a 2% pay cut. That’s how ‘real terms’ cuts are marketed as. For example, the NHS budget is projected to go up by £21bn in cash in 25/26...

Is it? When George Osborne cut corporation tax back in the coalition government days, tax receipts went up by a third.

What is regarded as a ‘sensible discussion’ varies massively from who talk to. Is leaving the ECHR and amending the HRA considered sensible? What level of net migration is sensible? The pre-1997 norm of 50k? 900k like it was last year? There’s plenty of good left wing arguments to end mass...