menzinho

I know you can't judge anyone by their appearance alone but I agree the main photo of him doesn't make him look particularly imposing. If you asked 100 people what he does and gave them the choice of IT Technician and Professional Footballer, I can see one getting a lot more votes! He'll probably turn out to be one of the fittest players next season and be able to run for days!

I’d guess the main sticking point with the three transfer listed players are that they are on a good contract, wage wise most the teams in the NL would struggle to match us and I can’t imagine any L2 have them as top targets at the moment. They aren’t under any obligation to leave, they could just turn up next season, train and see out their contract. I don’t think this will be the case, I can imagine all three would want game time. The idea of a season of not even making the bench would be pretty awful and potentially set their careers back.

I like the choice of wording to describe him; cultured midfielder… Does that mean his interests are French cinema, Bauhaus architecture and poems by William Wordsworth? I wonder if Michael Doyle got the heads up from Ian Burchnall about him as they were both at Ostersunds at the same time, I can't imagine Doyle having many contacts in Scandinavia! He only had a short spell in the NL (in a poor team too by all accounts) but was clearly better than the level. I've cherry picked a few comments from the Woking Forum... He came into a struggling team heading for relegation, and became undoubtedly one of the biggest difference-makers in the last three months in terms of our survival. Yes, I saw him have a couple of quiet games as well (which player doesn't have quiet games?), but it must be remembered who he was playing in midfield with. Akinola really didn't help him at York, for example. If the season started in February he would likely have been Player of the Season, or very close to it. Good luck to him, he was very good for us and probably the most leftfield signing we have ever had. I think Curtis Edwards is better than Jack Roles, who has just signed a two year deal at a League One club. Football is weird. Ffs, they're going to be so good to watch. Not sure their entirely new defence will be everything they expect, but that team has some ridiculous attacking talent for Edwards to enable.

I think because we are so stacked with good technical players we need to be dominate, play high in the opposition’s half and try to pen teams in. The team just isn’t suited to sitting back. I don’t think the current starting 11 has that much pace going forward to cause teams trouble on the break. And Kane is not suited to battling for balls on the halfway line and holding play up, he needs to be in the box (and not our own)!

We’ve played with two supporting forwards/attacking midfielders behind a central striker before so I don’t see why we won’t, at times, do that next season. Scott played this deeper role as has Morias. Austin and Crowley are both natural there and Didzy featured there too. Jatta, Macca and Scott are more able to stretch a back line running in behind and I agree @Robbie that Didzy’s game is more suited to a deeper role now. I think he’s more effective as a supporting forward as he’s much better drifting into space and getting on the ball to create. So in terms of attacking options, assuming we are playing 3 at the back and wing-backs, we’re pretty stacked for attackers in central positions. The deeper sitting midfielders are where we need more additions as we’ve lost Bajrami, O’Brien and Bostock. I’d still say we need 2 more CMs. I know Austin can fill in there but I think he’s better further forward and this season could be too soon to expect much from Sanderson, I think a loan in either the National League or NL North would benefit him.

Given that I was a toddler in 97, I’d have questioned why they were asking me! But by all accounts, he did well at Blackpool before so I wouldn’t have been against the idea. That is nearly 30 years ago though and is he as good as he once was, that’s the real issue for me.

@Piethagoram I think we all know the answer to that! I don't think any of them would even know where Barrow is.

I think Wales have become a bit of a victim of their own success given they had a good spell for a few years. Prior to that they were rubbish and hadn't qualified for a major tournament since the 50s! Wales were fortunate to have a very talent group of core players a few years ago, when they got to the semis of Euro 2016. Wayne Hennessey, Ashley Williams, Ben Davies, James Collins and Joe Allen were all Prem regulars. And with Ramsey and Bale you had two incredibly good match winning players. Their squad isn’t as good now, that’s just how it goes in international football and I think whoever the manager is they'd do well to qualify for the World Cup. Would I pick Big Sam though, probably not by all accounts Rob Page was very defensive and I’m not sure that would change under Big Sam.

Anyone else expecting to see a picture of two dogs after reading the headline? ???? ????

A walk out song is something that seems to always get brought up in the fans forums. I don't know who is the go between for the fans and club but it would be good to get a few different songs (suggested by fans) which can then be played on matchdays to see what gets a good response. Here's my serious and definitely not a joke suggestion ???? get Jake Bugg to re-record this; the fart sounding trumpets must be kept, that's a deal breaker...

England's performance was really poor, it looked like a group of players that were playing together for the first time and hadn't really been given any instructions what to do when on the ball, other than have as many touches as you like. And Jordan Pickford continuously telling the players in front of him to calm down was odd, if they'd had played any slower they would've fallen asleep... Spain play like how I imagine England want to, they've just gone a goal up against Italy.

Always very promising when a player is described as a fans favourite too, as they are usually the biggest critics. From what I can gather most of their fans expected him to sign with another L1 club so it’s a great bit of business from us. I like the fact he can play on both wings, I wonder if we’ll go in for another wingback now? Chicksen can play at LWB, Austin has filled in at RWB and done well there, I think Macari albeit wouldn’t be as much of an attacking threat would be able to play there as well.

Well that one isn't getting ruled out for offside! Good job I'm not a betting man! Scored by a player making a run into the 6 yard box... ????

It was a cracking finish to give Czechia the lead, but not surprising that Portugal equalised given their dominance. Interesting they haven't taken Ronaldo though, I think they could benefit from a No.9 who actually tries to get into the 6 yard box more often. Not long to go now, I think this will finish 1-1...

Technically he's a very good player but I agree he did struggle with the physicality at times. I'm sure playing more regularly at Gateshead will have helped him improve. It didn't help he was a similar player to Matty Palmer, just not as good, and it never really made sense to play both of them. I always thought his positional awareness off the ball wasn't great either and to make it worse he was pretty slow so had a tendency to be caught out.

Sounds like I missed the game of the day between Turkey and Georgia, this game isn't the best. Czechia are definitely happy for this to finish 0-0. Portugal aren't short of attacking options though, I think they'll make some changes if they don't score soon.

Yeah really good signing this one, I’m very happy we’ve targeted him and signed him permanently too. Some really good stats, as shown in @ARLukomski goalkeepers post, really hopeful he can be the No.1 for a number of years. I’m surprised Wimbledon didn’t prioritise him and try to sign him first though, they’d have probably been able to agree a kind of verbal deal at the end of the season. I don’t expect the fee to be high either, sounds like Sunderland were quite happy to let him go from their statement.

I was impressed with Austria, very well organised and hassled France well over the course of the game. They're in a tough group with Netherlands and Poland too, but I think that performance will give them hope that they can progress. And I wonder if that injury will keep Mbappe out action for a bit, looks like a broken nose...

Clearly this is not a story to rival meeting Brian Clough, but the first well-known player I met was Dean Ashton in Zante airport when I was about 11... He was playing for West Ham and it was during the season break. I guess he had been on a bit of lads holiday and unbeknown to me he was very hung-over and struggling as it was 6 in the morning. I think the last thing he wanted was to be greeted by me, an overenthusiastic, football mad child! He was very polite though and answered all my questions, I think my dad was able to eventually usher me away. He then spent the rest of the morning lying on the seats with his cap covering his face...

We don’t know if we ever actually offered him a contract or if he really was a serious target, it's all just speculation... But for arguments sake if he was from what I can interpret from some of the interviews from the board we won’t ever pay over the odds for a player. It’s feels like the club sticks a value on player in terms of what they are worth, so if Carlisle offered more money that’s on them, but we’d see it as overpaying and move onto the next target. We also signed Bedeau, maybe he was our top-target and Thomas was the back-up, we’ll never know! Anyway I’m pretty happy as we’re well covered with players who can play at LCB right now.

Yeah, it’s a very easy story, it's just speculation right now. No-one’s actually been interviewed or even suggested an offer has been made all the writer has done is put Luke Williams and Langstaff together and said, could it happen again? I still believe we've got a very good chance of him staying with us. You can argue that every signing is a risk, but some are definitely more of a risk then others and I’d put Langstaff in the Championship as a bigger risk. There’s no doubt he’s great, but he’s great for us. The teams we play against are far worse than any of the championship teams. Even if he is a “potential target” I think he’d be way down on the list of potential signings. I think Swansea are far more likely to try and sign, for example, a player from the second division in Germany that has scored 20 goals. You’d be more confident he would be a good signing because the level of teams he’d been playing against will be of a similar level to those in the Championship.

Good game this so far between Italy and Albania, in fact the ones I've seen Germany v Scotland and Spain v Croatia were both good watches too! I thought Spain looked a bit disjointed at times but I was impressed how they were able to give up more of the ball but the press the Croatian defence well. They mixed it up a lot more too and I loved the switches of play into the space for the quick wingers to run into. Italy look pretty impressive now, after that awful mistake at the start, they are starting to dominate and create the better chances...

In terms of thinking for the start of next season I’d say we’ve got 18 senior players right now. Luther Munakandafa actually got released and I’m assuming the transfer listed players won’t be here come the start of the season. I’ve also not counted Mahovo & Sanderson, as I think both are likely to go out on loan over the course of the season. So I’d say still needed are 1 GK, 1 CB, 1 RWB, 2 CMs. That would then take us up to 23 (25 with the youngsters). I think the squad is looking good and Scott and Palmer will be like two new signings. For me the questions are more about the system and starting 11 particularly how do we fit all our best attackers in the team but not at the expense of our defence?

I'm not disagreeing with either of you here @Robbie & @Wheelbarrow repair man but isn't the experienced and older goalkeeper Slocombe though? He's 36 and has played nearly 400 games! Surely we don't need another keeper coming in at the end of his career. I'd hope we'd be looking for a keeper in his prime that can potentially be our keeper for a good number of years.

It's not like the club could do anything else whilst he was injured other than help his recovery. They couldn't, knowing he only had a year left, say: "you're on your own pal, good luck" no player would ever sign for us if that's how we treated them! I get it feels like a bit of let down but there's not much the club can do to be honest, the timing of his contract expiring is just unfortunate. If they really wanted Baj to stay they could've improved their offer but obviously feel the money will be better spent elsewhere. Michael O'Connor did the same too, he played the last few games of the season after being out for a year and chose to sign with Lincoln.