All the Germans

Agreed. I love Rugby and much more than football internationals. Not sure about group B being group of death - certainly the toughest, but not sure it's that extreme? Ireland clear favourites, South Africa second, Scotland just third favorurites, Romania and Tonga both trying not to be bottom? You're wrong. I played it for a few years (I wasn't very good) and still don't entirely understand the rules.

Don't they also do it so you can have concerts there and move the pitch so the audience doesn't wreck it?

It's pretty cool. I would have no problem playing on it - do you think about the hollow drop below you when you're lying in bed? (assuming you don't live in a Bungalow...).

The better team is winning. We've been pretty dreadful. I disagree with suggestions of the subs at half-time, go scream at them now and give them 10-15 to rectify their mistakes, then make changes.

Yep. Lazy assumptions based upon no facts what-so-ever.

It would be careless not to have that as a part of the plan? Throw caution to the wind trying to get up now could result in ruin tomorrow. Spending money doesn't guarantee success, but it does guarantee you have less money. I'm relatively happy with the squad we have (I'd like more quality up front and on the wing) and done at a net profit. Feels decent to me.

I doff my cap to you sir. The only people who say "little 'ol Norwich' are our own fans. Nobody else cares. You're probably right, and I have no knowledge of the player - he may be worthwhile, even at that price - but it makes me despair at the state of football that a player that has scored a total of 8 goals is worth £7m. This is not right.

Well read.

What precisely makes it interesting?

I'd argue that Sainz is an entirely unknown quantity, Rowe is still raw and whilst the signs look good, at this stage, it is a risk to rely on him as our main winger (remember when Idah scored a hattrick in a cup game and he was suddenly the second coming and now he's awful - reality is neither is true), Onel is very hit and miss, Fassnacht has a reasonable CV but we haven't seen enough to judge, Placheta is not good enough and Springett is also raw and untested. I think it's a stretch to say that we have six "able" wingers.

Gunn gets injured the game after Krul is sold. The reserve keeper has a one-off blinder convincing us not to buy a replacement, the window shuts and we ultimately get relegated. Nah, too far fetched.

He can. It's Rowe that to me is blowing our of his @rse by 60 minutes. Hernandez was just not good yesterday, regardless of what minute it was, his substitution, in my opinion was nothing to do with fitness, but application, Rowe on the other hand was due to him visibly tiring, just like against Hull.

Having looked at it again, these are my takeaways; Soton 1st Goal - I don't see anything wrong on Stacey. I don't have a problem with it standing. I know it's a little harsh but I blame Hernandez. From relative safety, he puts Dimi under pressure, resulting in a corner and them scoring. Soton 2nd Goal - I do not agree with the handball, but I can see why it was given. However, the free kick leading directly to the handball was never, ever a free kick. The Ref gave them the goal. Rowe goal - What on earth are their defenders doing? Who was marking him? (don't tell me zonal, as he was definitely in a dangerous zone...) Barnes goal - The worst of the lot. Never, ever, ever, ever off-side under any form of the rules and should have stood. What makes it worse, rather than going to discuss with the lino, he lets them take it quickly and attack. I think my head would have exploded if they had scored from that. Soton 4th Goal - It is quite clearly never a penalty. On balance of play, a draw was probably fair, on goal scoring incidents, we should have won 5-2. I really hope we complain about the officiating.

I think it was a reasonable sub. Hernandez needed to go off as he wasn't performing, Rowe tires after 60 minutes and we only had two wide players on the bench. Next week Fassnacht and Rowe to start and likely Hernandez comes on for Rowe after 60 minutes, is my guess.

Well done City. Good game, and definitely should have won it. Two soft penalties against and a goal ruled out incorrectly, the ref stole 2 points from us. We'll get dodgy decisions in our favour too in future matches that will no doubt win us points, but it is still frustating.

Still this.

I'm sick of the standard of officiating. In decisions both for and against us, it's just rubbish.

Yeah, right on, what does he know! His record isn't even very good, he's just their darling and he can do no wrong; he's only won the Premier League a pathetic 5 times. (Sarcasm to one side, I think he may have earned a little respect, don't you? Also, for what it's worth, no, no they wouldn't be laying into another manager anyway).

A shame he has left but really wish him nothing but the best. Shows how to behave and do your job. If I'm completely honest, I'm a little underwhelmed as I want him to go to a 'big' club and succeed.

I agree, if Sara was playing with Emi and Pukki, we'd walk the league but we had Hugill, Sorensen etc last time and we walked the league, the difference is, Emi, Pukki and Skipp were the reason we walked the league, I don't think Sara, whilst decent, is at that level to be the reason. If Skipp arrived tomorrow, he'd be our best midfielder, but whilst he is plugging the defensive midfielder hole, I feel our bigger problem is creativity, and he doesn't fill that and he didn't need to last time.

Me too. Skipp was a very, very big reason that we got promoted. Him, Emi and Pukki were the reasons we absolutely walked the league. Sara has not shown anywhere near those levels, whilst looking decent. Skipp should be in the Premier League, personally, I think he'll make it at Spurs, but if not with them, someone lower-mid Premier League would definitely be improved by him.

I've never been a fan of Hanley. He is excellent in the air, but other than that, I don't rate him at all. I know most disagree, but I like all footballers to be footballers first, rather than defenders first (why I've always liked John Stones). I think the days of defenders throwing their broken bodies in front of the ball with Terry Butcher bandages should stay in the past, and Hanley for me is that type of defender; he controls / passes a ball at Sunday league level and I don't want to watch any footballers with equivalent technique to people I've played against. I also think in this division, Gibson is much more use to us starting attacks, because we will have more of the ball but much less use in the Premier League.

Entirely this. I am a fully signed up Farke lover - and always have been - but he definitely had faults. This entire thread seems to just be a statement that Farke was amazing (I strongly agree) and would have won us the Premier League by Christmas if he had full control (I disagree).

He was relatively strong and had a decent shot on him, but he couldn't trap a bag of cement!

I went - I've just got back to my hotel. Reading the comments I have a completely different opinion to most from what I saw live*. I thought it was two pretty poor teams doing nothing. * The view was difficult as it was all standing around the pitch and the Dutch are all pretty tall! I was stood about 3 persons deep near the goal we scored in. Fair play to them, quite a lot of their fans turned up for a meaningless friendly in the middle of nowhere! I think I only saw two or three City shirts in the crowd (I didn't wear a city shirt either).