Canarywary

VAR has already brought the game into disrepute and any club who tries to challenge it gets my support (even if they're going about it in a wonky way).

Yeah, I always thought the way they've stringently clamped down on waving 'air-cards', but not the aggressive abuse, is weird.

Saying we should keep VAR but go back to the daylight rule won't change anything, because unless the camera is directly in line with the attacker/defender in question, how could VAR possibly judge whether there's daylight? We'd end up in exactly the same situation, i.e. using a microscope to look for millimeters of error. Using VAR for offside is fundamentally damaging to football because it leads to so many goals being disallowed. When you can no longer fully celebrate your team scoring a goal, then football has lost it's soul. Keep it for red cards, penalties, diving etc if we HAVE to, but offside, no thanks.

I have an irrational hatred of Villa due to a smug fan of theirs who I used to live with around the time of us both going up together in 2018-19 and then them surviving the drop that season (due to faulty goal-line tech against Sheff Utd). He used to say patronising things like "I fear for Norwich this season" before predicting Villa would finish in Europe. He also said once, the season after they'd stayed up and we'd gone back down, that he hadn't seen the Norwich result because he "doesn't follow Championship football". None of it was blatant ribbing done with a cheeky smile, which I could have dealt with, it was all genuine, patronising comments. It's annoying because I had no issue with Villa before, and I no longer live with that person, but I can't shake off my ill-feelings towards Villa! Thanks for allowing me to vent.

I think that's probably because a) a fair few people outside of Germany probably don't know that about Bayer and b) RB seemed to go on a total sporting blitz and buy multiple teams across different sports, in a short time spell, which I think feels a lot more in your face. They even owned 2 of the 11 or so F1 teams at one point (maybe still do, I'm not sure). Any other company teams out there doing well? PSV is/was a Philips team. Vauxhall Motors...

They're the Total Network Solutions of Germany. *edit - I've just read that TNS was purely a sponsorship thing, so my joke fails*

I could put almost every domestic team on a spectrum which ranged from really liked to hated.

As a football fan the opposite of having too short a memory is to never let things go, regardless of how long ago they were. Surely there has to be a point where you move on from a bad spell of form? You can't sack a manager for a poor run that came before a much more significant good run (resulting in a playoff place), that would make us a laughing stock.

Believing that Wagner should go if we don't quite make the playoffs, sort of overlooks the fact that we've had Sargent, Rowe and Gunn (+ defensive issues, and Onel out right when he was playing well, Nunez, Sainz etc) out for long periods each. It would feel incredibly unfair on Wagner. Even just to get so close to the playoffs with those injuries feels like a worthwhile achievement.

You feel vindicated that your (erroneous) view has somehow been proved right? A perfect example of 'A stopped clock is right twice a day'. Months of being arguably our best player, followed by one bad game (where no-one played well) and suddenly you're 'vindicated'? How many months of great performances would it have taken for you to finally admit you were wrong about him, or would you forever be waiting for a bad performance so you can pounce on him? "He was like this far too often during our poor run" - wasn't every one of our players poor during that run?

A couple of Fenerbahce players really go for the fans. Nice to see plenty of the classic 'running onto the pitch in flat-soled trainers' slips. Personally I think the Charity Shield should be played in trainers. That would be entertaining enough for me to actually watch it.

Not sure England have had a great kit since Italia 90. We're sadly cursed with a boring set of parameters (plain white, minimal flashes of navy and/or red trim). Euro 96 and World Cup 98 kits became iconic for people of my age because of those tournaments, but aside from that, virtually nothing stands out. This new kit is quite smart but in 10 years no one will be able to place it in time (unless we win a tournament in it). I would love to see what Adidas would do with an England kit, especially if they'd made our kits in the mid-90s!

One of the most erroneous statements I've ever seen on this forum.

Ah, that was it.

Other people may also have heard on the commentary for Saturday's match, that apparently Jordan Hugill was sat in amoung our fans for the Middlesboro match. Love that! I know Maddison also did this for at least one match when he was at Leicester and we played Wolves, along with another player I think, but I forget who, maybe Ruddy? Anyone else know any other examples of former players showing this lasting allegiance to us?