Naysonymous

Southgate out. (etc)

I just ran it though a YouTube to mp3 converter (whichever one came up first on Google) and played it through Google music on my phone.

Was it Chet who once described FIFA as "a puzzle game for cunts." ? I think that's my favourite one sentence review of any bit of media ever.

On the bright side it's fucking brilliant being an England fan at the moment. After winning trophies being able to get excited about the future is the best thing about football and this squad is great. So many likeable players, so much strength in depth. We've already moved on from the team who did so well at the World Cup. Iceland feels like it happened a million years ago.

Adam Johnson has been released from prison today. It will be interesting to see what happens with him next, presumably he will try to get a pre season in somewhere and look for a club. I wonder who will take him. Someone will, won't they?

Most Birmingham fans I know were expecting 12 points so I think they will be relieved. They had to get done, signing players while under embargo for FFP breaches is a direct challenge to the authorities and if no punishment came then it would open the floodgates for FFP violations. It's probably a deduction which suits everybody too, recent results have ended Birmingham's playoff bid and at the other end of the table Ipswich and Bolton are so far adrift that there really is only one relegation place still to be decided. I see it as one from four, Wigan, Millwall, Reading & Rotherham (heavy emphasis on Reading and Rotherham) and while this deduction puts Blues down there with them, they've got a five point cushion with a goal difference so massively superior that it might as well be six points, plus they've got a much better team than the other strugglers.

Wait a minute. Did I just see a new Chet and Jon appear on YouTube?

Meh. It was four years ago, he'd barely left school. Most of us were pricks at that age.

In a lot of ways it's not any different at all, Blackburn had a budget which dwarfed everybody else in the country with the possible exception of Manchester United and people gave them loads of abuse for it at the time, when they spent £5m on Chris Sutton there were pundits on Sky saying it was the end of days. It's been largely forgotten now because it was such a long time ago, Blackburn have disappeared without trace and the sums of money which seemed astronomical then are almost quaint now. I think this is highlighted perfectly by the argument that when Manchester United broke the world transfer record for Paul Pogba (£89m) he actually cost a smaller proportion of their operating budget than Bryan Robson did when they spent £1.5m on him back in the 1980s. Football inflation is Bizarro World stuff. I'd guess some of the reasons why City and Chelsea seemingly get a bit more abuse are that football coverage has changed so we've gone from fanzines, newspaper articles and the odd hour here or there on TV presenting the game to a somewhat smaller audience to 24/7 blanket coverage on TV and online. the signal to noise ratio has tipped massively towards noise. The money required to be at that level has changed too, when Blackburn (and Newcastle) were spending big in the 1990s it could still be done by a local businessman done good but that shifted with the rise of Chelsea where you needed an oligarch laundering dirty money to what we have today where we've got dodgy regimes using football as a PR exercise for their countries. I might be comparing apples and oranges where but the ask average man in the street what he thinks of Abu Dhabi and what he thinks of Saudi Arabia and I dare say one place will have a much more positive reputation than the other.

Just had my mind blown: Never had that happen before. I've met people I know through Instagram groups and stuff but just a random guy who follows about 250 people bumping into me and realising a few minutes later was kinda cool. Makes me wonder if I've ever had an encounter with a forumite on here without realising it.

Managed to get along to the St Patrick's Day parade in Brum. The local council say it's the third biggest in the world behind New York and Dublin, though I'm not sure how they are measuring it. Took a load of photos but I've not managed to get them onto a computer yet. This one was just sent to my phone via the app. Loved his tache, and how obvious it is that it had quite literally just rained on his parade but he didn't care.

Those A9 shots are awesome @TommyG , especially the top one as I imagine that guy was hauling ass.

Fucking hell Villa. In the bottom half a few weeks ago, had a string of games against sides higher in the table and win them all. I know they say a few wins in a row can propel you up the table in this division, but when those wins are against teams immediately above you...

Hopefully they'll be dead rubbers by then as we kinda need the points. I'm guessing Leeds and Norwich don't care too much about first and second. Automatic is the real prize.