Maldini

He is seen as their best prospect since Hugo Sanchez though and Mexican football is surprisingly wealthy

Mexican media saying we've put a $50m (£36m) bit in for Gilberto Mora

Pep

Off the top of my head I can think of a few questions they might have: - why the f*** have you pricks let this situation go on so long that the weight has fallen on our shoulders to sort it? - will we get banned if we refuse to play? - will we get fined if we refuse to play? - why are other countries playing them without any hassle? - why didn't you tell us how strong the feeling in Ireland is? - my agent tells me American owners won't sign me if we don't play, is that true? - will I even be able to enter the USA in future if we don't play? - this s*** seems really heavy, are my family going to be safe? - The Israel FA attacked our manager, are we going to be criticised in the same way if we refuse to play? Brian Kerr was on Virgin Media earlier and said he heard it was 14-8 in the vote and Bazunu wasn't included in the vote. That's a hell of a lot of players who don't want to play. I wouldn't be surprised if this still doesn't go ahead or there are some walk offs

The FAI have handled this incredibly badly, I'd say unbelievably badly but unfortunately it's completely believable given their history. Halgrimsson said in the presser earlier that he was still at that point unaware of what the consequences of the game not being played were so either the FAI didn't bother to tell him or they don't know themselves. I'm not sure which is worse. I don't agree with people condemning players for voting to play, I disagree with their decision but they should never ever have been put in that position. The board of the FAI should walk over this. I wouldn't be surprised if there's further developments after the "away" game. There's going to be Israeli fans in the ground tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised if th atmosphere is really nasty. There's also going to be 50,000 people at the Austria game voicing their opinions on Thursday so the players will be very aware of how the general public feels.

Because I know footballers, they live in a bubble and not much else enters apart from football. They're also mostly living in another country where this isn't anywhere near as big a story. I was talking to a former Ireland international about this on Thursday who said he'd have had absolutely no idea what was going on when he was playing. I'm sure some of them know there's a war going on but loads of them won't have any idea what the details are. John Fallon from The Examiner was on the radio earlier saying his sources told him the manager and players felt they hadn't been given enough information on the situation by the FAI. The FAI have let them down terribly. Halgrimsson just said in the press conference there that he wasn't fully aware of the stength of feeling in Ireland until recently, why wasn't he! This is been a conversation since the draw, he's been hung out to dry by the suits.

I agree that's what they should do but it's not a simple solution, there are major ramifications, legally, financially and operationally. UEFA dropped the ball here leaving Israel in the competition, leaving the FAI with a decision to make and they in turn have pretty much left it up to the players without ever really briefing a load of young lads on the details of this situation. I'd be amazed if many or even any of these lads have even a passing understanding of what's going on in Gaza.

Only that complete mentalist going on about asthma, you can't compare that to Guardiola's connections to doping. He was done for doping himself while at Brescia and then hired the doctor from Brescia while at Barca. I'm sure there were connections to Operacion Puerto as well

He'd post but he's on the way to put Ward's name on the back of a blue shirt with a white collar

This Vitriol lad sounds good, can he play 6?

Ward confirmed

Robertson is on Stick To Football this week and goes through how difficult last season was and says we should treat the new signings from last summer like it's their first season because they were arriving into a club that was heartbroken. He says it took them all way longer to settle in than it would normally because everyone was in a stupor

We never know what's going on in people's heads. I don't know why people seem to assume footballers are immune to the mental health issues that affect the rest of the population

Another cracker for Will Wright https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ddmafd4qHJ3/?stkn=MWp4MmtjY3NpcnQ1ZQ==

Yeah to be fair my times were a bit out, he was still getting stick at the end of his first season despite his form steadily improving in the second half of the season and it properly clicking at the start of his second season. As I said above, despite my timeline being off, the central point about him taking time to settle stands.

The latter quotes were at the end of his first season so not far off now in terms of games played, it got better second half of his first season (although he was still getting pelters on here from people ) clicked pretty much around now for him in his second season. I'm just saying people seem to find some sort of weird glee in writing our own players off. He's been disappointing and ineffectual at times but I don't think you can categorise it as s***e. You have to admit there are uncanny parallels between what people were saying about Bobby early in his time with us and what they're saying about Wirtz now. He could end up another Smicer or Keita but I think we need to get off his back a bit.

We were also saying this in the weeks and months before it clicked:

People were still saying Bobby was s***e at this point of his Liverpool career as well

Its looking a bit Smicer at the moment but he's shown flashes of the player we thought we were getting. He's clearly a confidence player. We could do with Carra shutting the f*** up about him and the fans getting behind him.

Couple of lovely goals for Will Wright for the u21s today 1st: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ddd6A2SKn5f/?stkn=MXhzdjhtanhoMTJsMA== 2nd: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ddd_TnyqwH4/?stkn=MWQzdHVwMjFrMmh0bw==

He was just far away

Klopp thinks you're all c*nts https://www.goal.com/en/lists/germany-jurgen-klopp-liverpool-florian-wirtz/blt9822982eb1102dc7

United fans on social media are reacting to this like Princess Diana has died again or something. I've seen about half a dozen videos today of really earnest middle aged men with sombre music behind them going on about how this kid leaving them is the perfect encapsulation of the evils of the modern game. These pricks have spent the last 40 years pillaging every decent player in the academies of smaller clubs and now they can't handle it that they're not the apex predator anymore.

He's hardly "refusing to get on the ball". He's moving and getting into space, the midfield just isn't working. We're not getting him or Wirtz on the ball enough. The 3 CMs who've started so far just aren't moving the ball well enough or fast enough

I think we need to use this game to find some potential solutions to our problems as opposed to just playing all the kids and getting it over and done with. We've no backup 9, 10, RB or RW and no 6. We need to find ways to sort that soon or the season could fall apart