FIFA World Cup 2014 - GROUP D [Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy - 14/19/20/24 June] **spoilers**

[Rroff]

Who is this team on the pitch and how did they get into a world cup?

 

[aslco]

Smalling always looks so awkward and uncomfortable with his body

 

[Danthus]

He was onside there.

 

[Eddie]

Not pretty so far, painful to watch tbh.

 

[Danthus]

Nice little move.

 

[omnomnom]

Who is this team on the pitch and how did they get into a world cup?

That overrated fat lad scored a few goals.

 

[Cosimo]

Italy with most of the possession so far.

 

[Verponian]

Crowd singing 3 lions on a shirt with obvious lyric change. Brilliant.

 

[Cosimo]

Mario nearly takes his head off and booked.

 

[sunama]

Playing a "reserve" team in a world cup game, dead rubber or not is a joke.

True.
Playing a B team in a World Cup Group game is scanadalous UNLESS you are saving your best players for the next (crucial) match. We should be playing our absolute best players and attempting to win every game by the biggest margin possible.

I think this is where we are failing. We don't seem to want to win. We want to play happy families and let everybody get some playing time.

Does anyone here actually believe that Hodgson can win a trophy as manager of England? Why is he managing England, given that he is so ordinary? Do the English FA even have any interest in winning or have they now accepted that England will never win a trophy.

 

[Droolinggimp]

England are dire.. Considering we have nothing to play for I wonder if Roy could have picked a team that the pundits and fans wanted along with tactics..!!

Tested it out to see if the fans would do a better job..

 

[Jono8]

lol clear penalty

 

[MooMoo444]

rofl

stonewall pen and nothing

 

[adey]

Seen those given.

 

[Jokester]

He just shielded the ball.

 

[Ayahuasca]

No excuse, but the refereeing for this and the Uruguay game has been shocking.

 

[Pighardia]

I that's wasn't a penalty I don't know what is!

 

[UTmaniac]

Isn't this the same ref that was involved in another penalty scandal earlier in the tournament?

 

[drunkenmaster]

True.
Playing a B team in a World Cup Group game is scanadalous UNLESS you are saving your best players for the next (crucial) match. We should be playing our absolute best players and attempting to win every game by the biggest margin possible.

I think this is where we are failing. We don't seem to want to win. We want to play happy families and let everybody get some playing time.

Does anyone here actually believe that Hodgson can win a trophy as manager of England? Why is he managing England, given that he is so ordinary? Do the English FA even have any interest in winning or have they now accepted that England will never win a trophy.

Except for Sterling for Milner, this is very close to the team they should be playing. Rooney/Gerrard have been rubbish across both games, Milner and say Smalling are playing ahead of Sterling and Jagielka. Milner maybe deserves a bit of game time but I'd hope to see Sterling on for him early in the second half. it's not a terrible idea to give Jones/Smalling some game time as in terms of younger defenders while not great, they are the next set of defenders in the running who if they play a lot more for Utd in the next couple years with Vidic/Rio gone, may improve significantly with that game time.

But this team is never going to look brilliantly smooth because they haven't played a lineup like this before. This is MUCH closer to the team we shoudl be playing and there is nothing wrong with it.

"play the youth, drop gerrard, drop Rooney", then when he does, he gets complained at anyway. You can't win as an England manager because no matter what you do most people will complain.

 

[Cosimo]

Is the B team being robbed?