FIFA World Cup 2018 - Semi-finals [10/11 July] **spoilers**

wildman said:
So much slat in here about Turkish Ref this and that, blind Lino's and dirty Croats. Face the truth you lost because the team is actualy just average. Fact is England lost because they are retarded and simply cannot score in open play. They were lucky to get this far as they have played 2nd rate teams, apart from Belgium's reserves who tore you a new one. If you can't score in open play and come up against solid units like croatia you will always lose.
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I think Croatia deserved to win and played fairly but come on... the officiating was terrible. A lot was missed.

Also this England side is not average. They are either the third or fourth best team in this tournament. They did not get ‘torn a new one’ by Belgium.....that was a nothing game (also a very close game) involving two B teams.

England have played very well and have some exceptional talent. What went wrong? That’s for the management to assess and sort out. And make no mistake, it needs sorting out. England had every chance to win that game yesterday and probably should have done. Easily the better side if everything goes right.

It’s a young side which has done incredibly well given their tournament experience. They’re only going to get better and that’s a promising prospect for fans.

Stop feeding the English with satisfaction that you’re against them no matter what. It makes you look pathetic and they love it.

Sent from a Welshman who isn’t a ****.
 
wildman said:
So much slat in here about Turkish Ref this and that, blind Lino's and dirty Croats. Face the truth you lost because the team is actualy just average. Fact is England lost because they are retarded and simply cannot score in open play. They were lucky to get this far as they have played 2nd rate teams, apart from Belgium's reserves who tore you a new one. If you can't score in open play and come up against solid units like croatia you will always lose.
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I was with you up until you mentioned Belgium... where neither team played their A game or their top players and it was pretty much a mirror image match that Belgium eventually won.

arctine said:
England have played very well and have some exceptional talent. What went wrong? That’s for the management to assess and sort out. And make no mistake, it needs sorting out. England had every chance to win that game yesterday and probably should have done. Easily the better side if everything goes right.
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What is telling for me is players like Dele Alli, Rashford, Kane, Sterling, etc. aside from Kane they struggled even against poor teams despite having a lot of hype around them, while people like Pickford, Trippier and Maguire who actually gave it their all and were performing even against top quality talent but couldn't alone carry the team.

Then you have the likes of Vardy, Rose, Dier, etc. who played competent football but were very very average and negative in their play spending a lot of time going to excruciating lengths doing nothing at all very much in the style of past England squads.

The rest were very average except Walker who spent the time alternating between moments of brilliance and undoing it all with moments of basic errors.

EDIT: Wouldn't really criticise the managerial side - I thought they did fairly well up until Croatia where they should have made changes far earlier - once Trippier's legs were gone despite his normal value on the pitch it was pointless keeping him on and there was a gaping massive obvious gap Dier tried to fill that should have been dealt with much much earlier. Aside from that I thought they did a solid job with what they had to work with and achieved much more than I expected.
 
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Rroff said:
I was with you up until you mentioned Belgium... where neither team played their A game or their top players and it was pretty much a mirror image match that Belgium eventually won.
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And we get to have a repeat on Saturday :(
 
Thinking back over the England performances in the tournament...
Our open play attacking quality dropped significantly after Alli picked up his injury in the group stage and had to be substituted, nobody else consistently were able to run at defences and then get quality crosses in for Kane and others
Several players with niggling injuries pickled up during the first two group matches of shocking fouls and a lack of yellow/red cards for the opposing players, with VAR being poorly used?
Sterling was working ok/well off the ball to stretch defences for our other players, but he rarely played a clinical pass for someone else to strike and when he got had the ball inside their penalty box he looked so uncomfortable with the idea of taking a shot himself
As the tournament went on, Kane reminded me increasingly of how Shearer was expected to play in an England shirt, sitting far too deep in open play and consequently made so little impact in the knockout games (I expected him to knock in one of those two separate chances he got last night). Injured, or sticking to Southgate tactics that clearly didn't use him effectively?
Lingard, especially last night, was making good runs into the opposing box and getting the pass only to often fluff the strike
I'm not convinced we changed our formation/tactics enough when Crotia made effective tactical changes in the second half, we became dominated in midfield and then started ineffectually hoofing the ball up field
I think Trippier and Pickford were our two top performers all tournament, shame the former had to come off injured in extra time and leave us with just 10-men last night

But for all the negatives, the team played far more like the England teams of the 1990s, but with far fewer "star" names and most of the time everyone seemed more comfortable to have the ball (just a shame they rarely probed opposition defences). The modern fast paced play suited them, but we couldn't keep that intensity going for 90mins in any game. Plus they even broke our penalty hoodoo! :D
 
I like Henderson but he needs to be be played with a creative midfielder. Alli seem to go off the boil as the tournament went on ( maybe he was injured) but without him playing well there's no creativity in midfield. As for Lingard I think perhaps it was a bit too early for him in his career, yes he does something amazing every now and again but there's a lot of periods of him not doing much in-between. I agree about Kane, playing him deep is a mistake, if you want pace up front then you should have dropped Kane for Vardy although i did hear he has been injured.
 
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wildman said:
So much slat in here about Turkish Ref this and that, blind Lino's and dirty Croats. Face the truth you lost because the team is actualy just average. Fact is England lost because they are retarded and simply cannot score in open play. They were lucky to get this far as they have played 2nd rate teams, apart from Belgium's reserves who tore you a new one. If you can't score in open play and come up against solid units like croatia you will always lose.
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You seem like a well rounded individual, did you come up with that location based on yourself?
 
Don't get me wrong, I don't actively support England but I don't want them to loose every game either. What some of my fellow Welshman is sharing or saying is just embarrassing and outright petty. One guy on my FB was changing his profile pic to what ever nation's flag England was playing.
 
MikeTheNative said:
As for Lingard I think perhaps it was a bit too early for him in his career, yes he does something amazing every know and again but there's a lot of periods of him not doing much in-between.
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Don't know much about Lingard but I think you are right - he seemed quite average overall with a few moments that showed potential. You've got to start somewhere though.
 
I still think the first 30 minutes were the best I have seen us play all tournament, shame we couldn't maintain it.

Pickford is my man of the tourney for England, some of the stuff he did was amazing.

The Sterling debate is an interesting one, people keep mentioning all the missed opportunities, but when compared to the performances of our other forwards, surely missed opportunities are better than no opportunities?

Well done all the same!
 
Kane did miss a few chances, he should have put that one away in the first half but i don't think the way England were set up suited him. Him dropping deep was a bit of a waste, I think it might have been better to play Alli up with him instead Stirling but then who are going to play in midfield instead? Lallana? Shelvey? :D
 
krooton said:
I still think the first 30 minutes were the best I have seen us play all tournament, shame we couldn't maintain it.
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This has been my beef all along, and seems to be the same with England over the years. WHY can't they maintain it. If they could solve that question and fix it, they'd be world beaters. There's not much wrong with how they played when then they were in control. They just seem to lack stamina for some bizarre reason.
 
Merlin5 said:
This has been my beef all along, and seems to be the same with England over the years. WHY can't they maintain it. If they could solve that question and fix it, they'd be world beaters. There's not much wrong with how they played when then they were in control. They just seem to lack stamina for some bizarre reason.
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Not to bang on about it but for me it was telling - from the first moment Trippier showed signs his legs had gone the game took a nose dive and England lost control - while it isn't hugely obvious IMO there was a small number of players carrying the rest that game and once they started to tire it just fell over compounded for some reason by the managers not catching it for some reason when before they'd been fairly on the ball reacting to stuff like that.
 
Merlin5 said:
This has been my beef all along, and seems to be the same with England over the years. WHY can't they maintain it. If they could solve that question and fix it, they'd be world beaters. There's not much wrong with how they played when then they were in control. They just seem to lack stamina for some bizarre reason.
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Because we were the best team when we launched it to Kane to nod down for Sterling. Second half, Croatia got wise and sat off and gave us space in midfield, knowing we lacked the quality to do anything else. We can't maintain it because we still lack players in the key area of the pitch who are sufficiently capable. Henderson had a good tournament, but none of Lingard, Alli or Sterling are central midfielders, and Croatia overran us.

Kane ended up playing closer to the midfield than up front.
 
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