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

How about when there was talk of him staying on as England's number 1 then literally the week after he drops the clanger of all clangers for West Ham.

He's not even their number 1, why would he be playing for England.
 
England and England fans should be thankful that Hart was dropped and didn’t make the squad.

He’s been terrible absolutely terrible and had he been in between the sticks, England would have not got out of the group stages:p.
 
4K8KW10 said:
A team always wants to possess the ball more. The best defence is the attack.
Yesterday, England lost the game because they didn't possess the ball enough but rather were sending the ball to nowhere forwards.
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That is 100% true. We could not keep hold of the ball and pass it about to make them work harder. then we panicked and smashed it forward to like one guy and no one with him. Utter pops.
 
Was Loftus-Cheek carrying an injury or something? I loathe Eric Dier, he's massively overrated and the only decent thing he did all tournament was score that pen against Colombia, it seems odd that he came on instead of RLC. Having said that, I guess in retrospect it's easy to pick apart Southgate's substitutions or squad selection. If we'd hung on and taken it to pens people would be praising his decision-making.
 
I’m sure it’s been commented on numerous times but my first visit to this thread since last night

Lovren claiming he’s one of the worlds best defenders now has been the highlight of my day
 
I would like to understand more about whether Southgate can play with a double pivot rather than just a single pivot.

Croatia pressed Henderson really easily in the second half and I wonder if playing Alli/Lingard/Dier/RLC next to Henderson would have helped us keep better possession.

When Croatia pressed us there were very few options open for Henderson and then Dier
 
Modric, Racktic and Brozovic is one hell of a midfield mind. Not much we could do to stop them all game, we did really well first half but their experience showed in the end.
 
If you actually look at what Southgate achieved he either got lucky or is a hell of a spin doctor.

We didn't keep a clean sheet against the one of the worst sides in the Wc, Panama.

Almost failed to beat Tunisia the 3rd worst side in the Wc.

Lost and no clean sheet to a B side Belgium.

Couldn’t keep a lead against Columbia and crumbled under pressure only to be saved by pens. {would have been very different media response if we lost that}

Beat a Sweden team, which seemed to be the only anomaly of the whole tournament.

Tactically rubbish when playing an aging Croatian side.

So basically we scraped past some crap in a fortuitous run so easy that you'd expect a 2nd div team not to struggle with.

But but but. There was something, a spirit that we had never seen before. Maybe because none of the players were expect to be great (except Kane, who to begin with delivered); there was some skill from defenders scoring in set pieces that looked great.
Overall I think we had a mixture of easy team and some incredible goals by some underrated players. Sadly we lacked 50% of something that would have made us unstoppable.

Maybe with this renewed sense of achievement they may start to improve under Southgate who will have more time to mold the team.

We shall see. Maybe it will come home in my lifetime. Maybe Southgate will get fired after the euros.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
Wow that's pure salt.
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Not pure salt at all. Denmark were the better team and poor decisions let to a penalty shootout then Croatia scraped. Similar would Russia v croatia.
Now they were the better team against us for 3/4 of the game, but we had no chance to build up ahead of steam at all in the 2nd half due to 1)Croatia diving all over the place everytime we attacked 2)The referee pandered to them.

Now, as I’ve said all along, we were not the better team on the night. But I am also saying that it’s a shame for the World Cup that this Croatia team has somehow made the final. Obviously that also means that it would have been unfair for us to have made the final as we were not the better team. I am stating this from a wider view of things. One of the other teams along the way, who outplayed Croatia, but with Croatia getting the rub of the green, would have been better for football.
Alas, that in itself is the nature of knockout football. Sometimes it’s not the better team but the one that has the rub of the green that goes through. And Croatia certainly have had a bit of Lady Luck on their side, winning 2 penalty shootouts in a row and winning all 3 games after playing extra time. Maybe that luck will continue and they’ll beat a France side that should really trounce Croatia 5 or 6 nil based on both teams displayed thus far.

I agree with those that have said that our performances haven’t really been great, even though we managed to make the semis.

I think that in general we took pretty much our strongest squad, give or take. You could argue that Rose would have been better suited to start, that we could have done with some more midfield creativity, that Dele was played out of position (he needs to be played as a shadow striker just behind Kane, that’s provided proven success). But considering we had the youngest and most inexperienced squad, I think that if we stick with the core, they can (hopefully) only gel more and more over time, and build up that creativity and understanding.

I don’t think that our foundation was bad, we just lacked a bit in creativity and tactically.

I’m still optimistic for the future of this squad.
 
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People can say easy run etc but that's from the perspective of a top team. Realistically we aren't a top team and so shouldn't be compared from that viewpoint. Historically we've had teams that are expected to do well yet have struggled massively against the same type of teams that we beat in this WC. What we have now is a young side full of decent-good players and it feels like we are just missing a couple of pieces of the puzzle to become a legitimately 'good' team (squad depth and a CM that can keep possession and play the killer pass IMO). For the first time I can remember it feels like the future is bright for our national side - We're winning the games we should be and our junior sides are doing very well.

Painful to go out in the semis of course but can't complain considering our historical performance and relative lack of top players!
 
What's this video doing the rounds of Rebic getting booked twice? Once in the 48th min, second in the 5th min of extra time? :confused:
 
ChroniC said:
If you actually look at what Southgate achieved he either got lucky or is a hell of a spin doctor.

We didn't keep a clean sheet against the one of the worst sides in the Wc, Panama.

Almost failed to beat Tunisia the 3rd worst side in the Wc.

Lost and no clean sheet to a B side Belgium.

Couldn’t keep a lead against Columbia and crumbled under pressure only to be saved by pens. {would have been very different media response if we lost that}

Beat a Sweden team, which seemed to be the only anomaly of the whole tournament.

Tactically rubbish when playing an aging Croatian side.

So basically we scraped past some crap in a fortuitous run so easy that you'd expect a 2nd div team not to struggle with.

But but but. There was something, a spirit that we had never seen before. Maybe because none of the players were expect to be great (except Kane, who to begin with delivered); there was some skill from defenders scoring in set pieces that looked great.
Overall I think we had a mixture of easy team and some incredible goals by some underrated players. Sadly we lacked 50% of something that would have made us unstoppable.

Maybe with this renewed sense of achievement they may start to improve under Southgate who will have more time to mold the team.

We shall see. Maybe it will come home in my lifetime. Maybe Southgate will get fired after the euros.
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I agree with all this. I thought we'd looked less than average against Croatia. It was like the England of old. I can't help but think we just squandered the best chance we're gonna get for a long long time because despite what anyone says, that really was a very easy route to the semi final at least. And ultimately that's such a depressing thought. All those big guns are going to come back fighting in the Euros + next world cup.

I don't see why we have to let them off the hook for not at least progressing to the final. That second goal especially could have been avoided. 9 of 12 goals scored were set pieces. Doesn't say much for our open play. Still, apparently that has set a new world cup record for the amount of set pieces scored so we've come away with something.
 
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