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World Cup 2018


Meenzer
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41 minutes ago, Alex said:

Not sure what some people expect tbh. England are a young side without much creativity in the middle of park trying to play a possession game (quite rightly I think). They’ve shown great team spirit, an ability to work to a game plan and performed way above expectation despite their obvious limitations. They weren’t far off making it to the final. If you can’t take the positives out of that you might as well stop watching football. Or become obsessed with Sunderland, which equates to the same thing 

This is spot on. Some of these lads have 9 caps, 6 of which came at this tournament. This system is new to them and they’ve took to it well. The “only beat weak sides” argument doesn’t wash with me either, in the past 8 years I’ve seen England struggle like fuck against sides like Iceland, Algeria, Costa Rica, etc so I’m happy to see us just put sides like that to bed with comfortable wins. We also have a lot of talent coming through the system who are all playing in this same sort of style. 

 

It’s about as positive as I’ve ever been about England so I’m going to enjoy it. On that note, I can take a bit of piss taking as much as the next bloke but the Scots online are getting tedious as fuck, they keep acting like we have absolutely no right to have taken any enjoyment or pride from getting to a Semi Final and that the “it’s coming home” craic was completely serious. They can bore off tbh, it also wasn’t absurd to start believing either as if you make it to a semi final you definitely have a reason to think you’re in with a chance. 

 

The quality and experience has told again here but I’m just glad to finally have an England side I give a fuck about watching. 

 

It’s also always worth pointing out that as decent as Young has been we’d have a better player there in Luke Shaw if Mourinho hadn’t made it his personal mission to bully the lad out of football. 

Edited by Howay
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9 minutes ago, ewerk said:

Well that was a waste of everyone’s time.

It was aye :lol:. It’s a bit of a weird and pointless game, suppose it’s a nice way to end the tournament for Belgium. 

 

Good tournament for England, they far exceeded my expectations. I have a feeling that many who are shitting on England and how they played no one likely had England going out at the group stage before the tournament. 

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20 minutes ago, Howay said:

This is spot on. Some of these lads have 9 caps, 6 of which came at this tournament. This system is new to them and they’ve took to it well. The “only beat weak sides” argument doesn’t wash with me either, in the past 8 years I’ve seen England struggle like fuck against sides like Iceland, Algeria, Costa Rica, etc so I’m happy to see us just put sides like that to bed with comfortable wins. We also have a lot of talent coming through the system who are all playing in this same sort of style. 

 

It’s about as positive as I’ve ever been about England so I’m going to enjoy it. On that note, I can take a bit of piss taking as much as the next bloke but the Scots online are getting tedious as fuck, they keep acting like we have absolutely no right to have taken any enjoyment or pride from getting to a Semi Final and that the “it’s coming home” craic was completely serious. They can bore off tbh, it also wasn’t absurd to start believing either as if you make it to a semi final you definitely have a reason to think you’re in with a chance. 

 

The quality and experience has told again here but I’m just glad to finally have an England side I give a fuck about watching. 

 

It’s also always worth pointing out that as decent as Young has been we’d have a better player there in Luke Shaw if Mourinho hadn’t made it his personal mission to bully the lad out of football. 

You’d think the sweaties would look at what a tiny country like Croatia had achieved and think that maybe one day they too could qualify for a tournament 

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1 minute ago, Alex said:

You’d think the sweaties would look at what a tiny country like Croatia had achieved and think that maybe one day they too could qualify for a tournament 

I think they gave up on that when they appointed Alex McLeish.

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

Not sure what some people expect tbh. England are a young side without much creativity in the middle of park trying to play a possession game (quite rightly I think). They’ve shown great team spirit, an ability to work to a game plan and performed way above expectation despite their obvious limitations. They weren’t far off making it to the final. If you can’t take the positives out of that you might as well stop watching football. Or become obsessed with Sunderland, which equates to the same thing 

 

If only people had highlighted that to Southgate before the tournament. Now he's getting praised for trying to counter a problem he created for himself with possession football. Not for me like.

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P7W3D1L3

 

Thats Okay and something to build on I guess, but by no means amazing. I don't think there's been a better time to try and achieve some momentum than now though, with the Euros semifinals and final in London. Also interesting that no country out of Europe made it to the semifinals. The Euros are probably harder to win then the world cup tbh. 

 

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Third place game and semi final put this England team into perspective.  We only made the semi final because of the easy draw.  Any knockout game against an actual contender would have seen us leave. 

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Maybe so but two years ago we were put out by Iceland. We comfortably beat teams of that level at this tournament. That’s progress imo. 

 

We also have a very young squad who will improve, the Croatia side that put them out had massive amounts of experience at international level and big game experience. The amount of nervous energy the England players probably expended compared to a squad littered with players used to similar stake games (Modric, Lovren, Rakitic, Mandzukic off the top of my head all playing in a lot of semi finals and finals of tournaments), did count for something as the England players looked knackered.

In a similar way as the Croatians this was possibly this Belgian sides peak World Cup, I know the attacking talent will be at the next one but Vertonghen and Alderwierald will be 35 and 33, Kompany will likely be retired and I’m not sure they have a lot of defenders coming through. 

 

I’m not saying this crop will win anything but at least they actually play quite well compared to the disasters of the previous tournaments. 

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There's absolutely no guarantee that these players will improve.  It's a proper myth. 

 

You could have said the same thing about Sterling and Barkley from the previous tournament and neither pushed on at international level.

 

To do better next time, we would need better players, playing in a better system with a manger who can be more decisive and flexible during games.  That's a lot needed to be done.  The quality in the French, Belgian and Brazilian squads alone are streets ahead of us.  And of course, they will also be looking forward to seeing their young talents improve in the next 4 years....

 

Fwiw, we have loads of talented youngsters coming through the youth teams, but again there is nothing to say those players will make the jump to adult football. 

 

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Players generally improve I disagree that it’s a myth. Barkley is just injury prone so would struggle to improve, Sterling has improved imo even at International level but I’m happy to agree to disagree on that one. 

 

It’s a squad where we had players who got more caps during the tournament than they had before it. Which, as I’ve said, have shown they are better than all previous England teams since at least 2004. 

 

Southgate is learning as well, this was the blokes first tournament, I’m not willing to just write the bloke off because he made some decisions I disagree with. Capello was a far better manager on paper but he was a fucking joke of an England manager, if we chuck in Southgate at the start of his project we’re back to having no identity and no plan. At the moment we have an identity to build on, we were lacking in some key areas but the talent is in the youth and they’re all playing a similar system to the side which was at the World Cup so it’s creating a potential pipeline. Southgate deserves a lot of credit for that imo. 

 

Also when saying those sides look forward to their youth talents improve in 4 years, those are the lads England have been brushing aside in the majority of youth tournaments? I know you acknowledge that point later but it sort of makes the point about those teams moot imo. Of course there is always the risk they won’t come through, or that lads like Foden and Sancho won’t get games but what’s the point in being negative about it? 

 

Of course those sides have more quality, all of them (with the exception of Belgium) have had more quality than us for most of football history. 

 

You can make pretty much the same point regarding Mbappe kicking on as you can about the England players improving, you’re only one bad injury away from being half the player you were. In 4 years Rashford could improve a lot, look at Kane now compared to his level at the previous World Cup. 

 

My main point is really that there are positives to this World Cup, we’re a country that two years ago lost to Iceland, four years ago were put out at the group stage by Costa Rica. I just don’t see the point in scratching around for negatives, as ewerk says we may as well pack in watching England if we can’t enjoy that World Cup. 

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2 hours ago, TheGingerQuiff said:

 

If only people had highlighted that to Southgate before the tournament. Now he's getting praised for trying to counter a problem he created for himself with possession football. Not for me like.

Don’t know what the alternative was(not starting Shelvey imo)

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