The Official England Thread-The Team We All Support [Vol 2]

[GloverMart]

Has to be Rashford for Sterling at HT.

I've never been a fan of Sterling but thought I should really cut him some slack since he plays for my country. But enough is enough, Rashford will scare those defenders into either a mistake or a red card or we'll score from it.

[GloverMart]

At the end of the game, this referee should change out of his kit, have a shower, hand in his whistle and stay far away from football stadiums for the rest of his days.

An absolute joke. No yellow for Mina for going into the crowd, Barrios, Falcao and Cuadrado should all be back in the dressing room watching the game on TV and England would, yes, would have won.

Whatever GS does with this team in the next 30 minutes, the night has been spoilt by an ineffective, weak and cowardly ref.

[GloverMart]

Brave Fart said:

I'm surprised at the negativity about tonight's game from so many posters. England were by far the superior team and the result was the right one. It was never going to be a football classic - because Colombia were a whinging bunch of cheats who played for a draw until the last few minutes, and because the ref had no effing clue how to control their antics. We were denied a clear penalty for a wrestle on Kane (although we did get another one, true) and they should have been down to ten men - how can VAR see a head butt and recommend a yellow card??!!

Those saying Henderson had a poor game -wtf? Him, Maguire, Kane and Trippier were excellent.
Weak spots - Eric Dier, redeemed by a great winning penalty, but that apart he was awful, and Sterling, utterly useless AGAIN!!

Oh, and if you think England are poor you want to watch Sweden - they were ste this afternoon in a dreadful game against the equally woeful Swiss.

Gareth, listen mate. Drop Sterling for Rashford, let the lads have some beers, and keep doing what you're doing. Football's coming home!

This x 1,000. Excellent post.

[GloverMart]

F1GTRUeno said:

They'd be irrelevant if past performances didn't have some weight on teams but you only have to see the disbelief that we actually won a penalty shootout to know how much of an effect past performances have.

This team is young and new which helps an awful lot but Southgate already mentioned the results against Sweden so don't tell me they're irrelevant at all. The fact that they've employed psychologists to really focus on past issues this tournament (albeit, they have sports psychologists every tournament) also tells me it's relevant. Slaven Bilic said on the opening day that he can't understand our mentality towards past performances, how we dwell on them constantly and let the media harp them up too to an endless degree. In Croatia they only focus on the here and now so if that's what Gareth and the lads are working on then great but it's absolutely a part of the game to focus on how we've played against them in the past.

And no, I'm not a WUM and I've definitely seen football before. What did we create? One nice bit of play that resulted in Alli playing a through ball that was just a bit close to the keeper for the receiver to make anything of and a bunch of ste corners and free kicks lumped at Maguire's head that luckily resulted in a penalty at one point.

We're absolutely fine passing it around the back but we're very one dimensional in attack and once we got a bit knackered we resorted to hoofball like good the ol' English teams of yore. We've got no midfield to speak of and what little there is consists of Jordan fking Henderson playing backwards passes and always turning back with every touch of the ball. We've got four players permanently up front miles away from the group of defenders that also create next to fk all and run around a bit pressing until they get knackered too and then it all goes to pot.

Colombia were fking abysmal and they kicked us and dived and cheated and were complete aholes all game and we did really well not to rise to their antics but they had more actual shots (the stats say otherwise but they're counting balls pinged off Maguires head at corners and free kicks that went out of play as shots). They had a couple of shots in the first half that came from their midfielders winning the second ball after our defenders had headed it clear and they scored because they had a worldie of an effort saved thanks to a worldie from Jordan Pickford. A better team than them would've beaten us tonight.

We need to improve massively. Aimless possession for possessions sake isn't good no matter how comfortable on the ball the defenders are and we desperately need to give Kane service because he's basically had nothing for four games. Thankfully we can rely on good old set pieces but we can't even do them if we don't get the ball against a better team.

it feels absolutely glorious to have won a penalty shootout and glorious to have gone through and survived when a lot of the big teams have been knocked out already but sooner rather than later reality will set in and we'll realise that we haven't played very well all tournament aside from the first half against Tunisia and even that it was typical England that we went in at 1-1 rather than 6-0 and the first half against Panama who are a pub team.

Edited by F1GTRUeno on Wednesday 4th July 01:22

Edited by F1GTRUeno on Wednesday 4th July 01:23

Edited by F1GTRUeno on Wednesday 4th July 01:24

Some of your points may have a basis but as others have said, we've just qualified for the quarter finals of the World Cup having won a penalty shootout, can we not celebrate this before you try putting the fires of optimism out?

A few thoughts...

You grumble about England being one dimensional in attack then say we switch to hoofball when the pretty passing doesn't work. I'd say that was a good thing, the ability to switch to a different form of attack. It's far from one dimensional, IMO. I'd be more worried if the pretty stuff didn't work but we kept on persevering with it, numerous clubs & countries have failed due to that stubbornness.

I don't see anyone "letting the media harp on about the past performances". There's not a lot anyone can do about what the media print, as we all know. At least we have a young, intelligent and thoughtful manager now, who's engaged with the media and welcomes them in rather than the doddery old fool that lost to Iceland two years ago then stumbled into the press conference the morning after saying "I don't know why I'm here!".

Finally, yes we have shortcomings. Maybe our football isn't as organised as the Germans, not as pretty as the Spanish and not as passionate and fiery as the Argentinians. Maybe we lack a Ronaldo or Messi with the ability to unlock defences at will; maybe we don't have an Iniesta, an Ozil, a Mueller or an Isco to run the midfield and maybe we lack a real battling presence of a Costa up top. But I'll tell you something, they will all be watching our quarter final on Saturday at home, having lost miserably earlier in the tournament.

I'll take our hard-working bunch of pro's anyday over half of those players. We are more than the sum of our parts right now and who knows how long it will last but we have made vast strides on and off the pitch since Iceland.

[GloverMart]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

GloverMart said:

Brave Fart said:

I'm surprised at the negativity about tonight's game from so many posters. England were by far the superior team and the result was the right one. It was never going to be a football classic - because Colombia were a whinging bunch of cheats who played for a draw until the last few minutes, and because the ref had no effing clue how to control their antics. We were denied a clear penalty for a wrestle on Kane (although we did get another one, true) and they should have been down to ten men - how can VAR see a head butt and recommend a yellow card??!!

Those saying Henderson had a poor game -wtf? Him, Maguire, Kane and Trippier were excellent.
Weak spots - Eric Dier, redeemed by a great winning penalty, but that apart he was awful, and Sterling, utterly useless AGAIN!!

Oh, and if you think England are poor you want to watch Sweden - they were ste this afternoon in a dreadful game against the equally woeful Swiss.

Gareth, listen mate. Drop Sterling for Rashford, let the lads have some beers, and keep doing what you're doing. Football's coming home!

This x 1,000. Excellent post.

Except modern day footballers don't drink beer, even if they were allowed to. If they drink alcohol at all, it's the odd glass of wine. But most don't drink alcohol at all. My son meets a lot footballers in his work, often socially, and that's his overwhelming experience.

Fair point, Twig, I've spent a lot of time around pro footballers too and you're right.

I'd maybe change that statement to say "Let the players relax today, have a bit of downtime etc, they deserve it".

[GloverMart]

Loving this by the way....not at all original but it's better than all the Titanic music guff.

https://twitter.com/mrjohnofarrell/status/10144242...

[GloverMart]

Blackpuddin said:

A bit of Barnes Tube action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFU6Hs3noIM

From nearly two years ago!