The Official World Cup 2018 Megathread

[machin05]

Awesome replay of Pickford's save that lead to the corner for Colombia goal (don't recall there even being a replay of it on the night.

https://twitter.com/greenallefc/status/1014245772534145032

 

[Deleted Cyber]

Southgate quote in response to allegations of cheating and diving

"Maybe we are getting a bit smarter," Southgate said.

"Maybe we are now playing some of our game by the rules the rest of the world are playing.

"I think we also kept our dignity, kept our sportsmanship and if we went down it's because we were fouled.

"I thought there were many, many fouls in the game and I don't think we conceded anywhere near the number of our opponents.

"I'm proud of the discipline. We kept our composure in a really difficult environment and we deserved to win."

Love it

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

The biggest problem yesterday was that none of Alli, Lingard or Sterling played remotely well enough. They tried hard and pressed ok, but on the ball they offered nothing. Alli didn't look anything like fully fit, Lingard messed up at least three opportunities with a dreadful touch and Sterling's record of 2 goals in 41 caps is frankly embarrassing now (his touch was Edwards-like at times too, bouncing a good five yards off him on occasion). They need to be much better as we go on because we can't just rely on set pieces and/or defences being morons and still thinking that manhandling our players in the box is a good idea.

Maguire's best game for England by a country mile, Pickford with one stunning save before the goal and then a very good penalty save has repaired some of the damage from the Belgium goal and Kane was immense.

 

[Jinky]

Woke up this morning and had a beautiful dream last night that England had won a penalty shoot out at the World Cup!

On reflection, it was nice to see some of our passing and calmness with the ball playing out from the back last night. I do feel like we need to be a little bit more clinical with our passing in the final third - passing the ball forward rather than sideways/backwards when a ball is on. It's that fine balance of controlling the tempo and the play and being a little bit 'safe' with possession - I don't think we've got that quite right yet. Lingard/Alli didn't have the best of games last night and quite often Kane took it upon himself to hold the ball up & then turn and run with it himself (most of the time he'd then get hacked down) rather than playing a little ball off instead. This resulted in him being completely shot at the end of the 90 minutes and we were effectively playing with 10 men for the whole of extra time - thankfully he was still able to smash his penalty in! I was critical of Southgate's substitutions last night and I stick by that this morning. Bringing Dier instead of RLC on invited pressure on to us and we just got deeper and deeper. It's such a bullshit tactic as well. "Oh, we'll see the game out and bring on a DM" - how many times does that actually go the opposite way? That very nearly cost us and hopefully Southgate learns a lesson from that.

It feels like we can sort of see what Southgate is doing with the side tactically, but we're still a little way off that with the execution. Still, at this point anything goes and it showed a huge amount of bottle for the lads to pull through last night when we must have thought the game was won. To come back from that and win the shoot out showed great guts, so fair play to them for that.

I'm not sure Southgate will change personnel unless anyone is injured, but I wouldn't mind seeing RLC come in for Alli if the latter isn't fit (he doesn't look it). And I'm not sure how long he can persist with Sterling in this role. Sure, his pace on the break was helpful last night but he just doesn't have the brain to pick the right pass at the right time - plus he just doesn't ever look like scoring. Maybe RLC in on the left and Alli moving in to the role behind Kane for the Spurs connection?

On a totally separate note, some of these "it's coming home" videos have been great. Lets be honest, we're not going to have a better chance of reaching a World Cup final for a long, long time so let's keep everything crossed things go our way.

 

[lemonjelly]

Had to watch that on itv plus one, as we had a visitor who didn't leave until 7.35 last night. And at 70 mins in (for me) my phone started going off, and I had to avoid it. I became very aware that everyone else knew the outcome.
I thought overall, we were ok. Kane was superb, Pickford did well, and the back 3 were all good (walkers mistake aside). Trippier is looking really good in his role too.
I am concerned about southgates reluctance to make changes. Young was left on too long last night, and Alli should have been withdrawn at HT - he hasn't recovered fully imo. That left us playing with 10 men for large parts.
We also started defending as time passed, inviting them on to us and giving them space. We should have been using the space for Vardys pace to get a 2nd, but failed to do that.
I am also concerned that we create very little chance wise. We potentially have the golden boot winner as our main striker, but we're creating very little for him.

 

[machin05]

Woke up this morning and had a beautiful dream last night that England had won a penalty shoot out at the World Cup!

On reflection, it was nice to see some of our passing and calmness with the ball playing out from the back last night. I do feel like we need to be a little bit more clinical with our passing in the final third - passing the ball forward rather than sideways/backwards when a ball is on. It's that fine balance of controlling the tempo and the play and being a little bit 'safe' with possession - I don't think we've got that quite right yet. Lingard/Alli didn't have the best of games last night and quite often Kane took it upon himself to hold the ball up & then turn and run with it himself (most of the time he'd then get hacked down) rather than playing a little ball off instead. This resulted in him being completely shot at the end of the 90 minutes and we were effectively playing with 10 men for the whole of extra time - thankfully he was still able to smash his penalty in! I was critical of Southgate's substitutions last night and I stick by that this morning. Bringing Dier instead of RLC on invited pressure on to us and we just got deeper and deeper. It's such a bullshit tactic as well. "Oh, we'll see the game out and bring on a DM" - how many times does that actually go the opposite way? That very nearly cost us and hopefully Southgate learns a lesson from that.

It feels like we can sort of see what Southgate is doing with the side tactically, but we're still a little way off that with the execution. Still, at this point anything goes and it showed a huge amount of bottle for the lads to pull through last night when we must have thought the game was won. To come back from that and win the shoot out showed great guts, so fair play to them for that.

I'm not sure Southgate will change personnel unless anyone is injured, but I wouldn't mind seeing RLC come in for Alli if the latter isn't fit (he doesn't look it). And I'm not sure how long he can persist with Sterling in this role. Sure, his pace on the break was helpful last night but he just doesn't have the brain to pick the right pass at the right time - plus he just doesn't ever look like scoring. Maybe RLC in on the left and Alli moving in to the role behind Kane for the Spurs connection?

On a totally separate note, some of these "it's coming home" videos have been great. Lets be honest, we're not going to have a better chance of reaching a World Cup final for a long, long time so let's keep everything crossed things go our way.

Apparently Southgate has got the entire 23 man squad in order for penalties, so it wouldn't surprise me if Dier was way higher up the list than RLC so brought him on with that in mind.

 

[Del Woppio]

At one nil up?

 

[Tony Towner]

Anyone know what the story is with Vardy and the penalties? Did he bottle it or wasn't in the first 5? Smart if Southgate didn't pick him as everyone knows he smashes it down the middle.

 

[machin05]

At one nil up?

Was that when it happened?? :icon_lol:

Ignore me then!

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I suppose he sees them every day at the moment and I don't, but Henderson and Dier taking penalties while Vardy didn't was seriously fucking weird :icon_lol:

 

[machin05]

Maybe Vardy didn't perform well in the "mini golf competition whilst everyone is shouting at you" session?

 

[Del Woppio]

I know we're through and it's coming home and all that, but let's be honest we were just the least shit side last night. Other than the Alli header and Danny Rose's cross/shot we didn't get near scoring from open play. Yeah we looked fairly solid, until Southgate handed them the momentum with his changes but that game was basically Burnley vs Watford, it was horrible.

Colombia were utter shits and I'm glad we seem to be getting more involved in the dark arts tbh, being a bunch of shits is probably needed in the modern game.

I'm still not happy with the formation, it's got too many good players out of position, and there's a massive disconnect between Henderson, Alli, Lingard and Sterling. We're not seeing much at all by way of combination play and we need to get a lot better.

That said, it's more than conceivable that we can bumble and bluster our way to a world cup final here, and that's a seriously exciting prospect.

It's got to be Alli for RLC against Sweden. Dele either needs to be played as a genuine ten or not at all. He's being shoehorned in and it's not working. I'd probably go Rashford for Sterling too.

Can see Saturday being another pretty terrible game of football but hopefully we'll have just enough to sneak through

 

[Langers]

The biggest problem yesterday was that none of Alli, Lingard or Sterling played remotely well enough. They tried hard and pressed ok, but on the ball they offered nothing. Alli didn't look anything like fully fit, Lingard messed up at least three opportunities with a dreadful touch and Sterling's record of 2 goals in 41 caps is frankly embarrassing now (his touch was Edwards-like at times too, bouncing a good five yards off him on occasion). They need to be much better as we go on because we can't just rely on set pieces and/or defences being morons and still thinking that manhandling our players in the box is a good idea.

Maguire's best game for England by a country mile, Pickford with one stunning save before the goal and then a very good penalty save has repaired some of the damage from the Belgium goal and Kane was immense.

I'd agree with all of this. I thought Trippier had another decent game too.

The thing that pleased me most was the mental strength of the side, it's better than I can ever remember from an England squad and when you take the relative inexperience into consideration, it's impressive.

I really don't care if we shithouse our way through this tournament. Last night was one hell of a test against a team of wankers and a ref who had zero control over them - Southgate said we're having to get smarter and I'd be lying if I said I was happy to see some pretty shitty acts from us (Henderson's theatrics - still should have been a red card, but he then could have walked himself with the incident following the penalty decision, Maguire's awful dive :icon_lol but at least it shows that we're having to adapt to these tactics.

I think we need to change the frontline for Saturday - Kane was a colossus, a proper leader and full of confidence but he's not getting enough help up there. Lingard was really poor, Alli doesn't look fit and I don't know how much longer we can justify Sterling's place. I'd like to see RLC come in, and possibly Rashford too.

 

[playtheace]

I'm still not happy with the formation, it's got too many good players out of position, and there's a massive disconnect between Henderson, Alli, Lingard and Sterling. We're not seeing much at all by way of combination play and we need to get a lot better.

Out of interest, how would people line the team up against Sweden?

 

[Langers]

Vardy has had an injection in his groin apparently, so he's out. Probably also why he didn't take a penalty.

 

[b3h]

Sterling - needs to be replaced!

Alli - needs to be replaced.

Young - all about the workrate innit... He cocked up a few times but opposing players still allow him to cut inside and cross so no doubt he'll stay in FFS.

 

[Langers]

I can't stand Ashley Young but I thought he did okay TBH.

 

[b3h]

I can't stand Ashley Young but I thought he did okay TBH.

I won't remember them all off the top of my head but he spooned it out once using his left, twice tried to go down the outside and fucked it, and same a couple of times on defence

I think workrate and a decent cross on his right are his only plus points

 

[SLA]

I can't stand Ashley Young but I thought he did okay TBH.

I agree he wasn't stand-out bad. And he actually did a good job as senior pro of keeping the younger lads calm and making sure they didn't react to the provocation. He was quite often in there pulling them away and having a quiet word with them. If that was part of the reason for his inclusion in the squad then I think it paid off last night.

 

[Langers]

24 million people watched on TV last night.

And that's before you factor in people who watched in pubs or online.

Big numbers!! And it'll be more on Saturday. Because there'll be no Clive, no Glenn, no IT fucking V.