England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

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WorcesterWHU
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by WorcesterWHU »

To reach the last 4 was a major achievement. But for me the real achievement is there might just be something to latch on to here, and build upon. After previous tournaments and being underwhelming despite the tools at our disposal, just having some hope for something better is enough for me.

You never know, the likes of Drinkwater and Barkley might now be thinking "I want a piece of that" and get themselves a move where they'll play and put themselves in the picture - playing for England looks attractive again. And there's good youth coming through too, like Foden, Sessegnon, Sancho.

If we can get an identity running through all levels of our national side - where the youth are performing exceptionally well - then we have more of a chance when that plan is a consistent one.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by Het-Field »

As an outsider, I think there are certainly good and bad aspects of this World Cup. However, I think it generally stands England in good stead going forward as a number of cultural deficiencies in previous England teams have been eliminated, or at least put to bed.

The Best Aspects:
-The victories against Tunisia, Panama, and Sweden have to be acknowledged as good wins. In previous tournaments England would have drawn against Tunisia, laboured to victory over Panama, and may have lacked the guile to actually beat Sweden. This team played without fear, and with a degree of resilience that has lacked for a long, long time.
-Jordan Pickford has enhanced his reputation greatly, and has nailed down the Number 1 spot in the team. That is an incredible achievement, considering the varying views he was subject to at the end of the season, and it was a toss of a coin between the four keepers in the provisional squad as to who would start. he has totally repaid the faith.
-Players like Maguire, and Trippier have become household names, and are likely to be feted after this Word Cup as real finds. Both have shone, and have shown players in the Championship what can be aspired to over the next four years.
-Southgate showed great bravity in the squad he selected, and the system he employed, in the generally conservative realm of international football. I couldnt imagine many other managers leaving Hart (as the third choice keeper at least, for his experience), Smalling, Drinkwater, Barkley, Wilshere behind, or effectively letting Rooney go (notwithstanding attempts to try and encourage him to come back). His expansive system was hard to play against, and even Colombia and Croatia struggled to contain it for some time.
-Beating Colombia in a shoot-out was a huge international hoodoo broken, which is important for future teams.
-Harry Kane won the Golden Boot, and the team got to the Semi Final. Those are big achievements in themselves, and should not be forgotten.
-The future is bright with the likes of Angus Gunn, Phil Foden, Ryan Sessegnon, Lascalles etc still to be brought into the team, with the likes of Shelvy a potential alternative in midfield, with a wider scope to play in. Essentially, there are up and coming players to join Rashford, Loftus Cheek etc as the basis for a new wave of English players.
-The fans are back onside. Since 1998 there has been a slow decline in love and interest for the team, and 2016 was the low point. This has reengaged the public, and will be great in the months to come during the Nations League, and while the country hosts the Euro 2020 Final.


The Bad:

The issue of inexperience came home to roost at various times during the tournament. From Kyle Walker's penalty concession against Tunisia, to Yerry Mina's last ditch header for Colombia, to the entire response to conceding goals against Croatia, it was too often that teams with more guile and experience just had enough, or too much for England. When you considered how Russia responded to going 2-1 down to Croatia, and how England did it, it was an incredible converse.

The reduced contribution of Harry Kane after the Colombia game was and should be a concern, and has rightly been taken up by members of the commentariat. The man had the golden boot wrapped up within the second half of the second round, and never scored again, and made very few chances for himself. he also looked totally lost at the point in the game against Croatia when he was needed most. His Golden Boot win has deservedly enhanced his reputation, but a concern for England fans will be his ability to influence games in the manner that he does it for Tottenham. Scoring hat tricks against Panama are important, but he was really badly needed in the last 10 minutes of extra time against Croatia, and at one point he was easily beaten to the ball by Modric.

The squad will have to begin to look to players who can influence the game off the bench. Eric Dier is one, but the likes of Vardy just didnt seem to have that at this tournament. That was something that players like Peter Crouch used be able to do, and it is important that when balancing the squad going forward, that players who can influence the game, even if not starting, can do so. Even on the pitch it looked like the ability to pull an iron out of the fire ala Peresic/Mina was not there, and that England did rely on going a goal in front. Apart from the Belgian game in the Group Stage (which was a glorified friendly), England generally had the lead or the upper hand in the games, and before the Croatia game, they had only once been behind, and couldnt recover it. The Croatians have overturned three deficits, the French overturned one, and the Belgians turned a two goal deficit around in a massive push against Japan. Resilience on and off the bench will need to be inculcated in the team in order to take advantage of this.


The upside is, "the bad" can totally be rectified, while the good will have long lasting effects.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by jastons »

I wonder how critical the German, Brazilian, Spanish, Portuguese and Argentinian fans have been of their teams? All of which were knocked out before England. I imagine the Italian and Dutch fans would have loved to reach the semi finals of the World Cup this year.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by Cuenca 'ammer »

jastons wrote:I wonder how critical the German, Brazilian, Spanish, Portuguese and Argentinian fans have been of their teams? All of which were knocked out before England. I imagine the Italian and Dutch fans would have loved to reach the semi finals of the World Cup this year.

Nah it's only us lot mate who will be critical...

:wink:

Amazing how many people can't be happy we got that far..I reckon they wanted us in the final (nowt wrong with that I am sure many of us did)..and when we fell at the final hurdle (no pun intended) they felt the need to pull apart the entire process.

I am unhappy with some player's performances and of the selections/subs as people are in general, but I am happier than a pig in **** that people were patting me on the back and interested in the team and not laughing at me for not being able to beat the likes of Costa Rica or Libya.....(for example) as we have done in the not too distant past..people must have very short memories of our last Euro and World Cup campaigns. with way more talent on paper....I was a proud "fan" at this and we were there until the penultimate day...as pointed out above, loads of "bigger, better nations" went home way earlier than we did, and some never even made it at all..

bet the sweaties would have loved to have just gone...
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by evomutant »

Played 7. Won 3, Lost 3, Drew 1.

It is not being overly critical to say that England beat the teams they should (and better than we have done in the past, which is a positive), and were clearly second best against the two good teams they saw.

Which doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed seeing them progress enormously. But I still think this side is a long way off being genuine challengers at the Euro's or World Cup. But the trajectory is the right one :thup:
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by Up the Junction »

England took advantage of the draw and did just about as well as they could, in the circumstances. A bit like 1990.

They did lose three games though which is the most any England team has lost at the World Cup.

It was good to see the country united for a while.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by Cuenca 'ammer »

Up the Junction wrote: It was good to see the country united for a while.
:thup:
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by sendô »

Let us just look at it this way.

Our so called golden generation couldn't get past the QF because they couldn't put the team ahead of their egos and club rivalries, despite having so-called big name managers.

Yet this young team of average players, given little to no chance and led by an inexperienced manager has managed to exceed expectations by getting to the semi final - and coming reasonably close to getting further - through hard work and togetherness.

Well, given that we've also just won the U17 and U20 tournaments, it's reasonable to expect there's some good youngsters waiting to make the step up.

In four years time, who knows?
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by e17 »

sendô wrote:Let us just look at it this way.

Our so called golden generation couldn't get past the QF because they couldn't put the team ahead of their egos and club rivalries, despite having so-called big name managers.

Yet this young team of average players, given little to no chance and led by an inexperienced manager has managed to exceed expectations by getting to the semi final - and coming reasonably close to getting further - through hard work and togetherness.

Well, given that we've also just won the U17 and U20 tournaments, it's reasonable to expect there's some good youngsters waiting to make the step up.

In four years time, who knows?
Lovely final post on the debate for me
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by Denzil »

sicknote wrote:All you’ve done is dig on this forum

Thank **** you weren’t able to put down 1990’s team because no doubt you would have , and that team had more expectancy than this one
:thup: Was starting to think I was the only one that thought it!

Anyway, an excellent finish that exceeded all expectation. After a miserable couple of international tournaments it was great to watch a side that wanted to play for each other, the manager and most importantly the supporters. A real connection has grown between us and them again which I hope continues.

This World Cup was phase one of a long term project. Winning it was never the goal. Of course, management would have loved to have won it, and would always work toward doing so, but this was the start of bringing a youthful team through with an eye on 2022 & 2026 where we will build further with what appears to be a strong youth set-up with the current U17 and U20 World Champions providing a pool of players for the next decade or so. Not a bad position to be in.

The future certainly looks bright.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by Tristan Shout »

We got a very lucky run of games, I can't see us getting such an easy fixture list again,
Everyone is praising Southgate and the team but Kane, sterling, Alli, Lingard and young underperformed, Southgate couldn't get their best out of them, Kane is a much better striker for spurs and sterling is a much better player under pep, alli never got going, don't know if he was carrying a knock?
For me it was an ok cup, I didn't see anything amazing from us, plenty to work with in the future though, going forward we have a solid defence, we just need Kane, Sterling or Alli to hit their top form in the euros and we have a chance, hopefully rlc will have 2 more years experience and an older and wiser heads on the front 3, the futures bright, this tournament is something to build on, I just hope they have all learnt something from it to take into the Euros
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by WHU Independent »

Re the actual England performance on the pitch.

'The stats make for grim reading: England had an average of 0.9 shots on target from open play per 90 minutes. Only Iran had fewer.

Here’s a game-by-game breakdown of England's shots on target: Croatia: 0; Sweden: 1; Colombia 0; Beglium 1; Panama 2; Tunisia 2.

In ten hours of game time at the World Cup, Southgate’s men had six shots on target from open play (one of which deflected off Harry Kane’s heel).

Saudi Arabia managed the same amount in 180 minutes of football.'

Oh dear lmao - this is why we only ever got excited at set pieces.

We were the Stoke/Bolton of the World Cup
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by sendô »

I'm not sure why people seem surprised by the above, we all said before the tournament our squad was light in midfield and didn't have a creative spark, and why did he not take Wilshere or Shelvy.

We had an average team that played to it's strengths and got the best out of those strengths.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by WHU Independent »

sendô wrote:We had an average team that played to it's strengths and got the best out of those strengths.
Totally agree Sendo. What makes me laugh is that we are (almost) all WHU supporters on this board, we know that supporting WHU we go through the up and down roller-coaster ride WHU are, that were rarely win things and we support them because of our approach to the way football is played. We also don't expect to win every game - unlike Manure, Gooners or the scouse scum.

BUT when some of those WHU supporters ( and other teams supporters) support England they get swept up in all this "It's coming home" nonsense, believing we are nailed on to win the trophy, They become de facto international versions of Manure etc supporters believing England's gonna triumph. It's like they have a footballing brain transplant. I have a lot of non English mates and they saw this coming home thing as very arrogant indeed - we didn't win any friends with it.

I thought England played some really defensive and negative stuff which reminded me of us under BFS. The only goal threat they had was from set pieces - in fact 50% of all the goals in this world cup came from set pieces - and that's a pretty sad for international world wide football.

I know that England had to play the way they played, and they were good at it, but like BFS, they had no real plan b. That said, I find they kind of football England played not to be my cup of tea and pretty dull tbh.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by warp »

WHU Independent wrote:BUT when some of those WHU supporters ( and other teams supporters) support England they get swept up in all this "It's coming home" nonsense, believing we are nailed on to win the trophy, They become de facto international versions of Manure etc supporters believing England's gonna triumph.
dunno, i think very few were actually convinced they were going to win, it was more like a suspension of disbelief. a bit like letting your dreams nearly reach the sky :wink:
tougher when you in the end lose, but lets you enjoy the thing much more when you're still in it.


as an outsider:

lucky win against tunisia, very good first half which should have ended 3 or 4-0 for you. tame second half where you risked a bit. better than the average england's start.

panama - couldn't be arsed, went to the beach instead.

belgium - couldn't be arsed, stayed at work

colombia - scored and then sat back, trapattoni and fat sam would have been proud. aside from the fact you conceded with minutes to go. colombia is an average side when all fit, and they were missing their best player.

sweden - competent performance, didn't sit back nearly as much as you did the game before (which surprisingly led to a second goal!), even though it was partly down to the way sweden play.

croatia - very good first half, should have capitalized on the croats looking lost and like a pub team for about half an hour after you scored, but you only half-arsedly tried. game looked lost as soon as they equalized.

belgium - take two: didn't watch much of it, you looked fairly disinterested which is fair enough, it's a useless game.


great result, not as great football, good (not great) indications for the future.
overall it seems there's a bit too much hype on the performance and on future prospects.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by James P »

[quote="WHU Independent”]I know that England had to play the way they played, and they were good at it, but like BFS, they had no real plan b. That said, I find they kind of football England played not to be my cup of tea and pretty dull tbh.[/quote]

I don’t understand this mentality at all. This is World Cup football. It is do or die matches where failure means having to wait another four years for another chance to try again.

If you’re playing 38 league games in a season and come what may you’re probably gonna finish somewhere between 8th-16th and barely any single game carries all that much importance, I can see the importance placed on the style you play in and the result being less of a concern.

But in a World Cup Finals match? Finding the football dull? I can’t fathom how that works. With the exception of the two dead rubbers against the Belgians I was utterly exhilarated, exhausted and emotionally spent after every game. To turn around and say about any of the crucial England games “I thought it was a bit dull” to me says you just weren’t emotionally invested enough. Which is cool if you weren’t, lots of fans aren’t. But I think you’ll always struggle to get much out of international tournament football.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by jacko »

I think we will look back and see this as a missed opportunity. I don't think we ever will have a better route to the final. Still, we were a united team and that was great to see. Shame we couldn't quite get over the line against Croatia.

I can't see us doing any good in Qatar as our players traditionally struggle in the heat but who knows. You look at France and they have world class players all over the pitch. I honestly don't think we have one world class player.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by -DL- »

A late winner vs Tunisia, a thrashing of Panama, a good performance against Sweden, a good 1st half v Croatia, beaten by Belgium twice.

Coupled with a kind(ish) draw and we made it to the semi-finals. It united the country if nothing else - but come on, as great as it was, we were very fortuitous to get as far as we did.

For the most part, we relied on set-pieces, and penalties to get as far as we did.

We looked devoid of creativity, and Panama aside, pretty toothless up front. We never really played anyone of note, and when we did come up against the so-called tougher opposition in Croatia and Belgium, we lost.

This isn't an England bashing at all, I'm trying to look at it objectively, and although the buzz and good feeling for reaching the semis I wouldn't have changed for the world, looking back - from a football perspective, we wasn't that great - and trying to look ahead to the future, I am struggling to see how we're going to go one step further or even equal what we did, unless we unearth some midfield creativity, and a striker that can convert his league form on to the international stage.

Lots of work to do - because I can't see the likes of Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Italy being so stonkingly bad in four years time - and by the same token, unless a few English players crop up between now and then, we're going to be resuming normal service.

I'm now going to duck for cover!
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by Samba »

I don't think you need to duck for cover, DL.
I can't pick holes in any of that, unfortunately.
Despite coming 4th, England have a lot of work to do but seemingly, as you suggest, the biggest work perhaps, is trying to unearth some genuinely new, exciting talent.
Although some have pointed to younger England age groups already having success (& that is great), it doesn't always translate into many, great, full England players.
All the 'big names', also have serious work to do. Brazil have to stop being carried by Neymar, Portugal by Ronaldo, Argentina by Messi.
We did very well with 352 but perhaps that worked so well in part, because it also bolstered up our light midfield.
We really didn't have 23 really good players in the squad & that was possibly one of the main reasons why, we didn't seem to have a Plan B, if needed.
Having said all that, a million miles better than at Euro 2016.
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Re: England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

Post by jacko »

I agree with DL.

Meanwhile we have tube stations having the names changed to reflect Gareth Southgate’s brilliance, pages and pages written about how good we were yet we won nothing. Croatia was the first quality teal we played and we lost ( discounting Belgium). We are no closer to winning a worldcup.

We celebrate mediocrity.
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