England's 2018 World Cup performance; in retrospect

[Harry Hound]

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.

The "football's coming home" thing is a catchy tune and probably the best football song ever, it stirs very deep feelings of pride, togetherness, and love for my country when I hear or sing it and makes me feel happy to be English. However, that doesn't take away from the reality on the pitch that I knew from the start we were riding our luck.

Personally I think that maybe relying so much on Spurs players (who've proved to be "nearly men" and to regularly fall at the last hurdle) could have been a big factor in us folding at the end and I've been asking myself is this justified or just my WHU anti Spurs bias. Whatever the case until we have a strong holding midfielder who can clear things up at the back and play the ball forward (IMHO that's not Dier), a truly magical midfielder / winger (Sterling could be that player but Ali isn't) and a truly reliable striker like Shearer, Lineker (IMHO again Kane is a lucky striker but not yet the top striker we need) we've got to rely a lot on luck and will be inconsistent.

[James P]

A lot of people are so desperate to run down England’s achievement they’re being incredibly insulting to a Sweden team that overcame Holland, Italy and Germany en route to a thoroughly deserved quarter final place.

[fmgod]

A lot of people are so desperate to run down England’s achievement they’re being incredibly insulting to a Sweden team that overcame Holland, Italy and Germany en route to a thoroughly deserved quarter final place.

I think though all them nations have had success recently though Italy in 06 also in the final in 2012, Germany 2014, in the final 2008, Holland were in the final of 10 or 12?

[James P]

I think though all them nations have had success recently though Italy in 06 also in the final in 2012, Germany 2014, in the final 2008, Holland were in the final of 10 or 12?

This is my point. These teams are well-established, successful powers within the game. Sweden advanced ahead of all of them. Yet apparently Croatia was the first decent team we played according to some. Incredibly insulting to Sweden and their efforts.

[sendô]

Whatever the case until we have a strong holding midfielder who can clear things up at the back and play the ball forward (IMHO that's not Dier), a truly magical midfielder / winger (Sterling could be that player but Ali isn't) and a truly reliable striker like Shearer, Lineker (IMHO again Kane is a lucky striker but not yet the top striker we need) we've got to rely a lot on luck and will be inconsistent.

I think centre midfield was where we were found wanting in the end, as is evidenced by the lack of clear chances we created from open play.

Alli was very much our weak link - for example, if we had a player like De Bruyne, and he played in place of Alli, we'd have been much better. Not just for the obvious having a great player in the team, but in terms of balance. We had no-one to take the ball from midfield and create chances through the middle.

[warp]

This is my point. These teams are well-established, successful powers within the game. Sweden advanced ahead of all of them. Yet apparently Croatia was the first decent team we played according to some. Incredibly insulting to Sweden and their efforts.

the netherlands failed to qualify for the extended euro 2016. well-established crap team.
germany lost against mexico and korea. maybe not that good a team after all (they did actually beat sweden though)
italy is just crap.

"well-established" ten or even five years ago means f*** all really.

as for sweden, organized, slow, defend in numbers, not much of a spark going forward, no star players that i can think of, boring as f*** to watch.
if anything, this actually adds to their "efforts". can't see how saying they overachieved is insulting.

[sendô]

So England went all the way to the semis by only playing "crap" teams?

Oh do f*** off.

[warp]

So England went all the way to the semis by only playing "crap" teams?

Oh do **** off.

dude, if you like your toy, why are you put off by me saying it's not that great?
does that make you like it less?


and i didn't say sweden is crap now, did i?
would you not say their main strengths are organization and hard graft?
they're ok, and good enough to beat the properly crap sides that were mentioned as a paragon of world football greatness.

and i won't f*** off until you say please

[Cuenca 'ammer]

Well it made me very happy...but being a 'ammer for about 65 years, that's easily done.

Not getting beaten by or drawing with Tunisia and Panama for one made my summer.....

As UtJ said, "at least most people got behind the team for once," we really expected naff all, and got a few extra games. We got excited.

What's wrong with that ????

[sendô]

dude, if you like your toy, why are you put off by me saying it's not that great?
does that make you like it less?

Mate, I'm just making the point that you seem to be going out of your way to downplay how well England played.

I think most people who know about football recognise that we are an average team that performed about as well as can be expected, and did well to come up against "beatable" teams, but nonetheless we did still beat those teams, and but for a belter of a save from Subasic might have been out of sight by HT against Croatia.

Reasons to be cheerful after the never ending succession of ***** over the last several tournaments.

[warp]

Mate, I'm just making the point that you seem to be going out of your way to downplay how well England played.

mate, your "point" looked a lot more like a f*** off.

Reasons to be cheerful after the never ending succession of ***** over the last several tournaments.

for you maybe, i don't give a ****

out of my way?? i made a couple of posts, and one was about how good italy, holland and germany are now (not 5/10/15 years ago): i've posted a lot more crappier crap on here than this!

[Toulouse_Iron]

Sweden beat France 2-1 in a competitive match about a year ago and Colombia also beat France in a friendly in March 2-3 . In France, after going 2-0 down, so neither team were exactly rubbish.
England did ok, played some very pleasant stuff, had a couple of very good halves of football, playing a "New" style. We only reverted to type in the 2nd half of the Croatia game when they shifted up a gear and we couldn't cope.
Still a bit flat footed and single speed : we need a creative spark, but the foundations are there. Fourth is a good result and we have yet to see the results of the England DNA program. Our U19s are champions of Europe, our U21s got to the semis and hve won a third straight Toulon tournament. If they can get game time in the Prem (our biggest problem in converting young talent into full international success IMO), you never know.

[JerseyHammer]

When you put it on paper, we beat the teams we would have been favourites against, and we lost to the teams who were favourites against us. But that doesn't tell the whole story.

The point is more that we were really at rock bottom in the major tournament scene, not only did no other nations really see us as a threat but the belief from within had disappeared. We beat the teams we were "expected" to beat, which is actually an achievement in itself and has restored a lot of self pride. In years gone by we'd have slipped up at least once versus Tunisia, Panama and Sweden. This time we managed to get those victories. That'll do for now, we were never realistically going to win, so let's use this as a springboard for Euro 2020 and see what we can do there. These players will be 2 years more experienced and hopefully 2 years wiser.

What happened during this tournament wasn't particularly special in terms of results, but it did at least make us believe that we can beat the teams that we should be beating. One step at a time. We're not a complete package, we're not really that good in reality, but we are who we are so we might as well at least see what we can do and have a positive outlook on things.

The draw worked in our favour this time and we came up against a very good Croatian side that will not likely reach a final again for a long long time, nothing to be embarrased by. It took them extra time to kill us off, and on a different day we'd have been the ones in the final. Not to be. Onwards and upwards.

[fmgod]

In years gone by we'd have slipped up at least once versus Tunisia, Panama and Sweden. This time we managed to get those victories.

Really the only time in my lifetime, I can remember us going out to a team we expected to beat was Iceland, when we went out to Italy, Portugal, Argentina, Germany, Brazil it was sort of expected.

[James P]

In years gone by we'd have slipped up at least once versus Tunisia, Panama and Sweden. This time we managed to get those victories.

Really the only time in my lifetime, I can remember us going out to a team we expected to beat was Iceland, when we went out to Italy, Portugal, Argentina, Germany, Brazil it was sort of expected.

But our failure to win groups due to not beating teams like Romania, Nigeria, USA, Algeria, Slovakia et al has stunted our momentum and on occasion seen us face strong opponents earlier in the competition than perhaps we needed to. As bad as we've been in knockout games over the last 10-15 years my biggest disappointment has been our inability to beat inferior opposition in group games. Going out and taking six points from the Tunisia and Panama games is very unlike England and should be recognised as an improvement on our past.

[fmgod]

You can't compare bleeding Romania, Nigeria, USA, Algeria, Slovakia to Panama surely, Romania have always had some decent players, Nigeria same, America the same, Algeria a bit closer to Panama and Slovakia are okay none are no where near Panama though.

[sendô]

You can't compare bleeding Romania, Nigeria, USA, Algeria, Slovakia to Panama surely, Romania have always had some decent players, Nigeria same, America the same, Algeria a bit closer to Panama and Slovakia are okay none are no where near Panama though.

You mean Panama who qualified for the World Cup ahead of the USA?

In fact of all of the above teams, aside from Panama, the only team to actually qualify for the World Cup was Nigeria.

Panama aren't Brazil but they're hardly San Marino, which seems to be the way some people are going on.

[bubbles1966]

When the euphoria subsides, it boils down to;

Sweden, Panama - comfortable wins against mediocre to awful teams.
Tunisia, Colombia - edged past in spite of a huge amount of possession
Belgium, Croatia - outpassed, outplayed.

A midtable effort where the luck of the draw has flattered a team that largely relied on set pieces to score goals.

It is to the credit of the manager and the team that we behaved impeccably and had none of the usual soap opera nonsense about WAGs etc etc (and the press TBH, though I don't read 'papers, so perhaps it was business as usual)

[carnage]

We ended up playing teams who knocked out teams we didn’t want to play against. That doesn’t make it an easier route.

[prophet:marginal]

I'd say that the young squad was caught somewhat between two potential shapes. There were some squads that had the very best in certain positions, such as Argentina and Portugal, and we advanced further than them.

What we couldn't do is adapt to the team-related strengths that one or two of the best teams in contemporary world football had. I'm obviously talking about Croatia and Belgium here. They were both better functioning teams in terms of the breadth of talent that they had available to them (even though Lovren made a total berk of himself in the press between the semi and the final).

Looked at another way, Southgate, for me, got the most out of a squad that was limited by

1. Weak centre back options, especially in terms of back up
2. No real 'Jack Wilshere' drive in the middle, and
3. Inexperience, or lack of real star quality, in the three players detailed to support Kane.


In reality, Pickford took me by surprise and deserves the plaudits.

However, being brutally honest, Kyle Walker is not a cluey enough footballer to play centre back against the very best. Perisic is a brilliant footballer, but he should never have been allowed to score their equaliser and Walker (et al) dozed off for their winner too.

I quite like Jordan Henderson, but he was left to do far too much in the middle, and should have been paired with a more creative player once we were out of the group. He was in full shadow-chasing mode in the 2nd half against probably, in Rakitic and Modric, the best pair out there this summer (although, of course, Pogba, who had a fantastic tournament, and Kante ran them close).

And we turn to Alli, Lingard and Sterling. Each sparkled, but on an off and on basis (Alli more off than on). Lingard took a brilliant goal, but the inexperience showed very clearly, when faced with the ball at his feet, against Croatia, us one up, him on their 18 yard line, he didn't even get it on target.

At the same time that Kane seemed to just fade out of the tournament, all of his support just seemed to also run out of ideas.

Southgate wrung out the best of a limited set of options and the general conduct of the whole squad was exemplary. It needs to locate and draft in some proper creativity in midfield and a real leader (and captain) centre back.

I was still proud of them, but we can't complain that we didn't make the final and may, in time, silently be grateful we didn't get there and then get played off the park by France, who are, across the pitch, a level above us, imo.