england

[sheesh]

As long as we stick with younger and more modern coaches like Southgate, we'll continue heading in the right direction. Hopefully the days of having a hoof merchant like Allardyce in charge are now long gone. There has to be a blueprint in place of how we should play, so that it shouldn't really matter so much who the manager is. As long as he's young, believes in attacking football, is tactically aware and great with the players.

(I've said the exact same thing about United btw)

The problem is that other countries have been through all this before. You'd expect the likes of Spain, Germany and Argentina to be better in 4 years time.

[bman2]

Sime Vrsaljko added:

“The all-round perception was that this is a new-look England who have changed their ways of punting long balls upfield but when we pressed them it turned out that they haven’t. “

Ouch.

[dozer]

It's not an achievement when they've only beaten teams much weaker, and failed to beat Croatia, again, a weaker team than England. And I saw plenty of hoofball when things werent going well.
They had a free pass to the finals ever since they lost to Belgium.

[bman2]

The comments by some of the Croatian players like Vrsaljko above show that they seem to have felt belittled by British pundits/press beforehand. Dunno if that’s true, as I think a lot of the Croatian players are admired, but it seems to have worked for them in terms of motivation.

[Sid]

Sime Vrsaljko added:

“The all-round perception was that this is a new-look England who have changed their ways of punting long balls upfield but when we pressed them it turned out that they haven’t. “

Ouch.

Yeah the long ball shite came back in the biggest game. But I wouldn't say it was because of the press so much - Croatia were knackered - more an actual tactic from the outset, that's why Sterling played higher than Kane as the CF, because he was the out-ball. We just used it too many times. The CBs shat themselves a bit, particularly Stones whose never too far from a fuck up. But tbf to them we were outnumbered in midfield 3 to 1, and that 1 was Henderson. I agree with the pundits that said we need a creative midfielder who is comfortable under pressure, a player like Scholes. But the english coaching system isn't producing anyone even remotely similar. He was anomaly that came and went. Everyone agrees he was a truly great footballer but nobody seems to want to follow in his footsteps and make another one. You're looking at Gomes. But then he plays under Mourinho and the cunt won't play him centrally and persist through his inevitable fuck ups that are part of the learning process. He'll want him to be as good as Scholes at 18 after 4 long loan moves to division 1 teams.

But tbf, looking back, I'd take 5 games at a world cup were we didn't really play that many long balls. That in itself is a fucking huge achievement from a team that very recently played old fashioned football and was comfortably beaten by Iceland. Plus 12 goals, 12 fucking goals. Yes mate.

[bman2]

Yeah England had a nice long entertaining run, which is the point of the whole thing.

I’d rather an smallish underdog country like Croatia make the final than Germany, Spain, Brazil etc. They fought hard and earned their win, bunch of aging warhorses.

[Pikey McScum]

[Pikey McScum]

I won't deny England losing did brighten up my evening, but to be fair they should have been out of sight at half time. I knew those missed chances would come back to haunt them, and they looked completely fucked in the second half - whereas Croatia smelled blood and upped their performance.

Definitely the beginnings of decent squad there, bodes well for the future...

[swampash]

Seemed to be more desire shown generally by the Croatians?

[FuB]

Does anyone give a fuck about this one?