England suffer 3rd place play-off heartache

[mickd1961]

Technically these players are better than we’ve had for a while but the missing ingredient is the Mbappe,Neymar,Hazard type of player that has genius in their boots.

We never seem to find the right compliment of players within one generation.

Add the Rooney of 2004,the Gaza of 1990,the Michael Owen of 1998 to the present squad and you may have the X Factor needed.

In reality like B.B. mentioned the other day we haven’t had a world class attacking midfielder since the Gazza of 1990.

Anybody thinking Wiltshire is the answer needs to give their head a wobble.

[baggieal]

Technically these players are better than we’ve had for a while but the missing ingredient is the Mbappe,Neymar,Hazard type of player that has genius in their boots.

We never seem to find the right compliment of players within one generation.

Add the Rooney of 2004,the Gaza of 1990,the Michael Owen of 1998 to the present squad and you may have the X Factor needed.

In reality like B.B. mentioned the other day we haven’t had a world class attacking midfielder since the Gazza of 1990.

Anybody thinking Wiltshire is the answer needs to give their head a wobble.

Technically better? Not convinced as Panama and Tunisia are no better than Walsall and we have lost three games to two quality sides! You could say with the gift of the draw, we had to get to the semi final.

Just a reality check! Southgate - nice guy but come on you could say had he changed or rotated the squad as he should, we may have done better! Dele Ali was crap every game, and Kane should have been changed at half time along with Young and perhaps Lingarde. Southgate would not take off his little star Kane who had clearly run out of petrol and touched the ball a couple of times.

That said - we still did better than was expected so it was great! Is this a new England though - not for me!!!!

[Acido]

Tbh Micko kid, I fail (or maybe I refuse) to see the so called genuis tag that the media keep giving to these over rated cheats like M'Bappe & Neymar especially.
I do agree though with giving credit to the genuine talented creative players, like Hazard & De Bruyne for example. They will unfortunately miss out on yet another tournament win, because Belgium still arent doing it as a team, like they should be.

As for who our next stars of the future are, we're meant to have a team of the future right now arent we ?. But no, thats obviously not true, and Im baffled as to where the next genuine Gazza type player will come from.

[Robert Johnson]

Is the sun getting to you Robert or is Mrs Carolgees giving you hoovering and ironing to do?

No mate. It's well documented. I do things like read around subjects while doing the ironing.

[WBA53]

I'm struggling to see what we have achieved at this WC,only more failure to beat a half decent side

[Acido]

I'm struggling to see what we have achieved at this WC,only more failure to beat a half decent side

Its a bit of a negative view isnt it '53, but I agree to be honest.
I think we all know that we/England have got to a certain stage here in the WC, and its better than what it was before etc. But its no better than that of course!.

[BaggieBlood]

I think the long term plan under ashworth and former fa chief gregg dyke was to win the wc in 2022.

From what i recall dyke actually introduced a clock that counts down to 2022.

It was his way to motivate everybody at the FA.

Do i think England can win in 2022? Maybe if we can find a mf genius who can do what gazza could do.

And some quality wingers.

Defensively, i believe we are well equipped, and always have been as English sides, premier league compared to la liga sides have just been behind serie a defensively.

Our problem has been not having the mf and wing play spark.

Hopefully, we will win euro 2020, with the sf and final being over here.

[curlybaggie]

This World Cup was never the plan. Southgate was always aiming to be ready for the next one and he seems to have started putting it in place alright

That's the thing with England though, we always seem to be aiming for the next one, but when the next one comes the result is always the same. They had a golden opportunity here, Spain shot themselves in the foot by sacking their coach just before the tournament started, and when was the last Germany were so bad? I don't get all of this euphoria that's going on, with the way that the draw opened up for us, reaching the semi final wasn't that big a deal.