Eng v Belg

[DomdomPie]

England are no better or worse than ever. We got to the semi final for two reasons only. Luck and poor teams played against. We beat Tunisia just Columbia just ( and nearly lost) 6-1 completely flattered us against Panama and the only time we looked ok was against Sweden. When we played credible opposition we lost and deservedly so. This team is rank average and the manager is rank average and I would bet my house it never wins a major tournament. We could very easily have gone out against Colombia yet all the news is full of how proud we should be in the lads etc. I call bull**** on that one. I remain wholesale unimpressed with everything I see in regards to the England football team.

Winning against Tunisia, Colombia, Sweden may be expected, but for years we’ve failed to beat these sorts of teams in tournaments: Iceland, Slovakia, Russia, Algeria, USA... we’d become serial bottlers and the fact that we’ve had a tournament where we’ve played to our potential (as limited as that is with the current squad) seems like progress to me.

[Notts78]

England are no better or worse than ever. We got to the semi final for two reasons only. Luck and poor teams played against. We beat Tunisia just Columbia just ( and nearly lost) 6-1 completely flattered us against Panama and the only time we looked ok was against Sweden. When we played credible opposition we lost and deservedly so. This team is rank average and the manager is rank average and I would bet my house it never wins a major tournament. We could very easily have gone out against Colombia yet all the news is full of how proud we should be in the lads etc. I call bull**** on that one. I remain wholesale unimpressed with everything I see in regards to the England football team.

But we didn’t go out to Colombia. We came 4th. Are we the 4th best team in the world? No. Is it England’s fault that some of the big hitters like Spain and Germany went out early? No.

There has been progress. We don’t have World class players yet. Are there any that are English? Time will tell. De Bruyn and Ronaldo were not world class when they first started playing, both worked on their games and have matured in to fabulous footballers...both had potential. When I look at England I do see players with potential. Southgate recognises we are a work in progress, he said so before, during and after the WC. Belgium players have been together for 6-8 years where as some of our players have 6-8 caps. If this group of players (in the main) stay together for the next 6-8 years who knows how good we can be. That is the potential. That is what makes watching England exciting again.

[i961pie]

England are no better or worse than ever. We got to the semi final for two reasons only. Luck and poor teams played against. We beat Tunisia just Columbia just ( and nearly lost) 6-1 completely flattered us against Panama and the only time we looked ok was against Sweden. When we played credible opposition we lost and deservedly so. This team is rank average and the manager is rank average and I would bet my house it never wins a major tournament. We could very easily have gone out against Colombia yet all the news is full of how proud we should be in the lads etc. I call bull**** on that one. I remain wholesale unimpressed with everything I see in regards to the England football team.

I don't think there is any chance of you losing your house, with the players England have available we won't be winning any tournament. But we have made progress and are competing and at last GS as got the country behind the team which not many managers in recent years have managed to do.

[sidders]

England are no better or worse than ever. We got to the semi final for two reasons only. Luck and poor teams played against. We beat Tunisia just Columbia just ( and nearly lost) 6-1 completely flattered us against Panama and the only time we looked ok was against Sweden. When we played credible opposition we lost and deservedly so. This team is rank average and the manager is rank average and I would bet my house it never wins a major tournament. We could very easily have gone out against Colombia yet all the news is full of how proud we should be in the lads etc. I call bull**** on that one. I remain wholesale unimpressed with everything I see in regards to the England football team.

Being in Aussieland, you never saw all the flags adorning cars throughout the land. You'd have said different if you had. A hundred thousand turned-on home fans beats an out of touch exile anyday. Keep your house but we'll win Europe in 2020.

[queenslandpie]

But we didn’t go out to Colombia. We came 4th. Are we the 4th best team in the world? No. Is it England’s fault that some of the big hitters like Spain and Germany went out early? No.

There has been progress. We don’t have World class players yet. Are there any that are English? Time will tell. De Bruyn and Ronaldo were not world class when they first started playing, both worked on their games and have matured in to fabulous footballers...both had potential. When I look at England I do see players with potential. Southgate recognises we are a work in progress, he said so before, during and after the WC. Belgium players have been together for 6-8 years where as some of our players have 6-8 caps. If this group of players (in the main) stay together for the next 6-8 years who knows how good we can be. That is the potential. That is what makes watching England exciting again.

Opinions of course ( mine and yours) are like ass holes everyone has one. Of course time will tell. It's the weakest teams in semi finals I can remember in my football watching life and we still cocked it up. I don't find watching England particularly exciting. More exciting than watching Australia yes but not exciting. Other than Pickford and Trippier I don't think any England player can say they performed well in this tournament. Harry Kane got all those goals but in reality was often anonymous. It will be back to business as usual now with England cruising through qualifying and then capitulating at the first sign of credible opposition (just like they did at this World Cup). England are incapable of fielding a team that can win a major tournament as they don't have good enough players and that's all there is to it. If you feel different great we can reconvene after the Euro's and hopefully I am completely wrong.

[Notts78]

Harry Maguire?

[the_anticlough]

But we didn’t go out to Colombia. We came 4th. Are we the 4th best team in the world? No. Is it England’s fault that some of the big hitters like Spain and Germany went out early? No.

There has been progress. We don’t have World class players yet. Are there any that are English? Time will tell. De Bruyn and Ronaldo were not world class when they first started playing, both worked on their games and have matured in to fabulous footballers...both had potential. When I look at England I do see players with potential. Southgate recognises we are a work in progress, he said so before, during and after the WC. Belgium players have been together for 6-8 years where as some of our players have 6-8 caps. If this group of players (in the main) stay together for the next 6-8 years who knows how good we can be. That is the potential. That is what makes watching England exciting again.

Great post.
Keep the faith everyone. After a long time, we have a team that can get out of a WC group and not lose every single knock-out game.
Taking the scalps of Columbia and Sweden in a knock-out is a start

[crazyfists]

Great post.
Keep the faith everyone. After a long time, we have a team that can get out of a WC group and not lose every single knock-out game.
Taking the scalps of Columbia and Sweden in a knock-out is a start

Exactly right, this is what is doing my head in with the people having a go and why in every England post I try to make people see we had the youngest squad in the tournament. We lost to Belgium and Croatia who are at their peak and we're not, I don't see why people can't understand that. Actually I can, people just like to be negative and moan.

[Bohinen]

Exactly right, this is what is doing my head in with the people having a go and why in every England post I try to make people see we had the youngest squad in the tournament. We lost to Belgium and Croatia who are at their peak and we're not, I don't see why people can't understand that. Actually I can, people just like to be negative and moan.

It did my head in when we were still in it, but after the event, it's time for cold, cool assessment of our progress. And the answer is, there isn't much. Southgate took an unprecedented decision to try not to win to get the easiest side of the draw, and only Colombia hitting the underside of the bar in the penalty shoot out saved him from the usual defeat in the first knockout game.

We played well against Swedes, to be fair, but then some perceived slights wound the touchy Croats up into a frenzy and we didn't have the bottle, skill or nous to see that one through. The other side of the draw was harder, but Belgium, who were obviously better than us, saw off Brazil but lost easily to France. Which all suggested France were better than Croatia, and so it proved. So even if Kane hadn't missed from 5 yards in the Semi, the French would probably have beaten us with ease anyway.

We can tell ourselves our team is young, but Jordan Henderson, Dele Alli, Jesse Lingard, Loftus-Cheek and Delph aren't going to develop into a world class midfield any time soon. France actually have the same average age, but there we're talking about the likes of Mbappe, who along with Griezmann and even Giroud (even if he doesn't score pens) are light years ahead of Kane, Sterling, Vardy and Rashford..

[Elite_Pie]

It did my head in when we were still in it, but after the event, it's time for cold, cool assessment of our progress. And the answer is, there isn't much.

Can't agree, and even though reaching the semi-finals probably flattered us, I think we made a fair bit of progress in this tournament. We overcame our penalty shootout curse, and we deservedly won a quarter final. When you consider the pathetic capitulation to Iceland at our last major tournament, this surely has to be seen as progress. Maybe more importantly, all of this was achieved with a young team, with a fair amount of talent waiting in the wings based on the performance of our under-whatever teams who have already tasted victory rather than disappointment. We did better than I expected, and even though we came up short in the end, I enjoyed it while it lasted.