England Euphoria

I thought sterling played OK today. He was ineffectual in the first game but don't think he did much wrong today.

 

Oh dear .
Enjoy your bottle of sour grapes and your pint of Scottish bitter whilst nibbling on your Dundee cake .
We English fans know that the dream will end but it is good to be taking part .

 

England have qualified.

If they get to the quarter finals they will have done OK.

Anything else is over achievement. A bit of luck & it is possible.

 

What dream's that then ??

 

Bet you still watched it though didn’t you Ian?

Don’t really get the animosity to be honest. When playing eachother, yeah. But to be honest when Scotland are playing anyone else I’m not rooting for them to lose. It just seems a bit petty.

Anyway, whatever. Not only are we in the World Cup finals tournament, something Scotland haven’t achieved for twenty years, England have made it to the knockout stages. Like Scotland NEVER have.

You support ‘Anyone But England’ because you can’t support your own side. It smacks of jealousy, and I really can’t see how anyone could take joy as and when a side they ‘hate’ goes out of a tournament - when the side I support, the country I’m from, didn’t even get there.

 

he's only winding you up..

 

Maybe so, but there’s plenty of his countrymen have this animosity for real.

I’ve never got it, in 94 we didn’t qualify, I wasn’t wanting the Irish to get beat.

To be fair half their side was English like.

 

What do think Red ?

 

I was asking you
Im just appreciating the footy, I'm not into the jingoism of international footy tbh.
V impressed with Harry Kane

 

I have to say, as a perceived happy clapper, I was underwhelmed yesterday. I'm not criticising at all but that game really kind of fell into our lap. Two pens donated by brain dead defenders, two set pieces and one flukey clip off Kane's heel. Plus a pearler from Lingard.
There was no period of play where we looked good or fluid, no players going past theirs, no outstanding moments of defending. We simply turned up around their box and they failed to stop us scoring.
It was great in one way as I expected Panama to defend on a par with Tunisia and instead they were blown away in twenty minutes.
I was bellowing in delight at all the first few goals. I think we've got a team that could, on its day, get to the quarters or, maybe, with one really big performance at the right time the semis.
But as to the real qualities of the side I'm none the wiser after yesterday than I was before. Except that Harry Kane takes one hell of a penalty.
Come on England!

 

No, he is English

 

I would love us to win. It makes many of of us happy and it boosts the economy: it creates a genuine feel good factor. But let's not lose perspective. We have played 2 of the poorest teams in the tournament. We are not technically very good. We have no-one capable of 'running' a game. All this will factor in when playing a better standard of opposition. We have a generally young squad, many with pace which clearly is an advantage but more capable teams will make this approach much more difficult. This is where we fall down somewhat. The second half yesterday proved that even when there is no pressure and energy was being saved that our short passing game is not great: david battyesque. But it is a poor tournament in terms of quality which can only aid england's cause.

 

I agree somewhat with your completely and utterly impartial summary.

 

Thowt we got a large slice of things going in our favour yisdi, games like that dunt come along often for us it`s usually tother way rarnd. Anyways good start and am pleased for Southgate cos loads slagged him when he got the job when he wasn`t even given a chance.

 

It wasn't a great performance.

It was, however, an effective performance.

Too many times in years past we'd have ****** that up.

 

Even as little as 2 years ago, the England team would have made Panama and Tunisia look like world beaters. They may have sneaked an unconvincing win or two, but we would all be talking about how hard they made it on themselves. So with that in mind, I'm delighted at the progress made since Southgate took over, and I love the fact the national team is made up of young, hungry and talented players who actually look like they are proud to wear the shirt and even look like they are enjoying it!

I

 

And it's a team that, apart from Kane, has plenty of interchangeable players.

Drop Sterling, bring in Rashford.

Drop Maguire, bring in Cahill.

Injury to Henderson, we have Eric Dier.

Rest Young, bring in Trent Alex-Arnold.