Wullie

That's just silly. How can a player be 'good enough' at 18/19 when there's a ready made alternative somewhere else in the world that a Premier League can easily afford with many years of first team football behind them? Even if they're supremely talented at that age, you still don't have the experience of having played two or three hundred games, which we saw the other night when we looked incredibly naive against the Croatians. That's fair enough, but my argument is that they do get the opportunities at first team level, whether on loan or at their present clubs. Can you give an example of an English player who would have 'made it' but didn't get the opportunities as there were foreign players in their place? I can't think of any, hence if they're good enough, they get into their teams or get a transfer sooner than later. This is a really weird question.

That's just silly. How can a player be 'good enough' at 18/19 when there's a ready made alternative somewhere else in the world that a Premier League can easily afford with many years of first team football behind them? Even if they're supremely talented at that age, they still don't have the experience of having played two or three hundred games, which we saw the other night when we looked incredibly naive against the Croatians.

FFS

I've seen that about ten times on TV and was convinced Kane just hit the post. Bloody hell.

I know they had one in 1990 but it would have been embarrassing as fuck to have an open top bus. It's embarrassing enough that a country with England's football history and infrastructure has only made 3 World Cup semi finals.

Dante hasn't played for Brazil since the last World Cup.

I disagree, I think you can complain, because it's stupid. There are several NUFC songs which reference winning the league/cup/going to Wembley/Europe, despite the fact we all know we're going to achieve none of this. It's a football song. I haven't been to Waterloo with me mum and me dad and me gran and a bucket of vindaloo either. Do we have reevaluate terrace culture in the wake of this World Cup run to make sure all songs fit the established facts so we're not accused of arrogance in future and don't upset poor Luka and his weird mates?

#wait

If "foreigners" in general think the English are arrogant, then whatever, not much Lee Dixon can do about that on an ITV football show. But let's not pretend that there was anything unreasonable or arrogant about what was said before the game about Croatia potentially suffering from added minutes in their legs. That's just perfectly normal football discussion, not some sort of gloating superiority from the Empire.

Easy playing Friday afternoon quarterback of course, but during the game I was howling for the usual Delph>Alli sub at the very least. RLC>Lingard would have helped enormously as well. Pull them back 25 yards and give us a platform to play again.

Arrogance. I don't know if you've ever watched pre-match football coverage before but speculating about what a team's potential strengths/weaknesses are in relation to their opposition is kind of the whole point. Had England played 2x120 minutes and Croatia not, the pundits would have said they were worried about England's stamina, why wouldn't they? Again, we're back to this weird situation where the normal rules of following and talking about football cease to exist during international tournaments. Think your team can maybe win a match? ARROGANCE. Think Raheem Sterling might be objectively quicker than Dejan Lovren, and mention that England could use this to their advantage? DELUDED. Query whether playing more football matches might make a human being more weary than another human being who has played less football matches? WHY EVERYONE HATES ENGLAND.

Croatian dressing room glued to ITV.

Based on absolutely nothing.

He wasn't 'linked', he was about to sign until the deal fell through at the last minute after Nice noticed a loophole in his release clause and hiked the price.

Never seen that post before, it's had me chuckling for ages.

Even if it wasn't sung tongue in cheek... Did I miss the meeting that decided football songs have to be based in 100% fact?

I'm sorry... have you actually been in touch with all of what the pundits have been saying out there? This includes the mainstream media as well as the 'obscure' ones. If yes, then you must have spent a lot of time during the past few days staring at screens. (And even so, I doubt you bothered to see what the 'less' known pundits had to say about this match.) What makes you think that the Croatian players' 'main' outlet of media is the same ones that you watch? It really is not that hard to expect that they might not have been watching/reading the same content as you. Is that what Croatia have been doing with their time like, watching English football coverage?

Felt like we allowed them to tbh, we sat back and it allowed them to gain control and we never really recovered. It's probably the thing the pissed me off more than anything else. It's a consistent theme with England in tournament big games, we start well, take the lead then get the fear, sit back and let them back into it, Colombia was the same, even Sweden threatened to get back on level terms and we needed Pickford to stop them before Alli headed in. Sven's team used to do it all the time, notably against Brazil in WC 2002 and Portugal in Euro 2004. We don't seem to have the confidence to stay on the front foot and kill a game off.

Would our players have slagged the Croatians off if we'd won? It's pathetic and I hope France smash them to bits.

I'm fucking gutted like, keep getting annoyed every time I think about it. We fucking blew it big style.

Didn't realise we play them again in three months in this Nations League thing.

Presumably he means a Chelsea fringe player.

Seri to Fulham confirmed, some signing that.

God I hope France demolish them.