Jayson

Costa Rica making it hard for Pirlo to recieve the ball. They're lucky their players are much better than ours really.

Thought he set up Rooneys great chance v Italy, was Baines again who did pretty well going forwards. Just like how easily Barkley finds space & gets things moving.

Think Jagielka, Hart, Gerrard, Henderson & Welbeck were the players who didnt step up. The rest played decently, with stand outs from Sturridge, Sterling & Barkley in the first game.

On this note was thinking that the one thing that worked vs. Italy was the attack, even Welbeck down the right. If there was a weak point in the game it was the defence and how well protected it was. Roy's answer was to change 75%* of a functional attack wasn't it? Leaving only Sturridge where he was the previous game, all the while seemingly doing nothing to plug the defence which ended up costing us. Media doesnt help though. All the emphasis is on Rooney & Hodgson makes himself an easy target if he doesn't change it. Maybe he'd have done it anyway, I've still no idea why some managers can't adapt a side when something isn't working. Half time, just put them back in the Italy formation, or do something else. They likely get to attached to a system they've planned in preperation & can't take the ego hit when it fails.

Basically. Stayed the same till Barkley started drifting in from the wing, suddenly Johnson/Baines get more space. Hodgson left a failing system for way to long. We created nowt.

Nowt, being a dick. I'm not sure who these better team players are that everyone keeps referring to though. Welbeck isnt getting in because he's mr individual flair, nor Henderson. That was us compromising.

People can bang on about whatever they like, it means nowt. Cahill & Jagielka do not play like that for their clubs. Jagielka flapped the ball across goal in the first 5 mins while Cahill tried to boot it forwards at one point and kneed it into touch. We played half a side that just finished 2nd in our league together on the basis of it enabling a better "Team". There's clearly more to it if you're not being simple.

What do you put our failure at penalties down to? Our players are awful under pressure. We were flapping at clearances, its basic stuff. We scored, got very confident suddenly. They win a corner & we spent the next 5 minutes flapping again before the goal. They s*** the bed. Its like Newcastle after we go behind.

There's nothing inherently "wrong" with the English players on a phyiscal/technical level. The main issues preventing England from doing well are all mental, strategic and tactical. The role that the media plays is also unjustifiably huge. Team England should take a leaf out of MA and ban most if not all English media from the squad starting from 2 months before a major tournament. Agree with that. All this pressure & performance isolation of Rooney, Sterling was far better in that role & we suffered as a side due to the focus of changing it for Rooney. Add on top some " So you realise x is a Top Top player how will you ever cope with him" asked 20 times. The players can talk the talk about oh we're focusing on ourselves blah, but realistically they s*** the bed. Our media creates narratives about what we fail at & we all buy into it. No one expects to win penalties ever again man. The pressure created to break that narrative does us in. We'd be in shock if we even made a semi final. We bill ourselves as failures & you get what you expect in life. Germany expect to succeed.

Certainly our mentality is an issue, you could see the confidence change from us scoring vs flapping at clearances first half. Still, we played 70 mins of the game with Uruguay having 2 banks of players between Gerrard/Henderson & our forwards. They covered Sterling & it was basically left to Baines. Hodgson shouldve adapted it far earlier, they had our number easily.

He earned that. There was one fool proof way to shut him up, and that was to mark a player coming off a major knee surgery and likely not fully fit. Instead Jagielka s*** himself. I don't have the tolerance for this English pantomime villain routine with good players. All this time fretting about Pirlo, Balotelli and Suarez...and all of them get the job done. Suarez is a horse faced c*** of a player, but this time he didn't cheat. He didn't even work too hard. Defenders just went to sleep. He's a top player, he's just an absolute bellend. Even in that quote he has no awareness of the fact he's just inflicted sadness on the same supporters that chant his name every week & have backed him up. He's not only unaware of it, he's stated it was his dream to do it. You couldn't get more moronic.

You should be embarrassed by that. The guy has brought all the criticism on himself & been praised when he deserves it. Sums him up that his "dream" was to score against the country he earns his living in. You realise most fans supporting him each week are English? Top post.

They keep going on about us creating chances. Cavani missed a sitter when through, Suarez went through from an overhead also. First game Italy had one cleared off the line & hit the post. But nah, Rooney could've scored his singular chance so we're a top class attacking side suddenly. Our attack in this game was worse than shite I'm so pissed.

The issue was the formation. First half we had no options in the middle & Hodgson was relying on someone like Welbeck to do the damage who obviously had fuck all. So it goes to Baines repeatedly & its just crowded out. If we'd had someone decent middle or left, Sterling wouldn't need to be beating 3 players like when he kneed that lad in the head. They easily controlled us & its down to Hodgson. We have the players to beat that side.

Think Cahill, Johnson, 2nd half Baines & Rooney were the only ones deserving of any credit.

What a surprise aswell, the player the media build up puts on a confident display. That's only happened with Ronaldo, Pirlo, Balotelli, Suarez & basically every fucker they focus on like idiots while bringing down our own players.

I'm honestly not fussed about Gerrard. There were far more fundamental issues going on, we couldn't create a solid chance man. We were going nowhere fast anyway.

Right cheers Hodgson, on you go mate.

All this Suarez world class bollocks. He had two sitters & we were tactically out thought by their manager. It had far more to do with Hodgson than Rooney/Suarez.

Shut the fuck up about Suarez you pile of twats. We played like shit.

All over, awesome

Wow, well that's a fail

Come the fuck on

Well played Hodgson & Rooney, always had faith

Hodgson is mostly to blame for this for me. It wasn't working from the 5th minute. By the 70th you change your approach, style, personnel. Just adapt it man.