Mole_Toonfan

Congratulations on that.

Are Uruguay playing 3 at the back?

Meh, hard to care when you never believed it was possible in the first place.

He hardly impacted the group stage though(Poland aside), he barely played against Japan and Senegal and it didn't stop people from believing they'd win. Also with how Colombia played i don't think it would have made a massive difference, James is a player who needs the ball and Colombia hardly had any of it in the final third for much of the game.

People were hyping the shit out of Colombia on here, don't know where you got that from.

Considering most people thought we'd lose to Colombia pretty favourably I imagine. Not to mention most were incredibly negative about our chances coming into the tournament, don't see any result changing anyone's viewpoint on this tournament to be anything other than a success tbh.

The only negative I've seen so far is the Dier sub, the others are stuff you are making up in your head tbh. Don't see the point in being critical about something which is beyond the managers control. Besides we have an opportunity to make our first Semi Final in 28 years and you're out here being negative?

The only thing missing from England is creativity in the final third because we don't have top end midfield talent. That aside we play pretty good football imo, you can't make the players into Modric magically. We pass it around well from the back into midfield we just hit a wall in the final 20-25 yards of the pitch. None of which is the managers fault like it would be with Pardew

Pardew like performances

Pretty obvious if we sign anyone that it won't be both.

Really don't get anyone bringing Townsend consistency at other clubs tbh, as if Ritchie is the picture of consistency anyway. But ignoring that why is it relevant what he does for other managers? Fact is he was great under Rafa and Rafa considers him better than Ritchie seeing as Ritchie was only bought because we couldn't sign Townsend. That's good enough for me personally.

Tbf there's not really been obviously outstanding keeper performances I can think of. As of now Pickford has a big of a case as most.

Maybe I just have a very nostalgic memory of 2006 (same for 98 tbh) but I don't remember Italy being overly defensive in 2006 tbh. They were great defensively obviously but I don't remember them being overly negative.

The only thing I'd criticise Southgate for was the Dier sub(which is weird to say because he scored the winning penalty) , everything else I think he's been great with so far. Good thing also is I get the feeling he will learn from any mistakes he does make. I was quite positive about him coming into the tournament because in the friendlies I saw a team which actually played as a team for once, but even then I feel like the team has definitely performed above what anyone expected.

Not surprising, not a coincidence that the same shitty source kept reporting it and nobody else.

It's actually weird how perfect it's been for most normal working hours. Almost like the Russians checked with us first.

Eh? Ronaldo's release clause is like 1 billion

Sanchez has been very good, Japan game aside. I'm quite surprised tbh as i've been critical of him also when playing for Spurs but he's very young so it's not surprising. But yeah i saw Sterling beat Mina quite often he just ended up doing nothing with it, saw multiple Senegal players do the same. He seems to move very slowly in closed spaces but i would have serious questions if he didn't considering the bloke is fucking massive. I think he'd be really good for a team where he doesn't get isolated, but his ability to defend smaller players 1 v 1 does concern me.

I was starting to believe it when i saw this morning that Juventus are considering selling Higuain to Chelsea.

I don't rate Mina tbh, he's class at scoring from corners but defensively i've seen him get beaten multiple times against us and against Senegal. He looks very mistake prone to me.

Agree, i wouldn't be surprised at all if Uruguay won.

Assuming we sell Ritchie we need Townsend and Kenedy IMO, not that it will happen though. In an ideal world where Ashley isn't an utter cunt: Plea, Townsend, Kenedy, #10, full back and maybe a CM. Obviously in that scenario Ritchie, Merino and Mitrovic would be sold. Of course hardly any of this will actually happen.

Lingard and Alli are the ones who need to play better.

I don't think so, there's a lot of positional stuff Sterling simply won't get playing that role.

Luckily for Croatia the one place they have a lot of depth is midfield, but if they get suspensions elsewhere they might struggle.