England fans pining for Harry Maguire and Trent after awful Panama win | OneFootball

Did Thomas Tuchel hamstring England the second he picked his World Cup squad? There’s not a great deal of joy after that Panama win.

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Why are England so bad on the ball?

As long as I’ve watched England (38 years) – I’ve thought the same thing – why are we so f***ing awkward on the ball?

There is clearly a fundamental problem at a grass root level in this country (sadly we can say the same about a lot of other, more important issues in the UK) – what’s going on with the academies?

I’m not expecting them to produce a Messi, but gods sake even a Cherki would be great to see. When’s the last time we had one of those? Scholes? (Never forgive him being deployed left wing, and I’m a Liverpool fan)

We invented this sport, but others have perfected it. We have “The Bestest League Ever Seen” but our backline is still wildly terrible on the ball (Konsa is making me miss Maguire, again I’m a Liverpool fan!), our midfield is eager but incapable of putting a foot on the ball and dictating tempo, and our wingers are blunt, and they all make terrible decisions, consistently. The Football IQ is very poor.

Yes we’ve topped the group but if you’re trying to spin a chaotic game against a geriatric Croatia, drawing with a weak Ghana, and scraping past PANAMA as evidence we’re actually improving, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.

And to top it off we can’t even find an English manager capable of leading us. In a country of 70M+ that is unforgivable, and it’s a damning indictment.

And yeah, I know we reached finals and semifinals – but Southgate was a lucky manager who benefited from the easiest routes I’ve ever seen, whenever we came up against a top 10 nation we couldn’t overcome them – for the reasons stated above.

The FA need radical change.

And yeah, I’m hungover plus hot on a train with no seats, which is probably partially fuelling this rant. Reuben Jenkins

England hamstrung by defenders

Tuchel really has hamstrung the England defence with his selections. James who we all know is made out of balsa wood, Quansah injured as well, then his treatment of Kobbie Mainoo stinks, midfielder goes off, bring on an average winger, take another midfielder off bring on a 37yr old Henderson, what’s the kid done to deserve this treatment? Through to the knockouts but with this defence we won’t get past the first team which knows how to finish. Paul Murphy, Manchester

…Well, that wasn’t great.

My prediction is that we scrape past DR Congo and go out in the next round to Mexico.

That’s OK as it will give Tuchel a perfect excuse as it was too hot and the altitude got to us.

(Don’t remember anyone complaining about that in 1970)

Why did we give him a new contract before this WC has ended?

I think it was criminal for him not to take another right back.

I really like Reece James, but everyone knows what a perma-crock he is.

So he decided to take Quansah, who is a reserve CB and NOT a RB.

Why didn’t he take Trent?

With Quansah probably injured, we will now have to use a LB as a RB!

Would anyone in their right mind put Quansah or Spence into their starting line up against multiple premier league and champions league winner Trent?

He also should have taken another “Creative” player to unlock the low blocks that we play so poorly against (Foden?)

On another note, what does Saka actually do? Neil, LFC, USA

…Can anyone explain why our defence is so sh*t? I’m almost pining for slabhead. Ben Teacher

Rotten England

God that was awful. But we won an awful game this time. But God it was awful. The Croatia performance must have been an anomaly. Dan, London

What’s next for Scotland?

It’s funny now looking at the 3rd place qualifiers, that for all the talk of Scotland putting 3 past Haiti or aiming to finish with -1 goal difference, that would not have been enough.

I’m writing this before the last game but the final qualifier will either be Iran (0 GD) or Algeria (if they get 4 points).

Thankfully we avoided the heartache. I can just imagine how it would have felt had we finished on -1GD, which they told us pre-tournament had a 90% chance of putting you through, and then they not being enough.

Instead we were just rubbish and we knew after the Brazil game that we were deservedly going home.

And now Steve Clarke has stepped down. I think Scottish fans are in pretty unanimous agreement that it’s the right call. Thanks for work you’ve done, but time to see if someone else can get us playing better than the sum of our parts.

I’ve no idea who they’ll go for. Derek McInnes would have been a strong shout, but he’s just taken the Rangers job. Would David Moyes give up the Everton post, knowing this might be his only chance to manage Scotland? Probably not. Maybe they’ll expand the net and try an overseas appointment. I hear Pep is free!

It’s not an unattractive job. We have home Euros coming up, which being hosts gives us a great chance (but not grantees) of qualifying. Getting us to the knockouts of that, and they’ll build statues to you.

I’d love to say we’ll get a bold and exciting appointment, but it’s the SFA so that’s not going to happen. Mike, LFC, Dubai

Raging at Infantino

That late disallowed Colombia goal was a mile onside. It just was. It was easy af to see with the naked eye. Which, given that greedy miserable f*** Infantino’s nauseating fawning over Ronaldo and obvious commercial interest in making Portugal’s route as easy as possible leads me to a horrifyingly depressing, but tragically plausible conclusion: VAR cheated us all.

If you think about it, given the mocked up (and delayed) nature of the supposed “evidence” graphics, in extremely marginal cases it’s eminently possible to show the decision in the way that suits you by a gnat’s pube. There’s never an overlay of the graphic on the actual real freeze frame, we have to take it on trust. And in no universe was that offside.

Infantino is a cancer on the game. Football needs to grow a set and either tell him and his iteration of FIFA to f*** off in it’s entirety, or force the soulless prick out and FIFA to get back in it’s box to do it’s job as an enabling administrative body from whom football will take advice, NOT instruction. RHT/TS x

(England v Panama was pure same old England, probably because we produce elite water carriers like Rice and call them world class without them offering even a suspicion of guile or goal threat to their game – France have half a dozen players with more craft in their little fingers than our supposed stars)

On Anthony Barry, ITV and many other things

A lot of people were full of praise for Anthony Barry’s half-time interview during the Croatia game, where he was honest about England not being very good and needing to be better in the second half etc. But, in my mind he is straight from the Liam Rosenior-LinkedIn school of buzz word bullshit, using words like ‘verticality’ and ‘synchronicity’ which are sort of meaningless, and if you are not particularly into football (and there will be many viewers who only watch World Cups etc.) what he says offer no insight at all. Maybe this is deliberate, or maybe he is just full of corporate speak nonsense?

Secondly, as always at these tournament there is a shitload of daft articles about the ‘battle’ between the BBC and ITV, about who has the best studio or where it is located (who really gives a shit?), who has the best pundit line up (you don’t have to watch the build up, at half or full time, so if you don’t like them you don’t need to see them), who is winning the ratings ‘war’ and so on. It’s really f**king tedious.

But I watched yesterdays England game via ITVX and have to say that Matterface & Dixon are an awful commentary team! Dixon is just a miserable sod and I doubt he can be fixed. How Matterface got this gig I’ll never understand, as his only thoughts seemed to be ‘England as it stands will finish second in the group and face Portugal or DR Congo’ over and over again, before switching to ‘England as it stands will finish top and face Senegal’ ad nauseum! FFS Sam we get it, and the part time viewers get it, so stop f***ing repeating yourself!

On a positive note, certainly for my missus and daughters, Canada have made into the last 32 for the first time, recorded their first point and first win at this WC. Unfortunately, they have lost home advantage now and had to play on new-enemy territory in LA against South Africa, and then a very tricky looking tie against The Netherlands or Morocco. But at least they have made progress, and can take positives from the tournament.

I mentioned in a previous mail (about my experiences watching Canada in Toronto) that we have tickets for the last 32 game there, which will be Portugal v Croatia, so I’ll get to see a legendary player in his (probably) last tournament. I have never seen Modric live, so I am looking forward to that. I couldn’t give a shit about the egoistical ex-Manc guy, current acting as a boat-anchor for his team.

Sorry, this became a bit of an essay! A, LFC, Montreal

The last 32…

Looking at Spain’s ‘route’ they may feel a tad luckier than France. Any shock knock outs coming? Well I’d laugh my arse off if Argentina were knocked out by a minnow.

Japan to give Brazil a really tough game.

Morocco to knock out Holland.

Ecuador to soften up the Mexicans for our Azteca stand off.

Norway v Ivory Coast is the most eye catching game for me. Then round of 16 is the start of the real World Cup .