Ban request for Yoss.

afgavinstan wrote:

Who was MOTM last night? Both official and unofficially, if you disagree.

Dunno. Perisic seemed particularly good in the second half.

Just treated myself to the spat.  I enjoy watching Keane as a pundit, I think he's better than most, but sometimes his eyes do the wee black beads thing as he tries to take the point he's trying to make by the scruff of the neck and march it to victory.  The problem with that is he often does it with something that contradicts another thing that he's said or done, or in defence of a throwaway point that's been challenged - all of a sudden he sees it as this hanging 50/50 that he has to charge into.  It's hardly a surprise that he fell out with Ferguson, and it's never a surprise when things get a bit snippy in the studio (always entertaining too).  ITV had a good mix of pundits this year, the highlights reel is strong.

Modric so fuckin best. Best in the world.

Parts of England caused it, large parts voted massively against it and are sat here sitting in the same Brexit shit pile as you.

Yossarian wrote:

Parts of England caused it, large parts voted massively against it and are sat here sitting in the same Brexit shit pile as you.

Fair. Its 100% the governments fault.

Fair fucks Dant.

England eh?
Proud of the team, the way they went about things, the attitude and spirit shown. That to me is the biggest success out of all this.
Obviously getting to the semi was huge, and not expected at all beforehand, but at the same time looking at the teams they played and the results, I don't think that in itself was hugely over-achieving.  but it's the manner of the team, the management etc., that was the biggest achievement - leaving us all actually caring for and wanting them to win.

It's a shame they weren't able to get the second goal in the first half...it's always important in this level of footy to take the chances when they come. If England had of scored then, I think they'd have broken Croatia and cruised through. Instead, Croatia stepped it up, pressed England high, and suddenly we seemed out on our feet.

There's definitely plenty of scope for improvement, and with such a young team and manager it can hopefully be achieved. I don't want to stick the boot in too much at this stage or pick on individual players, so I'll just say that i do agree with those saying we need a 'plan B'. Southgate went all in on playing a certain system and picked a squad around that - and I think it probably benefited overall in the togetherness and seeing a real identity to the team. However they need to now build on that so we have a counter move for when teams like croatia press high and impose their system on us.

Yer U17s and U20s world champs, right?

We came, we saw, we lost.

But we far exceeded expectations. Renewed faith in the national team and gave lots of folks an excuse to meet up and have a shindig. Anyone who focuses on the jingoistic triumphalism of the red tops along the way has a rather skewed interpretation of the reality.

Glendenning on the Football Weekly podcast came across quite badly this morning; in part because I can’t buy into the whole ‘anyone but England’ standpoint. I’m proud of being English but I’ll always back Wales, Scotland and any Irish success. Revelling in the failure of a team reeks a bit of parochialism.

I missed this before:

Any team that relies on setpieces for its main supply of goals shouldn't be in a final. An average England team got found out in the end. No plan B and not enough quality on the pitch. As good as they've been lingaard, stones, trippier, aren't starters for their clubs first XI. Hendersen isn't a holding midfielder as Liverpool have been crying out for one for years. Belgium v France should have been the final. Best two teams in the competition.

Manchester United have precisely 3 'starters'. De Gea, Matic, and Lukaku. After that, you've got Young, Smalling and Pogba, who fall somewhere between starters and rotation, and everyone else rotates. Even with that though, in the league Lingard started 20 games and played in a further 13, so he was involved in the majority of the league season.

City rotate the shit out of their defenders. Otamendi and Walker generally start, but it's a roll of the dice who else will be there.

Spurs are similar. Vertonghen will always be there, but after that they mix things up. Trippier was the right back who played the most though.

Why is Keane getting grief but Ian Wright mocking his accent goes without criticism?
I thought Keane was spot on

AndCallMeCharlie wrote:

Why is Keane getting grief but Ian Wright mocking his accent goes without criticism? I thought Keane was spot on

Neville's performance was the highlight for me.  Keane referring to him as the weakest link in the Keane/Viera doc presumably killed him as much as the phrase 'picking on Gary Neville'.

AndCallMeCharlie wrote:

Why is Keane getting grief but Ian Wright mocking his accent goes without criticism?
I thought Keane was spot on

Keane has a point about the premature celebration and the general ‘celebrating almost winning’ - from his point of view obviously, that of a serial winner with no tolerance for failure. I mean, Roy Keane’s the kind of guy who’d have a fistfight with his own children over a game of Monopoly, had he lost a WC semi-final it would most definitely be no joking matter.

Wrighty’s misplaced bantz just cracked me up, his obliviousness to the fact he’s basically dealing with a dangerous dog in human form is what makes it an all time World Cup punditry highlight for me (up there with Wrighty’s own ‘SpaceJam moment’ from the Euro’s). You just don’t goad an angry Rottweiler, everyone else could see Roy’s legendary temper was flaring but Wrighty plows on regardless, then makes it even worse by attempting to appeal to Roy Keane’s sense of humour....

Brilliant.

davyK wrote:

Let's hope the press don't get too worked up at the next tournament due to heightened expectations.

Might as well hope that this heatwave lasts until February.