Bigger picture 2nd is still far better. Colombia aren't any great shakes and that half of the draw is piss.
Bigger picture 2nd is still far better. Colombia aren't any great shakes and that half of the draw is piss.
That was a sack of shit.
Out to Columbia.
England will spank Colombia.
We'll spank Colombia and then go out to Switzerland on penalties. A death that befits us.
Calm down you raging queens. We wanted to lose that. You don’t put that squad out and deliberately avoid subbing your best players on otherwise. We’re playing well with our first team. Columbia is a big step up, but if we can’t beat them we’d have been thoroughly de-pantsed against Brazil.
I still believe.
I still believe.
I still believe.
Everyone needs to calm down. Only Colombia and either Sweden / Switzerland stand between us and a spot in the semi finals.
Beat Colombia and the build up to the quarter final is going to be electric. It's going to be tough but most knock out games are going to be tough.
I would have just marched on. Seven straight games with your best team, that's how you win a World Cup.
We are clearly happy with a pikey semi-final though based on Gareth Neville's punditry.
The semi final berth is confirmed. From there it's two games.
England have done better than germany, at least.
I'm a twit
Fucking lol at the state of some in this thread. I expect it from Yev, because its Yev, but fucking hell
All this "confidence and momentum" bollocks can fuck off. I just can't believe that a professional sportsman would suffer a lack of confidence by losing one game they weren't really trying to win, or would gain anything significant from beating someone's reserves.
Psychology is a massive part of sport. They're not robots.
At least we've learned that if Plan A (aka set pieces) isn't working then there really is no Plan B off the bench.
Stuck a tenner on Kane golden boot and England winning WC.
In other news today, Nick Pope's doing alright for himself.
Limmy's winding up Crisps on Twitter.
Limmy is a world class tadger.
Limmy?
EDIT: Oh fuck, that humourless pox.
I've just read it, and I still don't know who Limmy is.
As Jim said, they're humans. When they've actually lived it, a result isn't a tick or cross in a box. I can't imagine anyone, professional or not, not having doubts after they've lost their most recent match.
I don't think that game helped us at all. The players could have had valuable practice playing against their toughest opponents yet. Instead, second choices got practice playing among players who they will never play with in the knockouts. Much better to have Delph have practice looking up and seeing Kane drop deep instead of Vardy running in behind (for example). That was an almost useless experience, considering any potential boost in confidence game time would have given to the second string would likely have been squashed by losing.
All that said, we're through to the knockouts, and we're England. So woo!
Especially seeing as you've only beaten 2 irrelevant teams prior to that. You come up against the first proper team, and surely the result is less important and the two teams are fielding their second XI's, but you still lose with a bad performance. There's no way that can be good for morale even if it was pre-agreed that you'd be fine with 2nd place.
As someone said on twitter, if Roberto Martinez is doing something, should you be doing it too?
Is it still coming home boys? I say YES.
Not that American sports matter to you guys but if the city of Cleveland can finally win a championship after 50 some years and if the Chicago Cubs can win the World Series after like 100 than the damn THREE LIONS can certainly win the World Cup
You all should know I want nothing more than to correct everyone who says "Ashley Young" to say "World Cup Winner Ashley Young, MBE" cause surely they'd give him one of those initial-y thingy's you guys do
Hang your head in shame Bruh.
If we won the World Cup it would be genuinely amazing. It would be the best thing to happen to the country in my lifetime. And this is probably our best chance since 1990.
Which is why it's so frustrating watching that shite earlier.
As for the game itself, nobody on the pitch did anything to force their way into the first team, which is a real shame as I'd rather have Rose, Cahill and Rashford in the team than Young, Walker and Sterling.
I think we'll beat Colombia. Their centre backs are a bit of a mess and their goalkeeper is as dodgy as it gets.
The famously easy quarter-final will not be easy at all though, especially when Switzerden manager Nils Parsnip shows his team a video of the England v Belgium game and says look boys, this is how easy they think we are.
I know.
On the “confidence” front, what if we had picked our strongest side and got turned over by the Belgium B team? Wouldn’t that have knocked it?
You can spin this shit from any angle. First or second, momentum or squad rotation. I think we’ll beat Colombia, especially with no James Rodriguez and go into a quarter final where we will be favourites and that’s pretty good.
You're slowly all coming round to the idea. It's beautiful.
Jimmy's on board, but I fear Yevrah needs two or three more rounds.
We'd do Spain in the semi as well, far too physical for them (where has the idea that Croatia are contenders come from? They're absolute spastics) and then it's just how to get past Ronaldo's Portugal in the final.
You need to have Walker in the back three for his pace, even if he is a bit of a bombscare (not as if Cahill isn't). The latter would be a boon at set pieces though
Rashford is just wank. He'll biff one in every now and then without thinking (as per Lewis' point about him) but the overall quality of his play is poor. Sterling probably meshes better with Lingard and 'Dele' even if he struggles to be able to kick a ball. Rashford can at least make an impact off the bench which is more than can be said of any of our other attacking options.
Rose still looks a bit rusty, which is a shame as having a left-footed player there would be better.
Set pieces and Kane, that's our hope.
No use of VAR tonight
This is hilarious.