Search results

I’m closer to 30 than I am 20, is there a relevance to that question?

I wasn’t alive for this tournament, but didn’t Denmark win the whole thing in ‘92 having only got their place at the tournament because Yugoslavia were disqualified?

This was a decent read. Like or dislike Southgate, it’s worth a read. It’s absolutely fair to say that Tuesday is a big test for Southgate. The culture in the England camp does seem to be different from the one under Sven, Capello and Hodgson. Beating Germany in a knockout game would be a huge...

With England, we’re always blessed to have at least 1 or 2 world class players in our squad. With a nation like Sweden, they just don’t have that. Ibrahimovic was a once in a generation player for them and that Isak looks like he could develop into a really good player. The only way nations...

So all of the weaker teams should try to play gung-ho football and get battered 5-0 by the better teams than them? You wouldn’t even make a good manager on Football Manager. Fair play to Sweden, they play a solid 4-4-2 shape and hit teams on the counter. They have a pretty average team with a...

If we beat Germany and got to the sem-final, most reasonable people would have to admit Southgate has done a good job. Italy a good outfit and really impressed in the group stages. However, the stand out performers in the group tend to go on to win it all. With Italy, they are a team who...

What would it take for you to change your mind?

Why the comparison with France? In 2018, their team was miles ahead of us. As for the Belgium games, look at the team sheets, we did not a play a full strength side. Again, Belgium in 2018 were a world class side and stronger then than they are now. As for Croatia, we should have seen the...

That’s such a dumb way of looking at things. By your metric, the World Cup in 2014 was no different to 2018 had we made it to the final. If we had the best team in 2018, you’d have a point. But, no one going into that tournament thought we had a realistic chance of winning the tournament.

Objectively, Croatia had a better team than us going into that team. You’ve got players like Young, Lingard and Alli in the starting lineup who didn’t even make the 26 man squad this year. 12 players in that 23 man squad didn’t make it into the 26 man squad for this tournament, of those 12...

Correct. They know their limitations and adapt to being a difficult outfit to beat. I don’t think Austria, Switzerland, Ukraine, Czech Republic or Wales would dispose of Sweden at all. You’re wildly exaggerating. Italy traditionally are exactly the same (albeit to a much higher standard) and...

Croatia topped Argentina’s group who only just scrapped out of the group with 4 points. Sweden topped Germany’s group. If those major nations were any good in that tournament, we would have played them. On reputation, you’re absolutely right. But, clearly Argentina and Germany were by no...

You’re clearly going of reputation. In that World Cup, Sweden were better than Germany. With the way Germany were playing, we’d have beaten them anyway. We could’ve had an easy-ish path in 2010, where we failed to top a really easy group.

Clearly they turn up at major tournaments. They’ve topped their last two group stages with Germany and Spain in them. They also topped our group in 2002, for good measure.

Agreed. Whilst losing to Germany on Tuesday wouldn’t be apocalyptic, you’d like to see Southgate have a strong showing in 2022 to show we’re track before offering a new contract.

Sweden topped a group this tournament with Spain in it. Colombia were also everyone’s ‘dark horses’ going into the tournament. Some ridiculous revisionism here. We got to a semi final of a World Cup for the first time in my lifetime and people moan.

Good to see you’re decisive in picking the team! Joking aside, I don’t think we should match them. Personally, there’s no need to change a defensive shape we’ve not played in this tournament, especially since we haven’t conceded yet! With the current setup, Rice drops between the centre backs...

I don’t think he’d be an automatic starter. Tyler Walker, Godden and Waghorn would certainly be an improvement to what we had last season. Last season was a disappointment for him, but his record in the Championship is generally quite good. We definitely need some more Championship experience...

Personally, I think as a nation, we have this inferiority complex against the bigger international teams. Germany have got some good players, but they’re not the team they were between 2008 and 2016. We need the psychological boost of beating someone like Germany in the knockout game to propel...

Agreed. I would absolutely love it if we humiliated Germany in the way they humiliated us in 2010. I believe we would’ve beaten them in 2018 had we played them - but that’s conjecture. They’ve conceded 5 goals in the group stages, so we need to exploit that shaky defence. Yes, I am invoking...