Useful Idiot

Didn't MBappe mostly play as a wide forward? How did Neymar get in there? Most dives and rolls in the competition? Paulinho? Lolvren? really? Should be Rekitic for Paulinho, De Bruyne for Neymar, Granqvist for Lolvren, and probably Strinic for Young (I think Nagatomo was the best left back in the competition, he didn't stay in long enough to deserve a place in the team).

And I think you're being terribly arrogant to dismiss Japan and suggest we'd have sailed past them to play Brazil. Given that Belgium barely scraped past Japan (with the help of a dodgy linesman's decision over a non-existent foul on Kompany that would otherwise have probably led to Japan scoring a third when 2-0 up) yet handily beat England without much effort, I think that Japan would have had a better than even chance of beating us.

And a win against Belgium's reserves followed by a crushing defeat against a Japanese team that could have easily out played us (as they did Belgium until Fellaini battered them down) would have been equally good as well!

What annoyed me about the tactical approach that Southgate took to the Croatia game is that in every other match, Sterling was dropping deep and joining the midfield to create an overload so we could retain possession. In this game, as soon as we scored, Sterling stayed on the shoulder of the centrebacks and tried to play in behind for Kane's flick-ons. This meant that we sacrificed the ball to a side with better technical players and reverted to hoofing it. We should have stuck to what we tried to do in the earlier matches, the worst that would have happened is that we would have lost with bravery. We tried to play anti-football and got done for it. Craotia deserved to win. I hate Lovren.

I ****ing hate the **** who commentates for ITV. What's is name? Sam ***tface or something. Wish he would get the sack.

If Southgate doesn't fact Rose at LWB, he should play Delph there. Young is an accident waiting to happen.

or £75m in new money

Exactly. I expect if we'd signed Marlon, they'd be panicking about how he's a short arse and won't win a header. Apparently, Vestergaard is a good reader of the game and fantastic at timing a tackle. It didn't hurt John Terry in his later years when he was as fast as a paraplegic tortoise and as agile as a decapitated elephant. He was a good defender who could read the game and get into the correct position to win the ball. That's what this guy is supposed to be good at and it's what we totally lack at the back. I think I'll wait to see him play before I decide how good he is at football before I pass judgement on him.

Probably at West Ham.

Reed played as a wingback for Norwich last year and did well in that position. He's quick, aggressive and decent technically. I think using him as competition for Cedric would be a good idea.

It's almost like he's the next Tierry Henry or something...

He's only ever played 2 games for Barca, once as a 72nd minute sub. The remainder of his game time has been for Barcelona B. You know, the reserve side.

He doesn't strike me as a particularly gifted player, doesn't seem to really take a player on, doesn't have much pace, and to top it off seems pretty inconsistent. Thought he had a particularly poor World Cup, as well. Hope I'm wrong if we do sign him, but at present I'm not exactly thrilled by the idea of him signing.

Redmond, Long, and our midfield spurned loads of opportunities last year. Even Gabbi missed a few sitters. We created plenty of opportunities to score, just didn't take them. Although, without Tadic Elyounoussi will have to do an awful lot of creating unless we get someone else in.

If we'd put out a strong team against Belgium and had tired players facing the Japanese in the hottest stadium in the competition, we'd almost certainly have lost. The Japanese would have played us off the park as they did to Belgium, and we don't have anyone like Fellaini to batter their defence down.

I think he's our best CB at the moment. I really don't think he should ever have to play fullback again, though. He works hard out there, but I just don't think he performs particularly well.

Apparently they have too many non-European players in their squad and have to move some on.

Every team that had already qualified for the knockout stages before the last match rested players in their final group game. Japan weren't even through and rested their first choice attacking lineup which is why they were so toothless against Poland. From what I've seen, Japan look a better, more organised team than Colombia anyway, and they have great cohesiveness and an established style of play whereas Colombia look quite disjointed. I think playing against Japan in 40 degree heat would have been much tougher than playing against Colombia in cooler conditions. There's no guarantee that we'll beat them, but I don't think our chances of progressing have been made substantially worse from our reserves having lost to Belgium's reserves.

Seriously, everyone over reacts one way and then the other with England. This performance could easily be a wake-up call. Kane wasn't playing so we had no focal point up front. Alli and Lingard weren't playing so we lacked goals and pace in midfield. Dyer is just average, a converted CB who needs to work in a pair with a more creative DM next to him and Gary Cahill has been 5hit for England for the best part of a decade so there's no surprise there, either. Jones is good at going red in the face and that's about it. We were obviously going to struggle to retain the ball without Kane up top, but we were trying to play as if we did have a big target man. Quite frankly, the game was a dead rubber and the players knew they wouldn't have a chance to displace the usual starters so played with half the energy they normally would. I think the regular starters have a decent chance to beat Colombia if they play well and this game meant very little. Last time we tried to go thorough the group stages with a virtually unchanged team we were knackered during the knockout rounds and got thumped. I think this made sense tactically and from a player fitness perspective, and now we're in the better half of the draw, anyway.

That would make sense if this is true... '...Elyounoussi’s father owns a pizza shop in Norway' Possibly some kind of Italian food related sponsorship deal on the horizon?

Philosophically, Puel didn't really used to like playing 4-2-3-1. He wanted to play a 4-4-2 diamond with wide forwards and an advanced no. 10 when he was here, but didn't have the personnel to do it. Puel wanted his width to come from wing backs and strikers tracking back wide when out of possession. If he intends to keep trying that, I think the'd want another box-to-box type CM over a direct replacement for Mahrez. I think your new right back signing Pereira hints at this. You already have the personnel for wide striker options for the formation (Ianacho, Vardy and Gray could all play in those positions effectively). But then again, maybe his philosophy on football has changed since he was here and he's going to try something different with your team?

Didn't Hughes start him in the first few games he was in charge, while Gabbi was pretty low on confidence? Think he may see the potential in him and might give him another run. Really just have to wait to see how preseason plays out before we'll have much of a clue.

I wonder if Russian agents will successfully spike everyone else's half-time drinks with performance enhancing drugs to get them all eliminated so that Russia win the cup by default?

We seem to actually be playing something closer to three at the back, a midfield diamond with wingbacks, and 1 up front. More like this: -----------------GK----------------- -------CB-------CB-------CB------- WB-------------DM-------------WB --------CM--------------CM-------- -----------------AM---------------- -----------------ST----------------- with the CM's given instructions to tuck in and drop deep when defending and one of them to go wider when attacking while the other makes runs into the box. It's actually quite interesting from a tactical perspective, and theoretically should be much harder to break down than playing 1 DM alone should suggest.

A bit like upgrading an ageing ford fiesta by replacing it with an overpriced Focus with dodgy alloy wheels when you could be looking at getting a BMW.