Sheaf Saint

These aged well! 🤣

I distinctly remember this being an issue at the South Africa WC as well, and it was so evident when watching the games. The flight behaviour of the balls was so erratic they were like beach balls. You'd think FIFA would have learned from that.

Fucksake, not them again. Getting pretty boring now. How many times have we drawn them in the last few years now?

Don't know about the second. It was over his head and he wouldn't have got to it even if he had jumped.

Looked pretty certain it would be ruled out on the replay.

SALISUUUUUUUUU!!!!!

Australia and Tunisia look to be taking that crown today, although it's fair to say the referee is playing a significant role in making it such a poor spectacle.

In the knockout stages, yes absolutely. But play at high intensity in all 3 group games and we'll be burnt out by the time we get there. Everyone (almost) is miffed because we should be beating USA, on paper at least. But playing more cautiously and avoiding defeat in the last two group games, having already done the biz in the first, will guarantee progression and seems sensible to me. As another poster has already pointed out, Southgate's remit is results, not entertainment. We're not Brazil. We don't have that kind of flair to play fluid attacking football and breeze past opponents. If we want to win the WC we need to be more like Germany when they have won it, and grind out results instead. It might not be the prettiest way to achieve silverware, but would anyone on here give a shit about that if the end result is seeing Harry Kane lift the trophy?

I think you just have to give credit to USA here. Tactically, they've got it spot on. They've kept a good shape, pressed effectively, closed off the passing lanes and made it very difficult for England to play through or around them. They burned themselves out in the second half against Wales though. I wonder if part of our gameplan involves letting them do that again and then going at them later on.

One of the worst teams I've ever seen at a WC. If this was the women's tournament there would undoubtedly be a few people claiming you couldn't take it seriously with teams this bad taking part.

85% possession for Spain in the first half.

American fans could do with adding another song or two to their repertoire.

That's fucking ridiculous. That's a penalty but the assault on Maguire in the first half wasn't? Really???

He can read OK, but he struggles with books cos of his T-rex arms. And that's 4-0. Who was it that doesn't rate Saka?

No sign of that so far. England still piling on the pressure. Looks like only a matter of time before we score again.

Yeah, on goal difference

Very unusual technique from Sterling to finish that.

Good that we've now got a genuine good reason to sing Hey Jude.

So he's gone from being OK to continue to needing a stretcher in under 2 mins. If he's got a serious concussion then heads should roll, and being that it's Iran they probably will.

Get off the fucking pitch man!

Oh FFS.

Stupid. If a player is down for that long with a head injury, there's no way he should be allowed to continue.

Seems the VAR ref is just as corrupt as the decision to award this WC to Qatar. How can you look at a replay of Maguire being rugby tackled to the ground and conclude that's not a penalty?

Wearing Sand Island clobber?

Seems pretty obvious to me that they knew they wanted to replace him some time ago and were waiting for the right candidate to become available before ditching him. Given the noises about us being in contact with Jones/Luton for some time, and him not believing the timing was right in the summer, it looks like they were trying to keep some stability rather than leaving a caretaker in charge while they got their ducks in a row.