World Cup Qatar 2022 - Desert Strike

[neoELITE]

1 hour ago, Azrael said:

 

Aye, could definitely have a wee chug over that game and result. 

 

Well done. Hope you and your Mum both enjoy that "chug".

[englishbob]

4 minutes ago, The Grand Pursuivant said:

I've given Fierce Poodle a 24 hour ban.

 

Please don't make me give any more guys. It's bad enough that I'm trying to boycott this tournament without having to come in to the thread and clean up after you.

 

"multiple cuntings" has made me laugh

[The Grand Pursuivant]

1 minute ago, englishbob said:

 

"multiple cuntings" has made me laugh

 

I believe it's an industry standard term.

[Azrael]

24 minutes ago, The Grand Pursuivant said:

I've given Fierce Poodle a 24 hour ban.

 

Please don't make me give any more guys. It's bad enough that I'm trying to boycott this tournament without having to come in to the thread and clean up after you.

 

Just want to say even though he called me a cunt i never reported him 

 

21 minutes ago, neoELITE said:

 

Well done. Hope you and your Mum both enjoy that "chug".

 

This the sort of abuse you got from the Liverpool supporting bullies that scarred you for life as a wee wean?  cos that's the shite patter you'd expect to hear back in them old days. 

[jonamok]

Cheered for England in every major tournament (that they’ve attended) since 1982. Been gutted at the side’s exit from all of them. Until this one.

 

Due to the football being massively secondary to literally everything off the pitch, the few bits I’ve brought myself to watch have been coloured by general distaste for the whole thing.

 

And so, for the first time ever, I’m glad England are out. This tainted fuckery wasn’t the one to end all those years of hurt.

 

Also actually happy that there’ll be no hyperbolic build up in the press for the next two games. Would like Morocco to win it for the lols, or Argentina to cheat their way to an unjust victory to rubber stamp this corrupt shitshow.

[Seanfl9]

I was at the Euros final and tonight's game. 100% the Euros felt way worse. I left the stadium tonight obviously gutted at missing out on the chance of seeing England in a World Cup final, but overall we were the better team tonight and it just wasn't our night unfortunately. It happens. 

 

Let's go again. I'll look forward to Germany 2024. Thats when it'll come home...🙄

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Is everyone else blind to the 'Pessi vs Mbappe' final narrative that FIFA is engineering?

[Lyrical Donut]

1 hour ago, Ork1927 said:

Everyone on the Morocco train now??

 

 

Although it would be nice to see Messi win a WC, tbh.

[PyramidFace]

29 minutes ago, Superfamifreak said:

Is everyone else blind to the 'Pessi vs Mbappe' final narrative that FIFA is engineering?

 

Awarding two penalties to Mbappe's opponents is an odd way of doing that.

[Boothjan]

We leave with our heads held high. Unlucky, boys.

 

I'm not going to dissect that performance too much - we played well but it was one of those nights when things didn't fall for us. From a missed penalty to a poor refereeing performance. It's football, it happens. We were the better team on the night but gutting that we lost.

 

I think Southgate and the players have been great during this World Cup, loads of good performances, lots to build on with so many young players and on another day we would be celebrating a famous win. 

 

I hate this game sometimes.

[Gabe]

It's going to be odd for the players now coming back and knowing they still have 5 months of the season to get through. Wonder how many are going to be suffering a bit of a hangover from it all?

[Naysonymous]

That’s one thing I don’t give a shit about tbh. The fact my lot (Villa) only had four players at the World Cup, and that of the four; one is a squad player, one is an emergency loan, one was just happy to be there (Matty Cash) and one is a goalkeeper (Emi Martinez) means our new manager has had a ridiculous amount of time to work with the squad after his appointment.  
 

We might even finish as high as 10th if everybody else in the league  is knackered! 

[Gotters]

Agree with the general sentiment this is actually the 'best' of our recent tournament exits as we didn't go out with no clue how to hang onto the ball or create anything, we went out heads held high with a really good performance against an excellent team who could beat anybody on their day.

 

I said a few pages back although we were top tournament scorers and been winning games on the xG we were over scoring by quite some margin. Last night we beat France again on the that metric but teams usually revert to the mean over time, although really a tournament is too small a set of games to measure such things it's still indicative.

 

France on the other hand now lost in the ko stages to Poland & England on xG, that defence clearly can be rattled and got at.

 

I hope Southgate has the energy/will to continue, he's clearly the best man for the job and you can see the improvements each tournament, plus it's such a young group it's not the end of a generation or anything like that. 

[Timmo]

1 hour ago, Gotters said:

Agree with the general sentiment this is actually the 'best' of our recent tournament exits as we didn't go out with no clue how to hang onto the ball or create anything, we went out heads held high with a really good performance against an excellent team who could beat anybody on their day.

 

I said a few pages back although we were top tournament scorers and been winning games on the xG we were over scoring by quite some margin. Last night we beat France again on the that metric but teams usually revert to the mean over time, although really a tournament is too small a set of games to measure such things it's still indicative.

 

France on the other hand now lost in the ko stages to Poland & England on xG, that defence clearly can be rattled and got at.

 

I hope Southgate has the energy/will to continue, he's clearly the best man for the job and you can see the improvements each tournament, plus it's such a young group it's not the end of a generation or anything like that. 

Yep, I think we’ve only gotten better, and the best team went out yesterday. If I’m being hypercritical, I would have liked to have seen Griezmann man marked yesterday, but it’s likely that doing that would have nullified our attack as Henderson was a regular outlet on the right.

 

You could also argue that Saka should have stayed on, but I think he was struggling energy-wise. 

[Loik V credern]

Need to produce ball playing midfielders imo if England are to progress from here. 

 

I don't know if another manager tries to use Foden centrally deeper to dictate some of the play. Whether he matures more in the next 18 months to be more able to do that. It was Foden coming over to support the only possession had down the right in the first half, not Bellingham. I don't know what happened there. If there's always going to be a hole in midfield I don't see how England can win against midfields that are always stronger and more comfortable on the ball, we've never had a more prolific striker or more skilful and intelligent inside wide players and in the end it didn't add up to that much. 

 

A France team without Kante, Pogba and Benzema (not that Giroud was lacking) with Mbappe kept quiet except one moment when Walker misjudged it, two penalties and still couldn't win. Just Griezmann alone making the difference. I don't think 'well they're the world champions..' matters, presumably France and all the other international teams will expect to be stronger in euro 2024 and world cup 2026 and having an overload of skilful wingers is not meaning much. 

 

Gary Neville is always like 'I've never seen England have such a dominating spell of possession in a tournament before, certainly our generation never did that' but imo it's not enough of an improvement. 

 

...I know people are going to say 'just comfortably beat the African champions and were the better team against the world champions, 'not add up to much, really?' but it's still having this low bar set through decades of disappointment. I don't think England can win a tournament if the midfield isn't much stronger, can't just accept being so inferior in that area. I thought England would win through Bellingham's influence, finally a midfielder who can impose himself, I think we lost because he went missing. Whatever the fine margins, that it came down to that. 

[Timmo]

12 minutes ago, Loik V credern said:

Need to produce ball playing midfielders imo if England are to progress from here. 

 

I don't know if another manager tries to use Foden centrally deeper to dictate some of the play. Whether he matures more in the next 18 months to be more able to do that. It was Foden coming over to support the only possession had down the right in the first half, not Bellingham. I don't know what happened there. If there's always going to be a hole in midfield I don't see how England can win against midfields that are always stronger and more comfortable on the ball, we've never had a more prolific striker or more skilful and intelligent inside wide players and in the end it didn't add up to that much. 

 

A France team without Kante, Pogba and Benzema (not that Giroud was lacking) with Mbappe kept quiet except one moment when Walker misjudged it, two penalties and still couldn't win. Just Griezmann alone making the difference. I don't think 'well they're the world champions..' matters, presumably France and all the other international teams will expect to be stronger in euro 2024 and world cup 2026 and having an overload of skilful wingers is not meaning much. 

 

Gary Neville is always like 'I've never seen England have such a dominating spell of possession in a tournament before, certainly our generation never did that' but imo it's not enough of an improvement. 

 

...I know people are going to say 'just comfortably beat the African champions and were the better team against the world champions, 'not add up to much, really?' but it's still having this low bar set through decades of disappointment. I don't think England can win a tournament if the midfield isn't much stronger, can't just accept being so inferior in that area. I thought England would win through Bellingham's influence, I think we lost because he went missing. 

I just think stuff like this is massively overanalysing. Of course England could have won this tournament! I’ve seen people saying they weren’t good enough to win the Euros when they were in the Final shootout! In cup football the better team often goes out. 
 

Do you think Greece or Denmark ticked the many boxes you think England need to?

[Eighthours]

#SouthgateOut is trending on Twitter, because of course it is. 🙄

[Loik V credern]

Just now, Timmo said:

I just think stuff like this is massively overanalysing. Of course England could have won this tournament! I’ve seen people saying they weren’t good enough to win the Euros when they were in the Final shootout! In cup football the better team often goes out. 

 

I also think England could have won, but it became clear that Bellingham (and finally a proper box to box midfielder) imposing himself on games, not just anchored to the defence like Rice and Philips are, was becoming significant as it's something England have lacked for years. I just think if you have such an inferior midfield how can you expect to get a hold of games, maybe that's simplistic but it's been the same at Man United for years as well. 

 

Though England were the better team, this is a French team that are pretty cowardly, they were more worried about what Saka might do than what their own Dembele or Mbappe could. Only after England scored did they look like they were really trying to maximise their attacking potential. 

[alex3d]

Germany 2024 is certainly going to be interesting with Italy, Germany, Portugal and Spain all trying to make up for Qatar 2022.

[Isaac]

One thing I don't get, in what world was the second penalty a yellow and not a red?

 

Was absolutely baffled when the ref gave that decision. The ref had an absolute mare all game, the amount of obvious fouls on Saka that he ignored were mind boggling.

 

[The Fox]

Just now, Isaac said:

One thing I don't get, in what world was the second penalty a yellow and not a red?

Mount didn’t have possession of the ball so even though there was no attempt to play the ball, it wasn’t classed as a clear goalscoring opportunity.

[Yobo Ahoy]

And even then he didn't want to get the yellow out at first. All the France players moaning and slapping their shoulders was bizarre - it doesn't matter what part of your body you use, if you steamroll through the back of someone without so much as looking at the ball once there is only going to be one outcome. 

[The Fox]

This is absolutely stunning posting, you have to say.

 

 

[Timmo]

2 minutes ago, The Fox said:

This is absolutely stunning posting, you have to say.

 

 

 

It's fucking amazing. I'd be amazed to find out what percentage of Englanders don't rate Kane. I bet it's something absurd.

[Loik V credern]

1 hour ago, Timmo said:

In cup football the better team often goes out. 
 

Do you think Greece or Denmark ticked the many boxes you think England need to?

 

No..but they're not as strong football nations who regularly produce the best in the world in certain positions? I'm not asking for many ticked boxes, no one thinks Pickford is perfect, or Maguire and Stones, even with Kane (who is one of those world's best right) people are undecided in tournaments (I thought he was one of the better players last night, I appreciate his general ball retention using his body to protect the ball.

 

One pundit said the other day something like 'he's not been quite himself'. My issue as always is that he's great at shooting from 20, 25 yards yet we never see it. Last night once he had a shot from that distance, possibly his first of the tournament (?) and again he's able to generate enough power to concern the keeper without accuracy. His vision and passing like for Foden has been fantastic. To be clear..I wouldn't want anyone but Kane up front)

 

I think this low expectation of England needs to go away. Most other fans of their national team are more critical of the weaknesses they have themselves than their strengths, as whenever any fan of any other nationality is asked about England they don't think there's a difference between them and any other top national team.

 

You've got Hansi Flick saying 'we need to improve our academies, Musiala was the one bright spark and he was trained in England', just a sentence with Germany going out early again would be unthinkable a decade ago. Everyone else will look at England as strong opposition with top players that you don't want to face, as indicated by France endlessly fouling to disrupt play. 

 

But we still have this morbid view that England are permanently below other national teams ('as soon as England come up against a top team they lose' is said over and over). I don't think we are, but without a stronger midfield it won't be possible to really challenge consistently.

 

Just the endless fretting (usually by the media, again by the itv host last night banging on about Morocco being a easier game based on this idea of status) about other teams in the group, teams to face in the run to the final..all unnecessary imo, all based around an inferior idea of England and the only way to win is to get a favourable run and sneak through.

 

Don't know what I'm supposed to do with 'In cup football the better team often goes out', that true? France weren't at their best. And against Italy it was clear a far better midfield that actually tries to play will eventually win out. Even if in both games we lost due to penalties.

 

I don't fault anything or much of Southgate's choices this tournament. I'd be happy for him to stay on but I think he too shares some of this England inferiority that leads to more reactive play, could and should have beat Italy being a goal up if despite having a worse midfield actually tried some counters to give them something to worry about and maybe relieve some pressure. 

[Loik V credern]

12 hours ago, Jammy said:

Strangely, for Spurs, he usually goes bottom right if he gets a second penalty in a game. I think he second-guessed himself thinking Lloris would know that.

 

sorry, back to this, I saw something about the Spurs game vs Frankfurt in October...

 

First penalty...

 

 

Then 90th minutes...

 

 

 

[The Fox]

14 minutes ago, Timmo said:

 

It's fucking amazing. I'd be amazed to find out what percentage of Englanders don't rate Kane. I bet it's something absurd.

My man is fuming that Southgate left Musah and Musiala at home.

[Fry Crayola]

13 minutes ago, Loik V credern said:

No..but they're not as strong football nations who regularly produce the best in the world in certain positions

 

So, just like England then. 😉

 

Well, maybe not this England team, who I think are well worthy of a trophy and have several excellent players. These last few tournaments have been hard on the old sphincter.

[Laters]

10 hours ago, Superfamifreak said:

Is everyone else blind to the 'Pessi vs Mbappe' final narrative that FIFA is engineering?

 

I that was a thing it would have been Messi vs Ronaldo.

Mbappe is probably best player, but still has a lot of work to become greatest historically.

[The Fox]

21 minutes ago, Loik V credern said:

 

I think this low expectation of England needs to go away. Most other fans of their national team are more critical of the weaknesses they have themselves than their strengths, as whenever any fan of any other nationality is asked about England they don't think there's a difference between them and any other top national team.

 

You've got Hansi Flick saying 'we need to improve our academies, Musiala was the one bright spark and he was trained in England', just a sentence with Germany going out early again would be unthinkable a decade ago. Everyone else will look at England as strong opposition with top players that you don't want to face, as indicated by France endlessly fouling to disrupt play. 

 

But we still have this morbid view that England are permanently below other national teams ('as soon as England come up against a top team they lose' is said over and over). I don't think we are, but without a stronger midfield it won't be possible to really challenge consistently.

‘English people should actually express more exceptionalism’ is certainly a take.