World Cup 2018 | 11th July | SF: Croatia vs England Match Thread, KO 19:00 (BST)

BluessinceHydeRoad said:
I'm going to sound like just another City fan praising our lads and criticising everyone else but that's not how I mean to sound... I thought we were comfortably on top in the first half. The key for me was that Raheem used his pace to make Lovren's life a misery. This meant Modric and Rakitic tended to drop deeper than they wished and the link between them and the Croatia attack simply didn't exist. Our midfield was at least energetic and Young and Trippier could push up at will. After our goal we were full of confidence and , had Harry Kane rolled the ball to Raheem, we would have led 2-0 and all may have been different.

The second half was completely different and showed up the limitations of this England team at this level. Croatia were much more positive from the start and showed real ability to get the ball and keep it. At the same time our midfield had real difficulty in getting the ball and found it even more difficult to keep it. Henderson is simply not good enough to take on Modric and Rakitic and both Lingard and Delle really struggled, largely because Trippier and Young were now being driven back. Trippier was, it seems, fighting a losing battle with injury: Young gets by against the quality of opposition we faced when he can go forward but he really struggles when forced to defend. Croatia ran the midfield and were always able to progress down the flanks. Raheem got no service at all apart from hopeful long balls which he could have done nothing with even if he could have controlled them and Harry Kane moved back into midfield more and more. We were not only toothless but almost nonexistent up front.

Now we saw Southgate's deficiencies as coach. To my mind it was midfield which needed "repair" so that Kane could get back up front and Sterling would again have the ball to put ptessure on their central defence. But Southgate seemed to think Raheem was the problem and thus made what he thought was a "like for like" substitution with only 15 minutes left. Rashford cut an isolated and frustrated figure who had no effect on the game at all. Replacing Young with Rose was a change which needed making but was left far, far too late. Dier replaced Henderson when we probably needed both earlier and could have used Delph, especially as Trippier was completely spent/injured. Vardy for Walker was the heroic/desperate substitution managers tend to make, but was of no practical benefit because it was too late and we had already decided to put our faith in hoofball by then.
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Quoting this for nail being hit on head.
 
BluessinceHydeRoad said:
So, why weren't we? And matches are 90 or 120 minutes long in the knock out stages of the world cup, and it has to be said they were the thickness of a post from winning it in normal time. But none of it matters now.
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We were the thickness of a post away from going 2-0 up in the first half.
 
I see the Croation coach has now backed up Modric saying that England players and especially the media were arrogant in their dismissal of Croatia, and were already in the final, even have a song about it !
There is some truth in this and could have been the extra motivation Croatia needed to win the game, on top of having better midfield players.
England seem now to have fallen in love with the new young team but must beware of doing this again in the next Euro's and World Cup.
The media have been overboard about Englands chances after coming 2nd in a very easy group.
I think Southgate tried very much to be humble but the media let him down, stirred everybody up and all the 3 Lions 'its coming home' shit started again.
 
BigOscar said:
They were better, as they showed as the game went on as they completely strangled us. We got off to a great start and it rattled them, that was our chance, to get a second while they were trying to regain their composure. But we didn't take those chances, they regrouped and then just dominated us and badly exposed our teams lack of a midfield and some of our players lack of composure when the pressure increased.
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Sometimes it really is that simple.

2-0 at half-time and it's a different game.
 
There's a lot to look forward to now with the National team, we have a lot of young lads coming through who will be early 20's by the time the next wc comes around. I don't think Southgate will be afraid to give them a chance either.
 
SpiritofBurnden said:
Yeh, the enthusiastic bastards, how dare they?
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Well I get what your saying but it can backfire on you.
Also puts pressure on the team to perform
It started so well for England, nobody expected much..........then the English media started all the usual bollocks, winding everybody up.
 
I think people are going a bit over the top. We have made a bit of progress, sure, but we are a long way from being a top-class international side, for all the press talk of "heroes" and "lions". We were a hair's breadth (or a post's breadth) from going out v Colombia, and what would have been said then? Two wins in a poor group?
I see it quoted today that in Gareth's last 13 games, England have scored 4 - yes, 4 - goals from inside the area in open play.
We can't rely on Kane's penalties for ever, or defenders' headers from set pieces.
Let's keep a sense of proportion.A decent run, given very favourable opposition.
And not "heroes". Look at the Thai cave rescue, for heroes, including the lads as well.
 
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