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

The huge concern is our midfield v theirs. Lingard and Alli will go gallivanting forward, and Modric and Rakitic will have acres of space to do as they please. Then all we have is Jordan Henderson. If we play our normal game, we lose. Southgate needs to tweak something.
 
Proy said:
Whilst it's nice to have a bit of euphoria back around the country, the reality is we haven't played anybody yet and it's been a pretty easy run into a semi-final.

This is a proper game now.

See what happens
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Can only beat the team in front of you. I think we stand a good chance. The Croatia players looked dead on their feet and only have 4 days to recover. If we can keep it tight and not give away any stupid goals then we could nick a couple on set pieces. Sterling will be key in winning us set pieces as their slow defence won't cope with him.
 
For me, this game is all about the midfield - if England can stifle Modric and Rakatic, they'll win. Otherwise, Croatia might well prevail.

Probably England advance to the finals - but this is probably going to be very close.
 
The Croatia midfield is much better than ours. I haven’t been impressed with Mandzukic at all though. He will no doubt score a hat trick on Wednesday.
 
citykev28 said:
See this keeps being said but he is there. He was also in the Champions league final. Simply wanting a player to be shit doesn’t make him shit.
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Hendo definitely deserves to be there and starting.
He will need some help against that Croatian midfield though...
 
We will be far too quick for Croatia. As good as Modric is, he can't do it all any more. Our defence is better than theirs and so are our options up front.

I
 
As others have probably said their midfield is their strong point, the smart thing for them to do would be to starve us of the ball and hope we make mistakes trying to win it back. Our defence so far looks stronger than theirs though and our attack slightly better. The first goal is key, whoever gets it wins the tie.
 
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