First of all congratulations to Croatia. Three successive extra time games, for a small country with limited choice of players. They also came from behind and took their chances by alertness and speed. An object lesson to us on some of the qualities we don't have yet (resilience, 'game-management' and mental strength). We lacked a Tom Huddlestone last night, someone who could boss the centre circle and spray it around the pitch at will. Instead we got Henderson, a box to box midfielder who doesn't have the cunning or vision of his opponents at this level. I'm one of these know nowts who thinks Sterling was disappointing; don't get why he was subbed if he was playing so well. Were any of the opposing fullbacks subbed because they were knackered/ humiliated? Thought Vardy was very disappointing every time he came on- negligible impact. Overall. far better outcome than we could have hoped for and gives a shot in the arm to the game in this country in terms of realistic ambition in next Euros/WC. We could do without the hype/fickle fan crap though.
Let's all hope so and good for him coz none of the others who have won it will have had any luck whatsoever.
I predicted 1/4 finals for England, I expected the bigger teams to get through & they didn’t. So this became a great opportunity for England to progress to the Final & for 45 minutes we looked like it was going to happen. If Kane squares it to Sterling it’s 2-0, game over pretty much, but he didn’t & he hit the post with his second effort. It’s all in small amounts that we lost, Stones header cleared off the line is another. But these things happened. England lost, brought the country hope & made us all proud. The first 11 are very good IMO, but the rest, with the exception of 1 or 2 aren’t good enough. The one thing we must do is to build on this tournament & not go backwards. The press have built England up, they’re just waiting to knock us down again!
Back to the semi - overall we couldn't compete physically with Croatia although I tend to agree that at 2-0 down it would have been much harder for them to come back as I think Southgate would have changed our shape in the second half to a more defensive 4-4-2. Thought we over-performed in terms of expectations given the group's average age and ability - assisted by benevolent group and knock-out draws. Much to be proud of and to look forward to - we can only get stronger and better - including Southgate's journey as a manager. B+ for me too.
Despite us being younger and supposedly less tired after our easier run up to last night's game. Maybe they were mentally tougher and more battle-hardened. We looked very ragged after they went ahead and looked clueless in trying to create chances.
