Rashford isn't and don't think he ever has been a Man United reject. He had a spell where he had no confidence but the ability has always been there. He came into this tournament in great form.
Well, I think England did a pretty good job of navigating what was, on paper, a tricky group. On to Senegal on Sunday!
Dominated whole game. Clinical second half. We looked like a Premier League team pinging it around. All the subs looked great too; particularly Phillips and TAA.
Hendo did well, but moving forward a midfield three of Bellingham, Rice, and Phillips would be excellent.
To be honest with you, Tom, the results were pretty much as I expected. We never seem to play well against the US whereas I think Iran have managed to surpruse a few people unlike Wales who crashed and bruned as many anticipated. If anything, the thrashing of Iran by England demonstrates how good we have been - i think that Iran have exceeded expectations.
Henderson was sloppy and gave the ball away a lot. Not his fault really, he was being played too far forward. He is a sitting midfielder so not fair to expect him to operate as an attacking 8.
Games at 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm has been absolutely nuts but I've loved it! But the intensity of the knockout stages is brilliant. Can't wait for the weekend!
It seems incredibly obvious that we're too defensive but we've just scored the most we've ever scored in a group stage of a tournament. Football is weird.
Defensive to me means ten men behind the ball, very deep, parking the bus, etc. England are playing just two CBs, and we are as high up as you can get. Wales couldn’t get into our half. What we do is dictate the pace of the game, slow it down. It has been very successful for Southgate. He realizes that every team - no matter how good - is vulnerable if they don’t control the pace of the game. When the opposition attacks us, as soon as we win the ball, we slow the game down. That gives the oppo no chance to build momentum. They go back to square one. It’s not the most exciting to watch, but it is pretty ruthless. We are like Germany of the 90s.
I don't disagree with any of that but often we slow the game to a point where we struggle to get our own attack moving effectively. We then become far too easy to defend against and (against the better sides ie Italy/Croatia) struggle to gain momentum back ourselves. I've always stuck up for Southgate and still back him of course, he's absolutely spot on that solid teams always win tournaments too. But there's a balance to be had and at some point to win this tournament we'll have to take a risk or 2 and I'm not sure he's got it in him. A quarter final exit to France seems odds on (not there's any disgrace in that!) We're defensive in the sense that we often have a "Don't lose" mentality over a wining one, which while it has undoubtedly worked for us in recent years I don't believe it will win us a tournament with this group of players.
