World Cup 2018 Thread

Vive la France!

One thing I will say for this England team is that you get the impression they really are playing for each other and for the flag. So many great players at club level have looked average and uninterested at international level but for me this squad looks like they genuinely want to play for England and that club rivalries mean absolutely nothing when wearing the Three Lions.

Hopefully this is the first signs of life from the St. George's Park project, getting more of a club mentality into international football, players rooming with the same players, all age groups training and playing the same way. Between England's unfathomable success at Youth Level and World Cup Semi-Finals for both the mens and womens senior team, it looks like it is starting to pay dividends.

Hopefully we'll one day look back on this tournament as a 'Coming of Age' moment for our squad and they can take some belief into this mad Nations League thing and then the qualifiers and (hopefully) the Euros themselves. I'd very much want to see Southgate stay in charge as well, as I'm sure he will, because he exemplifies what this new England seems to be, not the best in the World but someone who'll give their all to the cause and will live and die by the teams performances.

That's my point, mate - we've not had any "great" players, with the majority of their club successes being down to a wealth of foreign talent, but that's still not changed.

Aside from Harry Kane, who himself is also supported by an array of foreign talent at Spurs, who else in today's England team is truly considered to be the main man at their club and envied by opposition fans? Name me one.

There lies the problem, for me anyway, and until we can start producing our own 'headliners' such as Hazard, Salah, Aguero, De Bruyne etc, we're always going to have a national side built from what I call 'supporting cast' players like Alli, Henderson, Dier, Lingard etc.

For every Deli Alli(who is nowhere near as good as some think he is), there's a Christian Eriksen.

We're nowhere near as good as we think we are. The problem isn't going to go away any time soon, though, because from the top-flight down, this country is swamped with foreign players - unfortunately, I think that it's now too far gone to be able to change it for the better.

While this World Cup ended ultimately in a damp squib for us, I do recognise the togetherness the effort and the pride in playing for their country, which was good to see.

I just don't think we were that good, but the players can't be blamed for that - the blame lies with the system that is producing these players.

I think the England squad should be commended for their efforts at this year's World Cup.

Say what you like about the quality of the opposition we faced, that bunch of lads reconnected a nation to the national team and gave it a damn good go - they won a penalty shootout much to our amazement, and were not far off reaching the final.

I think it's quite unfair to lay the disappointments and frustrations of the last few decades at their door. Even in the recent past, 'on paper' we have had much stronger sides. We've had the likes of Gerrard, Beckham, Lampard, Scholes, Owen, Ferdinand, Terry, Rooney etc. who came nowhere near a WC semi let alone a final. This time our boys gave it their all - they looked like they really wanted to play for the country and that is all you can ask.

We are all disappointed that we couldn't dispatch Croatia, who were very well drilled and more experienced than us. There's no doubt we lacked just that little touch of quality that the best teams have, but considering the limitations (and that sounds harsh but I can't think of a better word to describe it) of our squad, we did better than we could have imagined 6 weeks ago.

The important thing now is to build on that. Our team was very young, many of them haven't won much silverware in their professional career. They need to keep this feeling, this memory of what it was like to be so close to something so huge, and how much it hurts to fall short. It needs to be a source of motivation for them in the future, and something they can draw on in pressure situations. If this squad keeps developing, and youngsters such as Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ryan Sessegnon continue with their rate of development, perhaps, just maybe in the future we could have a team capable of going toe to toe with one of the footballing superpowers.

We are nowhere near yet, but I'm so pleased with how we have done in this WC. Well done Gareth, and to every player, your efforts were appreciated. It has been sadly too long since we could honestly say that.

Sorry guys, back on after a month.

I'm not English but for me the problem was Southgate's inflexibility and ineffectiveness with subs.
He had his team picked for the Tunisia game and wanted to play the same 11 every game (barring injuries) and it didn't matter how they performed. Nobody can tell me Dele Alli was there on merit.
When leading 1-0 v Croatia, it was clear it was only a matter of time before the Croats scored as they were running riot down England's left side. He should have made a sub after 55 or 60 minutes and rectified it. However he persisted and sure enough the goal came from a cross from the Croats right side.
Overall I was impressed by him leaving Rooney, Hart behind (the old guard) but he did'nt bring any creative midfielders with him (Wilshere, Lallana, etc) who could have made a difference.
Just my opinion.

Cheers Gaz, wife was quite ill, so we took some time away after she was discharged from hospital. I'm glad to be back, miss the site!

Cheers Dud, I think she is on the mend, the nagging's started.