The reaction in studio would have been massively different at 1-1. It was a poor 2nd half and Southgate seems wedded to his formation come what may.
My thoughts exactly. I'm prepared to be patient with Southgate and the team. I think we have a young team and coach that may be better prepared for 2022. Anything we achieve in this WC will be good experience and a bonus. But Southgate needs to be inspirational and be adaptable. Tonight he appeared to be neither.
I’m just glad Lawro didn’t get that game. Please BBC don’t give Lawrenson an England game. It’s hard enough watching already.
Better late than never! Well done Kane for leading by example despite some rough treatment from the opposition defenders which wasn't punished for some reason. Excellent 1st half - maybe not so convincing in the 2nd but a win is a win and not many teams have done that with ease so far.
England need to maintain Mexico’s mindset: “We play for the love of winning, not the fear of losing”. Oh, and Rashford must play.
Noticed that the Doucoure song has now been stolen and adapted as an England song - England fans singing it here at the end of this video from the crowd when Kane scored the winner: Were we the first club to use it as a footie song, or did we also pinch it from another club? As for the game - great start, ridiculous penalty given away and some very suspicious non VAR calls for the rugby tackles on Kane. Eventually the right team won, but we'll need to improve - although the same goes for Germany, Brazil, Argentina, France etc. And Belgium didn't look great against Panama - 3 quality goals papering over a disjointed performance.
Did anyone hear Gary Lineker genuinely say “Overall it was a pretty exceptional performance” at the end of the game? Gary it was Tunisia, we managed to labour to a win in the last couple of minutes after boring everyone to tears for the entire second half. There was literally nothing exceptional about it. Maybe he’s after a job with Sky?
Cant see why people are being negative? We didn’t really look troubled at all. I don’t understand the penalty looked to me like their player just did a bit of outrageous acting and we didn’t get penalties for players clearly bundled over Defence looked reasonable to me and we were good going forward. We fluffed a few chances but so what? Other teams miss too. Draw would have been a good start. Nicking a win is excellent England aren’t a top 10 world team people should stop expecting walk overs every game maybe then You’d enjoy it
if we can beat or draw with Panama then hopefully we can finish second in the group behind Belgium ( who we shouldn’t expect to beat - even if we manage to beat Panama) and progress. And I do mean progress, round of 16 is better than last time we turned up to this competition. We aren’t winning this year let’s all be sure of that but it’s good practice and experience for a young squad
I think you have gone too far the other way in terms of expectations. If we don’t beat Panama it would be a catastrophic result. Belgium will be favourites against us but there won’t be much in it with the bookies. We’d be favourites against our last 16 opponent I imagine. After that it’s hard to make a case for us against the teams we are likely to face in quarters I agree, but we aren’t just minnows making up the numbers.
It was boring but it was controlled well. The players didn't get involved in got for tat which is another positive. Plan B can be experimented with in Sunday I guess
Great result. Better teams than us have already stumbled, so getting an opening win is huge Pickford might as well have gone up front in the second half, and it was just a case of being patient.
Nope, course not. The Guardian actually did an article on it: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/nov/23/terrace-tunes-viral-source-september-chant
How does this guy get a gig? His stock phrase " We could knock the ball about a bit quicker" is the only thing he gets right in a game and is hardly a tactical insight, get more (successful) ex managers as pundits as they offer far more. You could almost sense the delight growing in the other guy's voice with the minutes ticking down so much so that he actually sounded a bit let down when we scored the winner. Could we have a 'Punch Screen' option on the red button for these commentators who want their catastrophic laments replayed at every world cup when they do their negative build up. Thought the guys in the studio though were ok unlike ITV who have someone who didn't even want to play for his country at a world cup, giving his verdict on games, with a face like thunder, work that one out. TV eh! Least VAR worked faultlessly As for us we played all right I reckon, we opened them up going forward, controlled the game far better than Brazil and Germany in their openers but looked iffy at the back. The rollercoaster is rolling.
I can't figure out the refereeing so far. Gamesmanship and spoiling fouls going unpunished, yellow cards for collisions, added on time a joke and I also can't work out why the rest of the world hasn't followed the Premier League and ditched stopping play because a player is down 'injured'.
Is there a new phrase I was unaware of introduced by Keown. “Compartments”. As in “Henderson shouldn’t have played that back he should have looked to go through the conpartments”. Given Henderson is midfield does that just mean pass to the strikers?
Did you not see that guy who got hit by the ball in the side? Some say they were time wasting but he could have been really hurt by that ball, let's hope that guy is ok today I think the ref yesterday would have stopped play if anyone asked him to, really thought that Tunisian was going to have a picnic in front of Trippier near the end and the Ref would be ok with it
Tournaments aren't won in the first game. I despise England for giving me so many false dawns over the years but with 2 anonymous players and 1 sh*te one on the pitch we still totally dominated the "best" African team here. Apart from the penalty, (which he almost saved), Pickford might as well have had a sit down in the stands. Whilst the 2nd half was definitely flatter there was a patience that impressed me. From what I've seen of other teams so far I honestly believe that if we can find the right combination of front players then we can at least make the semi finals. However, will Southgate have the balls to drop Sterling? I don't think he will.
Overall a solid performance and Tunisia parked the bus in the second half and were hard to break down. I would play Rashford instead of Sterling and Rose should get the nod in front of Young as the amount of times Young checked back onto his right foot and slowed down our attacks was poor, with Rose you would get the attack flowing more and balls pinged in faster which Kane would get more joy from. Obviously we should have had two or three penalties what with all the WWE moves going on, will Panama get a passport for Hulk Hogan to mark Kane?
Maybe I have, but catastrophic? Come on, give over, Panama got to the finals didn’t they? We aren’t a dominant world force anymore
It's a pity, but it seems to me Sterling is just one of those players doomed to never play anywhere near as well for England as he does for his club.
Something I'd like to add is that for such a "...young team...", (c) All UK Commentators, they exhibited quite a mature, measured and effective response to this tactic - something "we" failed to do against Iceland in the Euros.
The downside of England winning is seeing and listening to happy fans after the match. "Yes get in" "Yeah we are gonna go all the way to the final and lose to Brazil" "Yeah brilliant" and the requirement to show a pub with about 20 england fans all jumping up and down and shouting "Yes" when we score. When we know that if Kane's late header had gone wide we would have been "rubbish" "can't even beat a poor team like that" "Southgate doesn't know what he's doing""Sterling should spend less effort on his tats glorifying gun crime and more effort on the pitch" etc. If only there was a way we could win this and still see crushing tears in the eyes of the pondlife that follows the team. Sadly there isn't. Can't wait til this circus is over and we can get back to the desperate struggle to stay in the prem and debates over our Jan signings and whether 35 points is enough to stay up.
I do remember him tearing us a new one for City, but for England, he just runs straight into a brick wall every time. He doesn't try to go past players, or trick them, he just runs, full pelt into them. Did it several times yesterday.
It has never crossed my mind at a crucial moment of a football match to get out my phone and start filming, either myself or the action.
I wouldn't have even taken Danny Rose. He might be left footed, but he hasn't played all season, has no focus, can't defend and can't cross. Young put in two of the best crosses of the tournament so far, we scored one and Lingard messed up the other. Young has always cut inside and it works. Could easily assist once every match. Not sure why he gets so much stick...was the best left back in the league this season. I wouldn't change the side at all to be honest.
Exactly. He doesn't need to get to the byline - he is the best crosser in the league when he checks back and crosses with his right foot. I do worry about his temperment a bit though as he's got older. can see him getting himself sent off.
Exactly my thoughts but it seems to be a growing trend. There was a Chelsea fan at the Watford vs Chelsea game last season who filmed himself all. I always enjoy seeing a crowd go ballistic at a late goal though
Of all the teams, Panama and Saudi are really poor in my view. A long way behind the rest. Player for player we are vastly superior in each position so not winning that one would be a disaster I think.
I thought we played some really good football in the first half. We played at an excellent pace but this is difficult to keep up for the whole game and with Tunisia having no interest in going forward we had to be patient. Tunisia are not a bad team, a team we should beat but they were well organised in defence and played some good football at times. Some of the play acting was a joke though. Not sure why Ali stayed on for as long as he did as he was clearly injured and Sterling did what he normally does for England. I would start with Rashford but would also be tempted to play Vardy against Panama as his pace would surely be an asset against their defence. Finally, VAR. I thought it was a penalty against Walker even if it was very soft but it wasn't a howler of a decision so it shouldn't be changed. The two assaults against Kane I really don't get though. Does the ref have to ask for a review for VAR to be involved or can the people watching say to the ref that they want to have a look and he stops the game. If it's the referee alone then maybe he didn't see the incidents although not sure how but if the people watching can at least say to the ref you need to have a look then how did that not happen. In my view they total howlers which is what it is supposed to stop
I think it's both. The referee can ask if unsure or the VAR people can decide themselves to intervene. I think it's been used as advertised during the tournament so far but last night confused me. If the pundits were right and there was a FIFA directive to referees about penalty area grappling ahead of the World Cup I'm even more baffled how it was ignored. Though linos were also supposed to keep the flag down for tight offside calls. Yet in the second half Khazri broke through down the right for them and had a fair change of cutting back in on a stranded Pickford and getting a shot away until the offside flag went up. Replays of course showing the decision was completely wrong and he was onside. The point of that directive was to stop exactly that scenario happening.
