England v Croatia match thread

[foxes_rule1978]

8 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

We were decent for first 15 mins then Croatia settled and got hold of the ball. Great ball from Phillips, and run from Sterling, for the goal but I think a draw would have been a fair result tbf.

A draw, we hit the post… Sterling missed a couple of clear chances… croatia had the odd pop shot that caused no panic 

[HighPeakFox]

I think there's a danger of confirmation bias with attitudes towards Southgate, plus the standard matchday slagging of everything, which we regularly endure on our own match threads. It wasn't spectacular by any means, but I was mildly impressed/surprised, given how disengaged I am/have been with England.

 

Ultimately, a win is a win.

[tom27111]

 

 

Genuinely think Gary Neville is on drugs

Edited 13 June 2021 by tom27111

[Ric Flair]

15 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

We were decent for first 15 mins then Croatia settled and got hold of the ball. Great ball from Phillips, and run from Sterling, for the goal but I think a draw would have been a fair result tbf.

Foden hit the post, Kane misses from 2 yards and Sterling had another glorious chance.  There may have been other chances I've forgotten too, we were much the more dangerous in a very middle of the road performance. A solid start.

[foxes_rule1978]

Just now, Ric Flair said:

Foden hit the post, Kane misses from 2 yards and Sterling had another glorious chance.  There may have been other chances I've forgotten too, we were much the more dangerous in a very middle of the road performance. A solid start.

Exactly I can’t understand how anyone at all can claim croatia deserved anything from that. They were fully outplayed and tactical out thought today. They posed no real threat to our goal. 

[Ric Flair]

Just now, foxes_rule1978 said:

Exactly I can’t understand how anyone at all can claim croatia deserved anything from that. They were fully outplayed and tactical out thought today. They posed no real threat to our goal. 

Yeah, that's the worst Croatia performance I've seen against us in years. They were garbage.

[Col city fan]

Gotta be genuine here and say I’m not sure.

It was probably Kane’s most ineffective game in an England shirt. We made hardly any good chances but took one of them very well. 
And there was such a strange lull between c20 mins and when we scored.

On the positive side, we were solid as a rock defensively. But I’m not sure whether that was due to us playing well defensively or due to Croatia being incredibly poor? Even near the end when they needed to score, they were so slow in their build ups

Just had a chat with our kid about it and he said we just did what we needed to do (and in the past a game like that could have fizzled and out to nil nil). And he’s right I guess

But there seems to be universal agreement about how ‘great’ we were today, about a game where I checked the stats after about 50 mins and we’d had ONE shot (off target)

I just don’t think we can predict anything much after today’s game. It won’t be until we come across a really good team before we can really say how good we are with any authority

IMO

[ScrumpyJack]

19 minutes ago, kristianity77 said:

Sorry but what?  How is throwing everything at teams not sustainable when at most it's 7 games in a 28 day period?  These players are on the pitch  more often than that during a domestic season and with less chance of rotation.  

 

If we had spanked Croatia 3 nil playing the football Italy did I'd be thinking our prospects of going further in the tournament were better!

Have you watched football over the last year? The effect of playing every 4 days was very clear to see. Having an unrotated starting XI for every single of those matches would be madness. 
 

England should get into the knockout stages no problem, with a rational approach to rotation we will still have fresh legs throughout the squad. Big difference to England squads of the past that have relied on a largely unrotated set of players. 
 

Anyway, 100% Italy will not maintain that pressure and aggression throughout the tournament. By all means quote me on this in a few weeks.

[Ric Flair]

If you think Southgate has been bad for leaving his most in form and young creative players onnthe bench then look at Holland. Shocking!!!!

[Unabomber]

8 minutes ago, tom27111 said:

 

 

Genuinely think Gary Neville is on drugs

Wow what does Gareth have on Neville 

[Sharpe's Fox]

18 minutes ago, tom27111 said:

 

 

Genuinely think Gary Neville is on drugs

Southgate wouldn't get a managers job at Luton. He wouldn't deserve one, either. Neville is all over the place here.

[Ric Flair]

11 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Gotta be genuine here and say I’m not sure.

It was probably Kane’s most ineffective game in an England shirt. We made hardly any good chances but took one of them very well. 
And there was such a strange lull between c20 mins and when we scored.

On the positive side, we were solid as a rock defensively. But I’m not sure whether that was due to us playing well defensively or due to Croatia being incredibly poor? Even near the end when they needed to score, they were so slow in their build ups

Just had a chat with our kid about it and he said we just did what we needed to do (and in the past a game like that could have fizzled and out to nil nil). And he’s right I guess

But there seems to be universal agreement about how ‘great’ we were today, about a game where I checked the stats after about 50 mins and we’d had ONE shot (off target)

I just don’t think we can predict anything much after today’s game. It won’t be until we come across a really good team before we can really say how good we are with any authority

IMO

How many good chances count as creating many chances? I'd say Foden hitting the inside of the post, Sterling having a gaping goal, Kane having an open goal 2 yards out and a couple of other half chances as a bit more than " didn't create many good chances " 

 

I'd expect to win a game with 4 good chances like that.

[Col city fan]

6 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

How many good chances count as creating many chances? I'd say Foden hitting the inside of the post, Sterling having a gaping goal, Kane having an open goal 2 yards out and a couple of other half chances as a bit more than " didn't create many good chances " 

 

I'd expect to win a game with 4 good chances like that.

1 shot off target in 50 mins mate. Cmon 

[foxes_rule1978]

4 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

1 shot off target in 50 mins mate. Cmon 

And croatia didn’t create a single chance for the whole game. The fact is England controlled it and got a very much deserved win

[Col city fan]

2 minutes ago, foxes_rule1978 said:

And croatia didn’t create a single chance for the whole game. The fact is England controlled it and got a very much deserved win

That’s the debate mate. How much was it that we controlled it and how much of it was how bloody awful Croatia were? I’m not sure.

We did what we needed to do for sure but I’ll wait to see until we actually play someone good.

[Strokes]

10 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

That’s the debate mate. How much was it that we controlled it and how much of it was how bloody awful Croatia were? I’m not sure.

We did what we needed to do for sure but I’ll wait to see until we actually play someone good.

Scotland?

[shailen]

People need to get real. We weren't going to play to blitz Croatia, especially with the heat, but more pressing as Croatia are a very good side. We controlled that game from start to finish. It was very professional and it bodes well for games where we will play tougher opposition that we will be able to cope tactically. 

 

You win more football games by being able to control games then attempting to overpower teams. 

[Col city fan]

25 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Scotland?

Definitely not Scotland 

Scotland are bang average at International level and we’ve got punters both on here and much wider who are suggesting England could win this tournament.

We should smash the Scots, and stop bigging them up to be something they aren’t.

As I said before, if we can’t beat Scotland we don’t deserve to win the tournament.

Scotland btw are currently 200-1 to win the tournament 

Edited 13 June 2021 by Col city fan

[foxes_rule1978]

24 minutes ago, shailen said:

People need to get real. We weren't going to play to blitz Croatia, especially with the heat, but more pressing as Croatia are a very good side. We controlled that game from start to finish. It was very professional and it bodes well for games where we will play tougher opposition that we will be able to cope tactically. 

 

You win more football games by being able to control games then attempting to overpower teams. 

Not many games at a big tournament have I seen England handle so well. Today I just felt comfortable through out. Croatia have dangerous players they have some class and experience, it was a good performance from us to shut them out like we did. 

[turkish14]

6 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Definitely not Scotland 

Scotland are bang average at International level and we’ve got punters both on here and much wider who are suggesting England could win this tournament.

We should smash the Scots, and stop bigging them up to be something they aren’t.

As I said before, if we can’t beat Scotland we don’t deserve to win the tournament.

Scotland btw are currently 200-1 to win the tournament 

Man City only drew with WBA early this season, does that mean they didn’t deserve to win the league, as they should on paper be “smashing” WBA.

 

we have a better team than Scotland but to assume if we don’t win that game, that we then don’t deserve to win the tournament is pretty naive. 
 

spain lost their opening game if the 2008 euros, and went on to win it. 

[Chocolate Teapot]

5 minutes ago, foxes_rule1978 said:

Not many games at a big tournament have I seen England handle so well. Today I just felt comfortable through out. Croatia have dangerous players they have some class and experience, it was a good performance from us to shut them out like we did. 

Thought we looked pretty good, and this was without two of our more experienced heads. I'm warming to Southgate, largely because he couldn't give a **** what Barry from Birmingham thinks and doesn't buy hype. We all know he was right about Maddison.

[BoyJones]

3 minutes ago, foxes_rule1978 said:

Not many games at a big tournament have I seen England handle so well. Today I just felt comfortable through out. Croatia have dangerous players they have some class and experience, it was a good performance from us to shut them out like we did. 

Game plan was good and the team got the job done without too many scares. I was just sorry for Kane as we seemed to play with a false 8, 9 and 10, he was almost a passenger in the system we played. We didn’t have a Son type player to bring HK into the game, thereby not playing to Kane’s strengths; once Foden drifted out of the game, Kane should have been substituted earlier as 

 

Croatia are no mugs but thought they gave us too much respect, teams like France and Germany won’t so GS needs to make sure our more genuine world class players play a more integral part of the game instead of being wasted on the periphery. 
 

Obviously pleased with the result, but just wonder how we’ll cope with a team that overruns us and actually tries to win. 

[BenTheFox]

Reading some of the comments on here you wouldn't have thought that we'd just beaten a decent international side in the first game of the tournament.I'm not getting carried away, but I thought we did well and deserved to win the game, all things considered. 

[Royston.]

England the better side. Deserved win and now we can beat Scotland and throw the Czech match to get 2nd.

[foxes_rule1978]

1 minute ago, Royston. said:

England the better side. Deserved win and now we can beat Scotland and throw the Czech match to get 2nd.

Lol 😂 let’s not do that again, just keep a winning mentality going if we can, you have to play the best eventually maybe playing then early is better