Rammy03

1 hour ago, Bris Vegas said:

I’d rather Spain go through. Morocco would be a more difficult opponent.

If it came to it I think England would beat either of them

37 minutes ago, JoetheRam said:

He's probably referring to comments such as the one that says:

"Can't drive, can't swim and now can't add up".

Rather than something like "Maths lesson for Eni!", which lets face it is the sort of thing Souness would have got if it was his mistake.

Those comments are an extreme minority, it's as if he's trying to tar everyone with the same brush.

What's it got to do with her being a woman? She made a mistake and people are having a laugh about it. Lighten up Ian. People do this all the time. Are you not aware of how people take the piss out of Michael Owen's punditry.

10 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Brazil looking quite handy vs South Korea. 

They haven't played anyone yet...

You can get at France but they have some serious fire power up front

26 minutes ago, Srg said:

The whole bbc studio were at full mast watching Messi walk for 98% of the game against a championship calibre side. 

It's bizarre. We get it, he's one of the all time greats but they were fawning over him and that goal he scored as if it was something we had never seen before. Well I must have been missing something because if any other player scores that they don't bat an eyelid. 

31 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

Jesus. Danny Murphy wants Messi’s babies.

Nauseating and embarrasing 

2 minutes ago, therealhantsram said:

I think so too. Is that down to the opposition or the quality of the team... Time will tell.

So called better sides have slipped up against worse teams. England have done a good job so far. 

1 minute ago, therealhantsram said:

The only unbeaten teams left in the World Cup...

England, Netherlands and... wait for it... Morrocco.

What a World Cup this is.

England have been the best side in the group stages

No team has managed to win all their games and get 9 points. Very interesting

On 29/11/2022 at 13:42, RadioactiveWaste said:

If duff decisions were the price of the fluid and spontaneous game we all loved, it was a price worth paying.

 

And we still get duff decisions. Only now it's worse because they look at a million replays. You get people sitting behind a screen changing the on field decision. You will never get everything right. It just won't happen, no matter what you do because it's subjective. That's football. VAR is just making the game a complete farce.

Morocco 2-0. As it stands they top the group with Croatia in second place. Increasingly looking like Belgium will have to win to go through.

Can't wait to see Belgium knocked out. Bunch of frauds who can't be arsed

7 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

If that was Bielik putting himself in the shop window lord knows what audience he's trying to attract. 

Why would he be putting himself in the shop window? He should be back here after Christmas helping us get out of League one

16 minutes ago, Blondest Goat said:

Everyone could see the game slipping away from England and Southgate did nothing to change it.  Same with the Euros final.

And I think that's fair criticism. However a lot of it has been completely over the top. We have no devine right to win anything. People have short memories. It wasn't long ago when we weren't even getting out of the groups and then getting beat by Iceland.

51 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

I disagree. It was such a frustrating game to watch. When England scored after 5 minutes, Southgate just tried to defend the lead for the rest of the match. We had the likes of Kane, Vardy, Sterling, Alli (when he was good) and Rashford. 

We didn't try to defend for the rest of the match. We dominated the first half and could have been at least 2 up. Second half they just grew into the game and took over. We never had the midfield players to control it, they did. It was frustrating I agree as you could just see the game slipping away from us. But I think it's harsh to put that all on Southgate.

And that is precisely why VAR is flawed. People sitting behind screens trying to justify their job. Getting involved far too much. With fouls it will always be subjective but that was an utter disgrace. These referees are a load of clowns. Something has to change.

3 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

England are very much like Spurs. Beat the lesser sides quite comfortably, but almost always lose against the best when it matters.

And of course go years without winning a trophy.

We need a scalp to get everyone believing. I think if we can beat France (assuming we meet in the 1/4) it will trigger genuine belief and confidence that we can win it.

A bit similar to Germany in the euros. Many people thought we would lose that but we didn't. It gave us confidence to go on and reach the final.

18 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Southgate has looked at past tournaments and identified that to progress through the group stages you should play defensively and cautiously. And as a result he has seen success in taking England further into tournaments than we have been used to.

His problem is he hasn't understood the amount of flair and talent you need to actually win tournaments. So he stifles his flair players, picks many more defenders than attackers, and then loses the key matches in the later stages, when you think if only he had unleashed the extraordinary attacking talent at his disposal, he could have overwhelmed the opposition.

But maybe he is learning his lessons and will change as we move towards the later stages? It is a shame he didn't take Tomori as the lack of pace he's imposed on himself at the back, means he's also tempted to play a back 5 to mitigate this. When a back 4 would allow him more attacking options. I believe in playing your best players wherever possible, and our better players are our attacking players. 

One of the questions people keep asking is "who plays with Kane?" I would ask the question "should Kane be a first pick?" Probably, but I think it needs to be asked.

Don't think there is too much wrong with Southgate's approach. He took us to a world cup semi final in 2018 when belief in the national team was at an all time low. And let's have it right, Croatia were just better than us at the time. They had better players than us. We were lining up with Henderson, Dele Alli, Lingard, Young in our midfield. We didn't have the fantastic attacking players we have now. We were inexperienced on the big stage and lacked big game players. Croatia had Modric, Rakitic, Mandzukic for example. It was just a step too far for us.

But things are different now. We were a penalty kick away from winning the euros. I believe we have the squad to win a major tournament. There are a group of teams that could win it and we are one of them. Let's see what happens.

On 28/11/2022 at 17:06, Loughborough Ram said:

Not a fan, and I find it hard to believe that he is a Paul Warne type of player.

Always struck me as a lazy player who played when it suited him. He never seemed to enjoy the game either, he played with the face of somebody that was being forced to play by somedy that had kidnapped his kids.

Add to that the fact that his flashes of quality were so few and far between, its a definite no thanks from me.

I liked him when he arrived and he showed some flashes of brilliance under Lampard but never kicked on after that. The way he left the club was also disappointing.

Might be a drab draw but it's a great chance to get into the fourth round

Into the third round, come on you rams 

GOOOAALLLLL SIIBBLLEYYY

1 minute ago, duncanjwitham said:

I think Nigel actually wanted us to play good football, he just went away from it far too quickly if results started going against us.  This seems to be what Warne wants us doing.

No I think Warne just has an unhealthy obsession with playing square pegs in round holes. As soon as he changed to a 442 we started picking up results. Gone back to a 5 and we look awful again. Football is a simple game.