enigmatic

tbf I'm more upset that most of the other wonderkids I remember are old fogey pundits or managers

Anyone else reckon @Rob1981 did an Adebayor-style knee slide when he realised it was Hendo that got the goal

Senegal really, really needed half time to come earlier. Well coached side that only conceded two goals in the whole of their AFCON goal, but they went completely ragged after we got that goal.

Still think it's the opposite. No practised exit strategy or designated link men so they all kind of hang around their positions whilst the centre backs and Rice look confused by their lack of options, and when Saka eventually does come back he promptly gives it away because no system. That goal was all spontaneity too...

It's the opposite, it's undercoached, like about 95% of international sides that don't play like top club sides even though their players are all that level Mostly on the players ahead for offering no off the ball movement. Dribblers need to come deeper and make Senegal's defensive decision making difficult, as well as our playing out the back options better Although if they do come back they need to not give the ball away there ...

tbh there's a lot of keepers a lot less decorated than both that either I'd trust more to be consistent

Think he's built an entire reputation off a couple of important shotstopping performances in that tournament and not being Kepa, Say what you like about other commentators, you do the feeling they watched a game of football before getting the job

FIFA man gotta FIFA Hope whoever wins it has their rainbow T-shirts for the celebrations.

He's also much more of a threat when the opposition is playing a high line or leaving gaps on the counter (or if they're utterly rubbish). Suspect Senegal will be tight and well organised at the back; good defence won them the AFCON Think at best you have to say Eriksson deserves all the criticism Gareth gets for playing awkward tactical shapes and selections and being knocked out by the first decent team we played. Just happened to be earlier in knockouts, with a more balanced set of players to choose from. Comes down to international tournaments being hard to win and luck playing massive parts in it, golden generation or no golden generation, but we got closer with both of Southgate's attempts tbf, one of the biggest problems with that generation is it was kludged into a 442 or diamond even though (apart from Beckham) it didn't really suit any of the players. So you had Gerrard and Lampard in a midfield 2, and a role for the very limited Heskey because you couldn't possibly have your skilful players with great movement playing around your little man, they had to sit deep and hit the target man. At least our current awkward back 3 was created to cope with a squad that was on paper poor everywhere except up front but especially in defence in Gareth's first tournament and returned to because it worked, not because the manager didn't do other shapes.

Main thing is newgens particularly developed too quickly and too well in earlier versions. Pendulum has swung the other way now

I see the case for a left back with Chilwell out (but we're definitely not taking both Robinson and Davies) Think there's a space for a keeper too, since Pope's not great with his feet and we do play with a sweeper keeper. How's Turner's distribution?

Probably not coincidence they lost the game they expected to win and beat the teams who expected to beat them Think they're well equipped to give Croatia a good game though.

tbf, the memes with Lampard as VAR doing the rounds on socials are great

I'd put good money on someone else winning the game - quite possibly at the first attempt - not convincing the person that had 38 attempts that it might have been their tactics I'm still longing for the day when someone comes in here complaining that the developers rigged it so they won a game against a better side that had all the better chances because they got an own goal and the opposition got cards, and asking whether they should save/reload the game so they can lose it as expected... (I was pretty annoyed that City decided not to play Haaland against me in the FA Cup final tbf. Fix, I tell you!)

The point I was making is that if the tolerance is only for people who actually are offside, any remotely sensible match official should just flag everything remotely close and let the technology decide. Who wants to be the guy whose error overrules the technology, especially when they're making the decision from 50 yards away in real time and a few million other people are watching it it zoomed in on superslomo, when putting their flag up always ensures the correct decision is made (There are obvious downsides to the tolerance not being one way only too...) I'm suggesting it won't be any more satisfying waiting to see if someone who in replays is clearly offside by more than the width of their boot gets away with it or not, possibly by a margin as slender as 1mm. Especially since a lineman's call obviously won't eliminate the possibility of a player being given offside (or onside) by 1mm either. Only way you're going to eliminate 1mm calls is to eliminate the tech (or the offside rule) altogether. 1mm tolerance unless the linesman doesn't flag in which case it leaps to large enough to be really obvious in replays isn't an improvement And frankly refs at this World Cup seem to be having trouble with the bits of the offside law that aren't objective but have very clear guidelines like the interfering with play rule. Not sure why we'd want to add to their power to screw things up and be wildly inconsistent by letting them randomly overrule technology that's 100% correct.

Made me laugh when they talked about nobody could have seen this happen. Have they not seen Japan have a proper good go at big European sides before? Always a chance they had enough energy and technique to give Spain a good game if they did OK at the back, especially considering Spain were already qualified for the next round

What if someone is 9.9cm onside and gets flagged? If we're letting those go, shouldn't assistants in games with the tech just flag absolutely everything to get final decisions which are actually accurate? (10cm is a worse margin than 10mm too. On a replays it's big enough to often be really obvious the person is offside and the linesman got it wrong not flagging and then we're waiting to see if they were 10.1cm offside or 9.9cm so the goal gets given. Makes drawing lines somewhere ambiguous on the shoulder look sensible. At least with cricket balls halfway across a bail on ball tracker is that they never actually reach that position, it's just a machine guessing to compare with the umpire guessing. For the actual objective factual stuff, snicko is far higher precision than anything in football.)

What's worse than being 1mm away from being onside? Being onside by 9mm but still being 1mm away from being "onside" Cricket has umpire's call because the technology is predictive and so actually isn't necessarily right about small margins (and it's even reasonable to believe elite umpires are sometimes able to see things in the ball movement off the specific pitch and player reaction that the tech isn't equipped to understand). On the other hand this tech is correct about the position of the sensors, whereas linesmen are just guessing margins they almost certainly can't see, so having them overrule the tech isn't making things better. They get to have their "call" overrule the tech on the stuff it can't judge (no, that player wasn't trying to play the ball, no that keeper couldn't have been impeded by that player) instead, although I wish they'd do it more because I've seen a few decisions already where the ref has gone to the monitor, agreed that a player was in an offside position but apparently forgotten stuff like this not mattering if the opponent headed a clearance to them... Lukaku would like a 10mm margin for error with the post

tbf I've been saying this for a while. Just do feet: works at levels of football without VAR, easier to spot when you're standing at the side of the pitch and players are in a bundle, much clearer on the replay and actually makes more sense. Plus players don't get routinely penalised if the ball strikes their foot Half time filler. Although highlights of the Welsh tournament could probably fill the five seconds whilst someone takes a throw in...

That's actually a better argument than the one John Barnes made...

It's a straight swap for text which used to say "complacent" and just means the substitute is not very focused or motivated, probably because they're coming on when the game is already won Not a very good change tbh though....

Haven't worked out whether that Leckie goal is more brilliant work by the striker to give himself a bit of space to get the shot in or shocking defending.

It was an interesting decision too. Offside player wasn't challenging for the ball or affecting any opponents at all, defender intentionally played the ball because an onside player was challenging for it Feels like the semi-automated bit of the new system is match officials making it up as they go along.

That seems suspiciously like a popular opinion tbh, Rice being the sort of water carrier that only players and managers get excited about and having had his rare bad game against the USA, and perception of Phillips being improved by him not playing in that game Realistically much as everyone loves moaning about it they work particularly well together. - Jeez, people moan about Gareth's interviews and Rob Page is describing a first half in which they had no touches in the opposition box and two wildly off target shots in a must-win game as a source of national pride and what they came to do! At least after they conceded they looked like they realised England were actually possible to score against.

Think Rashford read this thread at half time