Smallen

Still plenty in this for Morocco despite the nightmare start. France are suspect at the back and protecting the back four.

****, I'd forgotten all about that bit . What a catastrophic shitfest that was. Souness was actually insane.

The 1st of December. I didn't switch over to the Germany/Costa Rica game so I don't know how bad that was, but it was Spain vs Japan where the punditry was especially bad. The commentators and then the pundits (particularly Neville and Souness) all ****** themselves silly over Spain and how they were going to win the world cup despite them spending 45 minutes passing it between their midfield and defence and going in just 1-0 up against a really bad Japan performance. Souness in particular at half time said something like "why can't the England national team play like this? ". It was just silly. Japan of course came out and scored a couple of goals in the second half whilst Spain didn't even have a shot for 40 minutes. Meanwhile the pundits all acted shocked and wondered how on earth it had happened . There was loads of other stuff too. It was the worst I've ever seen/heard and the bar was incredibly low to start with.

They are the people who have decided Sam Matterface is an adequate lead commentator for years so…

some of ITV's punditry has been absolutely surreal. I'd expect better from Wright normally as well.

Good video from JLA here

very true! But I think given the choice he’d definitely prefer you to be tight so he can do exactly what he did for the third goal.

I did call it to be fair . Very aggressive and wants to get tight which is fine against 99.99% of attackers, but it’s exactly what Messi will have wanted him to do.

Gvardiol 😳😳😳

If Liverpool don’t sign him they’re nuts.

yeah, those best centre back in the world claims about Gvardiol are being ripped up in front of our eyes here. He’s all over the place.

He should’ve gotten to the ball earlier, or not gone into the challenge.

Not ITV with the embarrassing punditry again

There’s no shame in it but Messi is giving Gvardiol the runaround here.

I think it was a pen. He goes to challenge and gets there way too late.

should not be allowed to leave the middle third of the field

If Messi can drag Gvardiol out like he just did there, then there’s loads of space in behind for De Paul. Gvardiol is mega but he seems very aggressive on my limited viewing of him.

I reckon Croatia win this one quite easily. There will be a lot of space for their midfield.

Tuesday 13th December Argentina 1-3 Croatia --- Bonuses The total number of goals across all the games - 6 The total number of goals scored in the first half - 2 The total number of goals scored in the second half - 4 The total number of goals scored after 90 minutes - 0 The total number of hattricks - 0 The number of games going to extra time - 0 The number of games going to penalties - 0 The total number of penalties scored (including those in normal game play) - 1 The team which scores the fastest goal - Croatia The team which scores the last goal - Morocco The time of the first goal - 8 mins The time of the last goal - 75 mins The scorer of the first goal - Andrej Kramaric The scorer of the last goal - Sofiane Boufal The total number of yellow cards - 14 The total number of red cards - 2 The total number of substitutions across all games - 18

I'm waiting for team news because I'm Taking It Seriously

His best quality is that he’s a decent human being with a degree of intelligence. That’s why we can write Lampard and Gerrard off straight away!

Yeah. I do think Southgate could do with someone in addition to Steve Holland, mind. They’re great at getting the initial setup right for games, but they have shown that they’re limited when it comes to changing a game. The only criticism I have from the France game were the subs.

I don’t even think there are any foreign coaches we could get that would be “better” than Southgate. Even if they’re a better coach there’s a trade off that they aren’t going to be as good at man management and/or getting the nation and press behind the team. Tuchel? I thought people hated negative football with a back 5? Pochettino probably, but I don’t think that’s realistic. I hope Southgate stays.

I was indifferent when we appointed him and was questioning whether he should still be in a job in January, yeah. I was wrong!

Ironically in part thanks to the likes of Guardiola and Klopp's influence on English football I think we are starting to produce much better coaches already (Howe and Potter being the two current standouts I think). Howe in charge of England and we win a trophy playing unbelievable football that the world has never seen before. Not a doubt in my mind. Unfortunately the best coaches are workaholics and aren't likely to move into international football. They live for the training pitch. It'll be a while until we have someone who's a step-up from Southgate.