The Round Ball Game - II

[Lat-Literal]

I hope we'll see Marcus Rashford in the 2nd half soon....Bright start, but after that.... where have Kane and Stering gone in the last 20 minutes?
Lingard seems to be our only striker... Kane should have had a pen, by way of VAR or not...

Hi Jayne - My feeling at 66 minutes is that I genuinely love the small c conservative politeness that Southgate has encouraged - and he himself, tax questions aside, is again genuinely a credit to those of us who enjoy decency and good presentation : mostly I like him - but they need to get more stroppy on the right side of reasonable in regard to any obvious refereeing corruption. I think I understand why Spurs believed so much in Trippier they cashed in on Walker. And I know you are a Liverpool fan but I'd probably have Dier in for Henderson on this performance. Also, probably at a push Cahill for Maguire. People can argue on positional nuances if they wish. And I'm not totally convinced by Jose M's resurrection of Ashley Young.

Other than that, I'm very satisfied.

(I so love the word "any" - it gets past any Caliban firewall so daintily)

Ooh....goal : now they all need to pile into the penalty area and do nothing but invite a blatant awarding of a penalty.

[Lat-Literal]

…...Well done England. What I really like about Harry Kane is that he is a 1966 character or even earlier. I do think, though, that Europe and South America need to look outside their box and accept that the money that exchanges hands is pure fantasy and nothing about talent or comparative value. In that sense, it is highly symbolic of global capitalism in the round.

[jayne lee wilson]

PHEW!
We struggled, we laboured, Harry Kane was literally manhandled, where was VAR? Etc.... but we made it! As Gary Neville often says, there's no better way to win a game than the late late show....it sends everyone, and sends us into exhilaration...

Yes Rashford did make a difference, and an important one; he adds considerable strength on the ball over Sterling's sometimes brittle skills, which latter tend to lead him up too many defensive cul-de-sacs... Marcus should start next time.
Loftus-Cheek too probably. But I'd keep Henderson in for his vision and more positive-minded midfield generalship over Dier, not just because I'm a Liverpool fan. He always has his head up, looking to pick out the player with the right pass, long or short...good long-range ball-striker too. He had a good game tonight.

[DracoM]

Henderson must have been tearing his hair out at the callow purposelessness and lack of energy and direction around him.
If it's going to be like this...........I mean how England are going to play...........blimey..........

[teamsaint]

Henderson must have been tearing his hair out at the callow purposelessness and lack of energy and direction around him.
If it's going to be like this...........I mean how England are going to play...........blimey..........

Well this squad has some strengths and more limitations. We have an abundance of reasonably talented attackers who have the ability to open teams up. Trouble is that against Tunisia or anybody better, you are going to need a lot of nouse, in the absence of a world class passer in midfield. So credit to Southgate for setting up the team to its strengths. There wont be many sides with a better player than Rashford on the bench, and for my money he has a better football brain than Sterling. But perhaps Sterling's pace to drain the legs of the defence, and Rashford to come on and open them up will be the pattern.
The limitations of the defence will be tested more thoroughly later on, so they had better learn fast, because they all have a lot to learn. Walker making an error is always a possibility being played out of his usual position.
To do well, England have to eliminate unforced errors, and keep the belief that they have a goal in them. Hope Alli is fit for the later stages, because he offers something different, but he too needs to keep learning about how to handle himself in big pressure situations.

Calmer finishing, and refs who can see a judo fall/throw /whatever its called right under their nose will help too.....

I thought they played well, and dealt well with a new kind of pressure .

Oh yes....Kane. What a player he is. I saw him at SMS 18 months ago, in a game where both teams played well, be he was head and shoulders above everybody else in a tight game. You just knew what would happen...and sure as eggs is eggs, he engineered a chance and won the game. Would have been easy to put that header wide tonight, or down the keepers throat........
Love watching players like that who get everything from their ability.

[Lat-Literal]

I am celebrating this victory for my late Auntie Doll who was much maligned but effectively looked after my Nan in the tower block long after my parents had left their reason to be here to dominate their kid for an eternity. She died just one year after my lovely Nan - 70 to her 92. Probably the strain of it all as she lived a clean life and was very partial to apples. We got on well. She was exceedingly blunt but never put my back up. In fact, she liked me and I liked her. And I always knew that she was deaf although she had a splendid set of teeth but I really hadn't realised until this year that she only had one eye. She never spoke about any of it.

Anyhow, Dolly always wore a headscarf and for this I loved her dearly. English women don't do this now unless they are Muslim and living in the north. So I think it is about time that English women wore headscarves again because they are cool and it would enable them to join forces with their British Muslim women counterparts. It wouldn't be for a charity. It would be the voice of the downtrodden and the rather wonderful. This, I feel, is what Southgate at his best is inadvertently creating for English nationalism and it's all for the better in my view. I trust men with long noses. There are too few around - and I have a very equivalent one myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA3btKkbZpU

[BBMmk2]

Not a bad match, but that English player who fouled that Tunisian in our penalty area was a fool! Also the Tunisian player that blatantly pushed a Harry Kane to the floor, should’ve been booked! The ref was biased too!

[johncorrigan]

The ref was biased too!

Not half as biased as the commentator and Martin Keown on the Beeb...infuriating display by them completely uninterested in the opposition - I lasted half an hour and then had to switch them off. Still think, as I said before, that England have goals in their team...Sterling looked pretty poor, what I saw - Kane, a real predator!

[BBMmk2]

Overall the games haven’t been all that inspiring. Even the best one so far, the Portugal v Spain. The only reason that was anything was by the fantastic inspirational leadership of. Christiano Rohnaldo.

[johncorrigan]

Overall the games haven’t been all that inspiring. Even the best one so far, the Portugal v Spain. The only reason that was anything was by the fantastic inspirational leadership of. Christiano Rohnaldo.

I really enjoyed Mexico/Germany, Bbm. A lot of really good footie in there, I thought.

[teamsaint]

I really enjoyed Mexico/Germany, Bbm. A lot of really good footie in there, I thought.

Generally a pretty decent first round I thought.
From glimpses today, the second round of games needs to buck its ideas up.

[Lat-Literal]

Have dropped Talksport again with the return of their grim adverts. Was surprised to find a lively commentary on 5L with Alistair Bruce-Ball doing an Adrian Durham and Chris Sutton as a Mike Parry. A lot of stats and interesting asides on the Russian equivalents to our adages*, not dissimilar from the range in cricket commentary. A lot of positive comment too for Iran, ie "nice to see so many women supporters from Iran" - and the hosts Russia which would have been refreshing for the supporters of those teams in Britain as well as the unprejudiced.

Elsewhere, it appears that the Foreign Secretary has not stopped an element of nutters travelling as well as having earlier fuelled tensions by comparing Putin with Hitler. There are rumours that Nazi signs were being made by people with confused minds after the last match. I assess that Southgate has not dislocated his shoulder during jogging, as reported, so that his celebrations in any future England victory will be muted. Rather, his shoulder just aches a bit and he's agreed with FCO to manage the reactions of trouble makers by example.

One disappointing thing - you can't have the 5 Live commentary on with the ITV pictures as for some reason there is a significant time delay in the latter - at a guess, it's 30 seconds.

As for the game:

*
Spain didn't have the wool pulled over their eyes or the noodles hung from their ears as our Russian friends say but Iran did so well that their goat almost got into the vegetable garden.

[teamsaint]

Well there you go. The Germans do it the hard way. After a pretty poor first half, that was powerful stuff , even without Ozil, with the pressure on to get a win. Have to say they deserved it in the end.
However, they look a mess at the back, Four chances for Sweden in the first half from no pressure tells its own story.

Pretty good world cup so far, IMO, plenty of entertaining and tense games, and excellent goals. VAR seems no more reliable than relying on the match officials, sadly. Pity they didnt trial it properly.

[Lat-Literal]

Not a good day for England what with that Belgium win via that most awful prima donna Hazard and the slightly overrated Lukaku; the fallout with the press on the team sheet : the fault here was on both sides; the news that Panama have the heaviest player in the competition and are likely to hack pieces out of Harry Kane; and the Germany win. We shouldn't be too surprised about the latter but somehow I always am because they tend to be the exception to the rule. Which is to say that most countries that go through have the best music.

[Constantbee]

[QUOTE=teamsaint;684981] Pretty good world cup so far, IMO, plenty of entertaining and tense games, and excellent goals. /QUOTE]

Goal of the tournament so far Kroos at 90+5"? Early days yet, though. Looking forward to seeing whether pool sessions with inflatable unicorns can pull off a win against Panama tomorrow.