World Cup : Group G (Eng, Bel, Pan, Tun)

[Brumerican]

2 hours ago, Xela said:

Rashford to start against Panama please. Much better than Sterling

Rashford is ridiculously better than Sterling.

The amount of bad decisions Sterling makes is criminal.

Loftus Cheek is better than Lingard too.

[Wainy316]

2 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Limping over the line against Tunisia - We're going to win the World Cup!!

On that basis just give Russia the trophy now then.

[Wainy316]

2 hours ago, VILLAMARV said:

First time we've scored 2 goals in a game at the world cup since the 2-2 draw with Sweden under Sven (2006)

Wow! 

[Wainy316]

1 hour ago, PompeyVillan said:

I think Harry Kane is the best out and out, orthodox striker in the world. 

I think he's the only one.  Apart from Scott Hogan.

[VillaChris]

2 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

One of my pet hates in football.

You could say the same about the end of the game. Kane scored in injury time. Yet the ref blew up on exactly 4 minutes of injury time played. The celebrations for the goal must have taken at least a minute.

Not sure if you ever watch La Liga Steve but refs in that league would send you over the edge. Saw many a game last season when 3 minutes would be given, the winning team would have a player faking injury for 90 seconds and Ref would still blow right on 93.00.

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, PompeyVillan said:

I think Harry Kane is the best out and out, orthodox striker in the world. 

As in, a striker who stays mostly centrally, up front, holds up the ball, brings others into play and and scores goals. 

Could be the difference between England going out in the group stages and the knockout stages. 

Nah, honeslty, I think any country in the world would love him in their team. Strangely he strikes me as a German player in style. 

 

He had a Thomas Muller type of game tonight. Hardly involved in flow of game but scored.

[fifamad]

3 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Poor display against an awful team.

Rubbish. We could of been 3 or 4 up by half time. Also should of had 2 clear penalties. Very good first half performance and average second half but Tunisia never got a luck in, all they did was foul and time waste. 

[fifamad]

Deserved win but we certainly made work of it, doesn’t help when the ref seemed hell bent on Tunisia getting a point. Should of been 3 or 4 up by half time, really glad we got the 3 points though will give the lads plenty of confidence.

[MrDuck]

Read a couple of reports in the media here saying how good England looked, especially in the first half.

Then read this thread, and pretty much every one seems to think England were diabolical. Amazing how some people think we should just walk right over teams like Tunisia, as if they're a bunch of players who have only just been introduced to the game, rather than a well-drilled team who are one of the best in their federation, with a game plan to frustrate the opposition and not concede.

Any win at a World Cup is a good win. England have now eased the pressure on themselves, and know that beating Panama will leave them in the last 16 with a game to spare. What's not to like?

 

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

I really hope there is an explanation as to why VAR has awarded pens to every bloody nation at the WC so far but turn a blind eye to 2 blatant ones for us. They surely cant say they didnt see it with 18 different angles to see a defender with no eyes on the ball spear, and then sleeperhold Kane to the floor. 

And i wonder how many of those bugs got hoovered up by Kane during those 90 minutes. Good job really because Sterling looked like he was about to be eaten alive by the plague

[MrDuck]

Lovely article by Lukaku here...

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/romelu-lukaku-ive-got-some-things-to-say

Quote

But we have to back up for a minute. Because at the start of the season, I was barely playing for the Anderlecht U-19s. The coach had me coming off the bench. I’m like, “How the hell am I going to sign a pro contract on my 16th birthday if I’m still on the bench for the U-19s?”

So I made a bet with our coach.

I told him, “I’ll guarantee you something. If you actually play me, I’m going to score 25 goals by December.”

He laughed. He literally laughed at me.

I said, “Let’s make a bet then.”

He said, “O.K., but if you don’t score 25 by December, you’re going to the bench.”

I said, “Fine, but if I win, you’re going to clean all the minivans that take the players home from training.”

He said, “O.K., it’s a deal.”

I said, “And one more thing. You have to make pancakes for us every day.”

He said, “O.K., fine.”

That was the dumbest bet that man ever made.

I had 25 by November. We were eating pancakes before Christmas, bro.

Let that be a lesson. You don’t play around with a boy who’s hungry!

 

[rodders0223]

6 hours ago, MrDuck said:

Read a couple of reports in the media here saying how good England looked, especially in the first half.

Then read this thread, and pretty much every one seems to think England were diabolical. Amazing how some people think we should just walk right over teams like Tunisia, as if they're a bunch of players who have only just been introduced to the game, rather than a well-drilled team who are one of the best in their federation, with a game plan to frustrate the opposition and not concede.

Any win at a World Cup is a good win. England have now eased the pressure on themselves, and know that beating Panama will leave them in the last 16 with a game to spare. What's not to like?

 

Same, i haven't seen us play with that pace and zip for a long long time. I was impressed, another day we would have took our chances and been out of sight.

I saw enough to be positive and see us developing further. I think I will leave this tournament just disappointed and saddened when we fail instead of being absolutely **** livid.

[Stevo985]

8 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Not sure if you ever watch La Liga Steve but refs in that league would send you over the edge. Saw many a game last season when 3 minutes would be given, the winning team would have a player faking injury for 90 seconds and Ref would still blow right on 93.00.

It happens here too.

I've told this story before on here, a couple of times.

There was a time, I think it was in our relegation season. We were a goal down, I can't remember who against but I THINK the keeper for the opposition was Pantillimon. I might be wrong.
Anyway, 4 minutes injury time was given. We fouled one of their players in their area. Their keeper put the ball down to take it and just wasted time. Ages passed. Eventually the ref blew his whistle, went over, booked the keeper for time wasting. Keeper protests blah blah blah. Eventually he takes the free kick again, takes ages and eventually takes it by booting it up the field.

I went back and checked and a full 90 seconds had passed from the free kick being given to it being taken. The ref even signalled that he was adding the time on.

The clock strikes 94 minutes and the full time whistle goes.

Don't get me wrong, we wouldn't have equalised anyway. but it is infuriating that this kind of thing isn't properly enforced. There's so any little gamesmanship things in football that would be wiped out with simple rules being put in place or simply enforced.

 

Substitutions is another one. Players taking a minute to walk off the field. All they have to do is make a rule where you can make a sub whenever you want, but the game continues. Play doesn't stop for a sub. They'd soon be running off the pitch is that was the case.

 

Anyway, I'm miles off topic.

ME AND ME MUM AND ME DAD AND ME GRAN-

Edited June 19, 2018 by Stevo985

[HanoiVillan]

I assume it's at least partly down to the needs of TV. 

[StefanAVFC]

11 hours ago, PompeyVillan said:

I think Harry Kane is the best out and out, orthodox striker in the world. 

As in, a striker who stays mostly centrally, up front, holds up the ball, brings others into play and and scores goals. 

Could be the difference between England going out in the group stages and the knockout stages. 

Nah, honeslty, I think any country in the world would love him in their team. Strangely he strikes me as a German player in style. 

 

Lewandowski for me

[Dr_Pangloss]

Kane is definitely better than Lewandowski. If Kane played in that Bayern team he'd be hitting 50 goals a season. I think Kane could well end up with 5-6 goals in this world cup, no reason why, for instance, he couldn't hit a hattrick or more against Panama. Could be an Oleg Salenko moment for him.

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

 

Don't get me wrong, we wouldn't have equalised anyway. but it is infuriating that this kind of thing isn't properly enforced. There's so any little gamesmanship things in football that would be wiped out with simple rules being put in place or simply enforced.

There was a proposal by some stupid FIFA thinktank a while ago about making loads of changes to the rules, and one of them was to change it to two 30 minute halves, with the clock stopping when the ball isn't in play. they reasoned that an hour is about as long as the ball is in play during an average match.

I don't think much of the proposal, but if that number is anywhere near accurate, it really does take the piss. A third of the game gets wasted with stoppages, and yet usually no more than about 4-5 minutes per game is added on. 

[Zatman]

1 minute ago, Davkaus said:

There was a proposal by some stupid FIFA thinktank a while ago about making loads of changes to the rules, and one of them was to change it to two 30 minute halves, with the clock stopping when the ball isn't in play. they reasoned that an hour is about as long as the ball is in play during an average match.

I don't think much of the proposal, but if that number is anywhere near accurate, it really does take the piss. A third of the game gets wasted with stoppages, and yet usually no more than about 4-5 minutes per game is added on. 

Sky used put a stat up at half time about ball in play and was usually around 23-26 minutes

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, Davkaus said:

There was a proposal by some stupid FIFA thinktank a while ago about making loads of changes to the rules, and one of them was to change it to two 30 minute halves, with the clock stopping when the ball isn't in play. they reasoned that an hour is about as long as the ball is in play during an average match.

I don't think much of the proposal, but if that number is anywhere near accurate, it really does take the piss. A third of the game gets wasted with stoppages, and yet usually no more than about 4-5 minutes per game is added on. 

I think there is an underlying fear in football about change. it's why Video technology has taken so long to come in.

You don't get it with other sports. They just see something that needs changing and they change it. Football talk about it for decades and eventually do something.

That 30 minute suggestions is probably a good idea. But I can't see it happening because nobody will want to change things.

[VillaChris]

Apparently it's a directive from Uefa/Fifa to add on minimal number of injury time to limit the risk of big decision having to be made.

They basically don't want a repeat of the scenes at end of Real Madrid/Juventus game when penalty was awarded in 94th minute and whole Juve team just flipped.

Less injury time = less time for controversial decisions.