Though he lost I thought the best player was Hazard. He was let down by Lukaku and De Bruyne. Mbappe looks fantastic too though. If they get their tactics sorted this France team could dominate like Spain did 10 years ago. Only weak link is Giroud and they have the talent to replace him easily.

That's basically my assessment. If you had a combined England France XI only Kane and Tripper would get in it. The rest all French players and by absolutelu miles too. It's a real shame that tactically Deschamps is so conservative as off the leash that is some team. If we make it through to the final I guess we'll just have to go in defensive and hope to get something from a set play. If we attack them on the front foot they will absolutely crucify us on the break.

I'd take Belgium too. Fantastic forwards but we're setup to handle them better than Frances midfield. Henderson, Alli and Lingard against Kante, Pogba and Matuidi. Gulp...

Player for player there is not much between us, but if anyone shades it it's Croatia. Theres about a 50/50 chance they'll knock us out. That's a fair assessment in my book. It's a very even game.

I respectfully disagree. That Argentina were crap was indeed a significant factor, but also a significant factor was the back three allowing Persic and Rebic to absolutely annihilate their centrebacks in the channels, while loads of room was also afforded to Modric and Rakitic in front of the defence. I do agree Southgate is likely to stick with the same team. I just think the Croats will have a big advantage with the way they line up.

Tactically Croatia are very very tricky for us. The only play one up, pack the midfield, have great talent in there. Theyre perfectly set up to disrupt our 532/352. They absolutely battered Argentina's three at the back. Conversely they struggled against Russia and Denmark's flat back fours .... If we had more time changing to 442 or 4231 would make sense. The current 532 gives them an extra two men in midfield which could be lethal... and I don't think we really get any advantage from our system to be honest. The oppo playing 451 is our kryptonite I think. Very tricky situation for Southgate with so little time to change things. My guess is he will stick with our current system, but get Sterling to drop off and pick up Modric when we don't have the ball, and brief Alli and Lingard to drop in tight alongside Henderson when we are defending. When we have the ball we should have the luxury to play out through Maguire and Walker who will have a huge amount of space with only Manzukic up front for Croatia. Should be a very open game, as I think both sides will see offence as the best form of defence. Got a feeling we might well be under the kosh for long periods. Edit - the more I think about it the more I think Southgate might do a Martinez and suprise everyone and change the system. He must know Croatia are perfectly set up to hurt us, so he may have a plan B. Maybe go 4231? Not sure we really have the personnel for it though... -----------------------Pickford Trippier-----Stones----Maguire----Young ------------------Delph---Henderson ------Sterling---------Alli-------------Lingard ------------------------Kane

Well all I can say is Alli, Young and Lingard hardly put a foot wrong yesterday. Player for player it was a weak Sweden team but they put Italy and Netherlands out and ran Germany very close. I think the only reasonable question is do we have better players to swap them out for, and I would say definitely not for Lingard and Alli. Maybe for Young and Sterling. Will France or Belgium have a better midfield than us if we reach the final? Absolutely. Enormously better. But since we don't actually have any superior players to put in ahead of Alli and Lingard then I wouldn't fret too much about it.

For me Lingard is a certain starter. Hes a critical part of the team with his running and passing. I don't understand this stick he gets at all. Hes a top player. Alli has the goal now so definitely will keep his place imo. The expectation will be with a bit more fitness now and confidence from the goal we should see an uptick in his performances. Certainly there is little on the bench you could argue is better than him. Young and Sterling are interesting ones as we do have other good options to bring in. That said Young's delivery yesterday was excellent (Maguire scored from his corner), as was his covering down the left so he's not going to be dropped for Rose at this stage. Which leaves Sterling who is very frustrating. Throughout the tournament his running off the ball has been superb, and he's been solid dropping in and defending. But his final ball and finishing has been very very poor. He could have had a hat trick yesterday and a couple of assists, but they all came to nought. I think he will definitely play, Gareth has shown he wants to stick with the same team, and I guess the manager really rates his off the ball work. But if any of those four players were to be swapped out Raheem would be the one.

You could argue in Kane we've got a world class player like Croatia have Modric. Id say it is a very even game. They've got much more quality in midfield, we have better strikers (well, Kane) and defenders. Genuinely 50-50 in my opinion. Should be a cracker.

I think it's just being realistic. We are not a top team in terms of quality. Everyone on here still wants us to win, just being realistic about it.

I think putting Dier in is pretty much the only option we have to make us more solid. Comes down to not actually have a very good squad unfortunately. Shelvey could have done a job in that role. But its well off having the likes of Dembele to roll off the bench. Edit - actually Delph could drop in too. He's back from the UK after his wife gave birth. Hunk I would prefer him to Dier in the midfield as he is much more mobile.

The Alli, Sterling and Lingard numbers are appalling, didn't realise it was that bad! Needs to be addressed desperately. The one goal in four hours one is a bit daft. In the three hours before we scored eight! That's just cherry picking. Edit - I just checked the official stats. Lingard has actually had eight shots. Just only two on target. Which is somewhat a different message. Sterling has had 5. Alli has had a pathetic 3 in total! And Kane has only had 9. But he scored 6 of them! And three of them penalities. Shots on goal by out forward players does seem a significant issue even if not quite as bad as you made it sound!

Somewhere around zero I would say. Despite having a really quite good international goal scoring record. Maybe he's England's Klose but we will never find out because he never plays? Actually thinking about it we might give him a spin in the last 30 if Sweden defend deep as he is okay in the air. I'm just always confused by what type of stirker he actually is.

I think part of it is 1) Sterling's goal stats are terrible for someone playing striker 2) Rashford and Vardy present genuine alternative starters who have vastly better goal scoring record 3) while I personally think Sterling has done much better than he is made out to by many on here he hasn't ever had an excellent game for England. Lingard has. Alli has had quite a few good ones (seem a long time ago now). That gives you something to point to and warms the fans to you. All that said Southgate has stuck with him to this point and I can't see him being dropped. He's said from the outset that his picked a system and a team to fit that system. And he obviously feels that Sterling is the right man. So he's got at least one more game to prove the doubters wrong.

Don't agree on this at all. Vardys game is play on the shoulder, so every time he's been on the gap between our midfield and strikers expands hugely which is a major issue as we only have three mids. I'd put Rashford in ahead of him as he can drop off and link up too.

If you look at the squads on paper we really should beat Sweden. Colombia are a considerably better team in my book. Colombia have one superstar (luckily out injured against us) and four or five high quality Champions League players. I genuinely thought Colombia could send us out even if we played to our best ability if they turned up. On the other hand Sweden have zero super stars and zero regular Champions League players. Obviously theyve had a great tournament and are very astute tactically but in the cold light of day we really should beat them or something has gone wrong. No disrespect to Sweden meant at all, they've had some cracking players in the past, and we'll have to play at our best to not get beaten like Germany, Switzerland Mexico before. But if we do play at our best we should win because of the gap in quality. But again same was true against Iceland two years ago, so let's not count our chickens...

Agree that Walker is not convincing, we don't seem to be getting the benfits of his recovery pace or overlap in attack . Plus his passing range seems limited. Arguably we could move Dier in there. More composed, and will pass his way out like Stones and Maguire. Not quick though if we get caught on the break. Jones and Cahill both just don't have the quality on the ball to slot in.

For what it's worth I though first half we played okay, moved well and passed okay, and improved sligtly in the second half. We controlled he game without ever looking very threatening. No shots on target as others have said. The Colombian two centre backs were superb, kept on clearing or just getting their heads on the final ball in. Must have denied Maguire 3 times. Then last 10 mins and first half of extra time it was all Colombia. I genuinely thought we were out. Rashford coming on made a difference and we got back in control. But couldn't score and then never thought we would win on penalties ever. On Colombians being dirty, they were disgraceful. But Young could easily have had a red card for going over the top of the ball. We didn't cover ourselves in glory. Quite a few of our players lost their cool. Sweden are the sort of team we typically succeed against. But we will see.

England look like theyre in the headlights now. Terrified. Not sure whats the answer is. I think Rashford would have been a better sub than Vardy. Vardy just looks isolated and doesn't link up.

Not sure where you are coming from on that. Belgium I understand, they are a few rungs above us in terms of quality, but we easily have players that Japan or Russia have. It's about showing the same tactical nous and intensity as they did in their games.

I thought Hoddle did a good job for England too. I was talking being a top club manager through winning club trophies. Don't really think Venables falls in that category. One FA Cup with Spurs and one La Liga with Barca. Bobby Robson is a good shout. He won the league all over Europe (Holland, Spain, Portugal). Less successful in England though - but got an FA Cup and UEFA cup with Ipswich. Looking at this list is quite interesting. You have to go back to Bob Paisley to find a dominant English manager. Why did he never get the job? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_football_championship-winning_managers

Big problem though is England have not produced a top manager since Clough. So who would you appoint? We've gone down the tried and tested route with Capello and Eriksson with mediocre results. Both were supposed to have a golden generation at their disposal (I would quibble with that, but anyway..) If you look around, top club managers do not dominate international football. Many successful international managers have little or poor club experience. Joachim Low was a relatively untested club manager who took over Germany simply because Klinsmann left and he was part of the setup. Very similar to Southgate. What I like about Southgate is that 1) he knows his best side, 2) put a lot of thought into how we are tactically set up , building an innovative system designed to get the best out of a bluntly average squad - really no mean feat 3) is positive without over confidence in his interactions with the press. I reckon England have a roughly 40% chance of losing tonight. Player for player we are only slightly better than Colombia. It's the manner of how we play I am most interested in. If we are intense, give everything, intelligently change tactics to respond to the flow of the game, but get beat by quality from James or another top player, I wouldn't be against him staying on. The mentality of sacking and starting again really hasn't got us anywhere. If theres a top candidate we can point to and say "bring him in!" that's different. But there isn't. We would only appoint someone else you are deflated by. I suppose we could go out and offer the job to Zinedine Zidane. He's just won 3 European Cups. Would you want him in charge? I suspect you would be on here banging on about how he isn't English and doesn't care.

Sounds about right to me!

Fabulous performance by Japan. Totally gutted for them. Belgium ultimately won that not by being better footballers, but just by being bigger and faster. I think Colombia will have watched that game and Denmark Vs Croatia and concluded the way forward against wing backs is to come out very aggressively and pin our wide players. Ulimately Belgium needed to find a plan B (bring Fellanni on). We don't have a plan B I think. So let's hope plan A works

Japan very impressive. But don't think they will be able to keep it up. Belgium have the players to get them eventually. See it finishing very similar to the Mexico vs Brazil game.