joey_big_nose

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.

I'm not counting on anything. Yesterday I assumed both Croatia and Spain would get easy wins but quite the opposite happened. Its would be keeping for this world cup if Japan and Mexico end up going through. Do think Brazil have too much quality though, and they - unlike Spain - will attack relentlessly. Belgium seems the likelier slip up. But then they are very adaptable. If Japan defend ultra deep they can start pumping it into the box for Lukaku.

Both Spain and Croatia very tactically poor tonight. Outrageous really when you consider the wealth of talent each side has. What a bizarre world cup. All the most talented teams are having stinkers, except Brazil, Belgium and France. Spain needed to get the ball into the box far more often, while Croatia lost their midfield shape totally in the second half. Croatia scraped through but I don't fancy them against the Russians who will defend even better than the Danes did. Never thought I would say that. It is looking very tempting for England as the one thing we do have if we end up playing a ultra defensive side like Russia is Harry Kane to get the ball into. And we're also pretty good at set pieces. So we could make it happen against the likes of Sweden or Russia. That said we have to negotiate a tough opponent in Colombia first.

If I was a Spanish fan I would be livid. All that quality on the pitch but tactically Spain were poor. Kept on with the same ineffective patterns right up until the las.t ten minutes. Game like that where the opposition is so deep you need to get the ball into the box, ideally with two strikers in there. Instead they kept on playing on front of the Russian defence. Taking Costa off as early as he did seemed very strange to me. If they go out they've got themselves to blame.

I read up on Wikipedia and youre right - Xhaka, Behrami and Shakiri were all born in the the former yugoslavia. Plus the squad has a further six or so players born in Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia, so all ex Yugoslavs.

I think those Swiss players like xhaka and Shakiri are Albanian, so would not actually have been from the former yugoslavia area. Anyhow agree both Croatia and Serbia are good teams, plus you would have Dzeko from Bosnia in there too. But its not a new thing - yugoslavian national football team was a big beast of international football. Made two European championship finals, finished third and fourth at the world cup, and won gold and three silvers at the Olympics. Great pedigree.

Yup them and Croatia really shoe that being a small nation doesn't need to be a hindrance.

I think that's all fair. We are miles off the standard of players that Brazil, Spain, France and Belgium have, and lack the kind of individual quality of Croatia or Uruguay, but we're competitive against anyone else who got through. The target remains the quarter finals. That's a good tournament.

For me today has really emphasised that France and Brazil are the teams to beat. France blew Argentina away, and while Uruguay are fantastically organised and very effective on the break they lack creative quality and the ability to control games. Not sorry Portugal and Argentina are out. Neither of them should have got out of the group stage.

Hey look, I'm not saying we don't have a chance. Just that in any particular game it's 50-50 against the likes of Colombia, and maybe 25-75 against us when we play one of the big hitters like Brazil, Spain or France. Of course we can win it - a poor Portugal team and Greece (!!) both won the Euros. It's just probability wise pretty low.

I genuinely don't think he is. Expectations are low, he's got a poor selection of players. As long as we aren't embarrassed he'll get another two years easy. The FA have done the merry go round of managers. From their perspective it's better just to stick with what they have. There's no indication spending she'd loads on a fancy manager (plus the payoffs when you sack them) actually helps you win anything .

Yes, Trippier, Kane, Lingard and Alli would have all made a huge difference. But then you do have to temper that with Belgium were not playing Hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku... If anyone was losing quality Belgium were losing a lot more of it....!

Could say the same about us and Kane...

It's coming home till we play someone decent. Think to be brutally honest it's a 50-50 against Colombia. Player for player they are a similar team to us in terms of quality. Theyve got one world class player like us, three or four genuinely decent players like us, and a lot of triers like us. Can't really see how we go in expecting to win. Should be a good game though.

Pickford, Stones, Cahill, Jones, Alexander-Arnold, Rose, Dier, Delph, Loftus-Cheek, Vardy, Rashford Big game for Rose and Radford to stake a claim. Everyone else probably won't retain their place even if they have stormers.

Disappointed by that. Who stays in? Sterling to get a goal, Pickford as he's the keeper and maybe Stones?

Have to agree. It should be a draw. You could still have first seeds and seconds seeds based on finishing position to mean that there is an advantage to finishing first in the group, but just not have it all mapped out. Also means extra excitement for a draw each round.

I know mathematically it's not complicated, but team spirit, self respect, the respect of the supporters and momentum will all take a significant hit if we deliberately throw the game. Also Belgium are the first really decent team Southgates side has played competitively. Probably first England have played full stop since Uruguay in 2014. They need to establish their credentials to themselves, let alone anyone else. Not really the time to bugger about. I'll be very surprised if we don't go to try and win the game.

Is it unkind of me to suggest the reaction of the German players ,and the thousands of German fans in the stands, was a third superb reason? I'll never say a bad word about VAR again.