DE.

Considering the FA's recent record I'd be worried if Southgate does go. I think he's quite limited tactically, and that's one of the reasons we almost always lose against elite opposition, but he's clearly excellent at player management and I think he gets how international management in general works. His flaws could be balanced out by more technically minded backroom staff. I mean, when you look at the record of appointments post-Hoddle it makes for pretty grim reading. Keegan - managed a year, knocked out in the Euro 2000 group stages Sven - can at best be described as having an average tenure, marred by scandals McClaren - Disaster Capello - Awful Roy - Pretty pathetic Allardyce - Managed a single match before getting himself into a scandal So yeah... not a great track record. They got lucky with Southgate.

Problem is you can't really have it both ways where Mowbray made 'exceptional' signings and was a solid on-field manager, as if this was the case he wouldn't have led us on regular death spirals (for example 2 wins out of 17). Exceptional signings combined with a decent let alone good manager would be finishing top six. The fact we never did under Mowbray (the league table at Christmas doesn't count) suggests either his signings weren't particularly exceptional, or they were but the manager was a bit rubbish at the most important thing - results on the pitch. On Buckley, didn't he recently sign a 5 year deal? Would be strange if we let him go anywhere, Sunderland or otherwise.

They can give up any hope of that happening.

Travis' value must be going in a negative direction as well - not to mention Buckley and Dack.

Been a good effort from Morocco, but they needed to score in those first 20 minutes of the second half where they were in control. Just don't quite have the quality up top to capitalise on some excellent attacking play. A good effort, much better than Croatia mustered against Argentina at least.

Yeah... I was over the England result by the day after. Disappointing but never mind, maybe next time. Meanwhile I'm still holding some major resentment over the Burnley and Preston performances. I suppose it's different for everyone though. There were a couple on here who outright said in the Burnley match thread the result and performance didn't bother them at all, which is hard for me to understand, but maybe for others it'd be hard for them to understand why I was over England going out of the WC by the next day.

I think JDT has just been luckier than TM in terms of his possession football getting results. Performance wise there's been no improvement. A few decent games but even during TM's possession season we had some okay performances. I imagine there will be little to choose between either manager or season in the end. For JDT to make this work long-term he needs more cash than Venky's will be able or willing to provide. With that being the case this entire project is pointless and everybody involved is wasting their time, whilst getting paid handsomely to do so (fans excepted, obviously, we're paying for the privilege).

What a disappointing semi final. Messi brilliant, but Croatia out of their depth. Hopefully Morocco give France a game, another lop-sided semi final result would be a shame.

Problem is Croatia are desperately boring to watch. They've done well to grind their way to the semis but they've only managed to score more than one goal in a single match in the tournament (4-1 Vs Canada). Argentina Vs Brazil would have been a much more entertaining semi. As funny as it was seeing Brazil dumped out, in reality it was to the detriment of the tournament.

Lol, get used to that fellas.

I'd be surprised if Southgate goes anywhere. He'll know he's got a pretty nice spot as England manager, and as far as the FA are concerned he's the perfect person for the role. Inoffensive, great for PR, never causes any bother and might even get us to a semi or a final if we can avoid the big nations most of the way through.

I'm sure I remember us being favourites or second favourites for Euro 2020, and our odds would hardly have been set as rank outsiders for WC 2018 or WC 2022 either. There's no need to talk ourselves down. We're up there in odds for every tournament because we have excellent players across the pitch, on balance equal if not more so than the vast majority of our opponents. Southgate staying on wouldn't bother me too much, but it should also be recognised that few managers who win nothing at international level at top nations stay on for more than three tournaments.

Open play only! I suppose you could argue the penalty decision came from open play... but then all set pieces do.

If you mean when Maguire's effort scraped the outside of the post... sure. Ultimately France gifted us two penalties. You can't ask for much more than that. Still, no shame in going out to France. It is what it is. We still just don't have the mentality to go all the way.

I remember one superb save from Lloris, what were the others?

Once again England choke when it really matters. Still can't beat a nation of similar stature. Kane's horrendous penalty will be a defining moment of his international career, unfortunately, whilst Southgate currently slots into the long line of managers who couldn't get England over the line when it really mattered. He's had three big chances at WC 2018, Euro 2020 and WC 2022 to take that step and it just hasn't happened. He'll probably have another crack at the next Euros and World Cup, but he still hasn't been able to solve the problem of us bottling it against teams on par with us in terms of talent and reputation. France weren't even that good tonight, yet we rarely threatened them from open play. Morocco will give them a game. A Morocco/Croatia final would be quite appropriate considering the below average performances of most of the big nations/favourites in this tournament.

Wow. Totally lost his nerve.

Got to be another penalty.

That's really disappointing. As soon as France put any pressure on at all we completely fall apart defensively. For all the focus on Mbappe, he hasn't really been a factor tonight.

Incredible achievement for Morocco. Whichever of us and France goes through tonight, a semi final against the Moroccans will be very tough.

Honestly, taking our performances so far this season into account, and assuming it doesn't improve much, 12th would be a very good position to finish in.

As will many others tbf. We're still 3rd.... We're still 4th.... We're still 5th.... We're still 6th.... Only a point off 6th... Only two points off 6th... Only three points off 6th... Couple of wins and we're right back in the mix... Don't think the collapse will be as bad as last season, but we'll finish some way off 6th by the end of the season. That much is obvious from our performances, regardless of where we currently sit in the league.

I wonder if we'll hear an apology from JDT today? He should have given one after our no-show against Burnley, he needs to give one after also allowing us to be humiliated 4-1 at home by fucking Preston.

Remember when we were going to use the WC break to drill the players in how to play JDT's style? If this is it we're in for a fucking miserable few months.

Feels like the result against Burnley could be the start of a nasty downward spiral. Considering how utterly abject we've been under JDT in well over half of the games he's managed us it's somewhat inevitable this would happen eventually. Just a shame it had to start with Burnley and Preston specifically.