You can almost be certain that England will ultimately get screwed by VAR when it really matters and we'll be able to add it to all the other stuff, hand of God, dodgy sendings off, disallowed goals, moving penalty spots etc. I've got no confidence in it whatsoever. It seems it's open to 'whoever is behind the curtain' being able to pick and chose incidents in order to influence the outcome of the game. I also wonder about the camera angles. In the game yesterday when the penalty was rightfully given to Iceland - the view shown to the referee at pitch side wasn't even the most obvious one. I mean come on, at least give him the best angle and close up that we all saw on the TV straight away.

In many respects a defeat for Serbia wasn't that much worse than a draw, as they would still need to beat Brazil to be sure of progressing. Though as I said in my previous post, the 'big boys' are continuing their business as expected . . .

After all the huff and puff of the minnows the World cup is already starting to feel very familiar, with the usual suspects (those expected to qualify from the groups) shifting into position . . . . A Switzerland win tonight and Germany tomorrow and it will look like business as usual. Only the group of death was hard to call from the start - with just group whipping boys Japan throwing a bit of a fly in the ointment for Colombia. . . helped by the penalty and early sending off. Not many of the big teams do hit the ground running with amazing performances- notably World Cup Winners Spain losing their first game in 2010 - I even read that Germany (West) won the World Cup back in the day after losing in the group 8-3. Yes EIGHT! Time to sober up . . .the big boys are all going through. . .

With 3 Jennings in the team it might have been possible. ?

Did nobody hear about the latest WC conspiracy . . .? Odds out to 33-1 then a flood of money on The Argies. That was an amazing bet, anything can happen in the knock out rounds, France are average at best . . .Jesus! - Much better than putting money on Leicester City, for the Prem, lol.

The man from Rosario he say Yeah! ?

Ronnie gets a lot of stick, but Neymar is seriously up there in the who is the biggest @#/? table.

This game is one of the ones I have penned in to 'not definitely watch all of it'.

Another one jumping on the over reaction bandwagon. ? Iceland aren't going to score many goals and a crap Nigeria side are going to feel the wrath come the last group game.

I fancy Argentina to beat France in the knock-out stage.

Ah, the infamous. England Algeria Slovenia Yanks

Probably one of the best examples of politics and football always being hand in glove. BBC 2 at 11:15pm (BST UK): The Great Game. A look back at the World Cup match from France '98, which during the build-up was considered one of the most politically charged fixtures in history. Behind the scenes, officials had to contend with an alleged Al-qaeda terror plot, an attempted sabotage of the contest by an anti-Iranian government group, and an intervention by Iran's Supreme Leader 20 years ago already. ?Scary stuff.

The whole of Argentina just became Nigeria fans (for 1 game at least). Get your money on Argentina to qualify. Messi can still be king yet. . . Anything other than an easy win for Iceland (unlikely) makes Argentina favourites for 2nd spot.

Game of the tournament so far. ? Seeing the fat drug cheat and The Argies doing their usual dirty tricks brought all the memories back. 6-0 would have been a more just score. Though unbelievably they could still easily qualify.

Beckham sent off against the Argies for much less than that face kick. That could be the bar that keeps Argentina in the competition.

Croatia dark horses.

Like England's will be ?

I heard a rumour that Donkey Murphy is on the BBC stream. Can anyone confirm or deny?

Regarding the fans it looks like a lot of the other countries are massively supported (a lot from countries we are told are 'poor'). Yet there are hardly any England fans over in Russia. Is this all part of the 'big lie' and in fact it's England that is one of these poverty stricken countries (often known as rip off Britain)? Is it all Theresa May's fault for screwing the people over and playing her part in trying to cause trouble with Russia? The mind boggles. Now onto the game . . . lol . . . . .

France could go far in this tournament. They are stodgy and lucky - heaven help anyone that plays them if any of their stars start showing a bit of magic too.

I think the future expansion of the tournament is to assure that teams like Italy and Holland don't miss out.

I forgot to cancel my subscription. There were far too many problems for a paid service last year . . . .

A lot of the 'minnows' seem to be able to play some pretty football, but their finishing is appalling (as we also saw yesterday). So far France are definitely no.1 in the raggiest team in the tournament table. A very dubious VAR penalty and 2 lucky deflections.

But they've already lost to Denmark. Plus France are one of the main VAR teams.

Lancs staring down the barrel. The relegation fight is well and truly on.