I was just about to go out . . .but . . Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!

Who is operating the VR?

VAR penalty? WTF? I thought he should have booked the guy for diving.

One big problem with the World Cup is that someone dislikeable always wins in the end. ?

It's often better to get the foreign stream on. The Russians often just show highlights at half-time and I've seen Spanish ones where they just put the news on. It's you that's paying extra for all the inane pundit waffle at the end of the day.

And simply finished at 24. ?

France is looking like a 4-niller so far. 5 shots in not much more than 5 minutes. Hope the keeper can stay strong and Oz can make a game of it.

If only Rooney had the same drive. England could have done so much better.

It makes one wonder if anyone could be the manager. I mean, that Bolton lad took over a few days ago and seems to have more of a clue than managers that have been there for years. Look at Southgate for example, he still doesn't know his best team - it would seemingly make little difference whether he was appointed one and a half years ago or one and a half days ago.

Isn't Jennings playing V Australia in the one day series? That would mean, 2 potential openers with a combined average of 12 (tailender stuff). Oh dear. Though at least Worcestershire don't have Moen Ali.

That was such a good game. Yet it's quite possibly because both teams almost certainly know they will qualify as they have 2 minnows to play, so they didn't have the same 'fear of losing' that bores us to death in the majority of supposed big games.

Looking good for Portugal and Spain so far.

Possibly good news for Russia, depending on how you look at it.

I thought they might have given Mo Salah a run out. Egypt could sneak this one 1-0. Though I guess they don't want him to get cropped by the 'dirty' Uruguayans.

Danny Cademarteri ? I seem to recall one time this youngster was touted as the next big thing. I remember him being raved about on MOTD. Yet another one to add to a pretty substantial list of youngsters whose 'bad attitude' seemingly helped in their decline. Perhaps Samson like, the hair-cut sapped him off his remaining skill.

Though the good news is that Hampshire and Worcestershire don't look up to much either.

They are all easy groups for the 2 that qualify. Besides, Saudi Arabia are better than Russia according to FIFA. ? It's no mean feat to beat a better team 5-0. When was the last time England did that at the World Cup Finals? I just have memories of us struggling past the might of Trinidad & Tobago etc. Furthermore, when the World Cup is extended it will just mean a load more toss the minnow games that are hardly worth watching.

Is this a football or a betting competition?

I hearby present England's best contribution to the World Cup. It's all downhill from here. ?

I was just saying that. It will essentially become another boring qualifying round of beating the minnow.

GET IN!

Imagine Theresa May addressing the crowd in England - she'd probably get boooed!

Basically touched upon what most of us know. We need 6-8 new players to be competitive in the right half of the table. But as most teams in the Championship are pretty loaded and the Venkys are basically stingebags who seemingly still think we can win the CL and sign Neymar on a shoe-string (or simply don't care) we will get outbid with regards to transfer fees and wages by the majority of other clubs. So it's gonna be difficult. We'll have to hope the players that we've got improve and hope to get lucky with some cheap unknowns or decent loan signings. That's where we are at.

Darius Vassell Porting one over from the World Cup thread. He seemed to be good at one point. I remember he scored an overhead kick goal for England back when friendlies meant a bit more. Then he missed that penalty in Euro 2004 and became another to vanish from the England team at a very young age.