Good to see Tomlinson scoring. Would like to see him in contention for the starting eleven this season

The second half side looks a lot more promising than the first.

Is it normal practice for Clubs to pay large bonuses simply for not being relegated? I'd have thought that should be taken as read and the bare minimum that should be expected. No wonder they're in trouble if That's what they've been doing. Bonuses for promotion or wage cut in the event of relegation maybe. But not bonuses for staying up!

He said it in the context of "certain games" to be fair.

That's about right. Like Tyrone I'm not convinced by Southgate and in devil's advocate mode we arguably haven't beaten anyone decent yet but that doesn't matter now. It was a pretty good performance yesterday and all that matters now is winning the next two games by hook or by crook regardless of performance. These players Don't want to be remembered as the team that blew the best chance ever of winning the trophy by going out to Croatia in the semi final or the guys that lost our first World Cup Final for 52 years.

Don't especially recall that. He has though made a point of saying that having an hour of Craig Conway plodding up and down the field is often better than these "flying wingers"!

That's the impression I get "Wouldn't be a starter" etc. More to the point I'm not sure why the player would want to come when he rarely got a start last time he was here and has already been told he Wouldn't be a starter if he came back. Of course TM might simply be trying to play down any interest to keep the fee down but I think he'd have to be telling the player another thing in private to what he's said in public.

Have to say Brazil going out makes the unthinkable even more plausible than before. Notwithstanding the fact Belgium beat Brazil I reckon you'd still far rather face them or France in the final than the multiple former winners. Not keen on the rumours that Henderson will be replacing Dele Alli with Diet dropping into Henderson's slot though We're bereft enough of creativity as it is. Might not be a game for the neutral!

I'm thinking exactly the same way which is a very dangerous state of affairs given my record as a football tipster over the last couple of seasons. I can't actually see that Sweden will give us any problem at all and I expect a two or three goal victory. I would also expect Croatia to dispose of Russia in similarly comfortable fashion and for the resulting semi final to be a completely different proposition. In the other quarters I think Uruguay could possibly pip France and expect Brazil to edge out Belgium in an entertaining and possibly high scoring game. So the value bet would be...... Do exactly the opposite!

Then imagine if we didn't........ Lol. Long way to go yet in my book. 2 young lads in who appear from TM's comments to give here to provide competition for places in the squad at this stage as opposed to being automatic starters, no new contract for Dack yet and none of the real priority positions addressed for me ........yet. May all happen of course but until it does still much to do and far too early to be talking about play offs etc.

Wouldn't have thought he starts as part of a two up front for City though does he? As for the rest of it, if he is feeling pressure for any reason, unlucky, he's a professional sportsman so he has to find a a way of dealing with it. People can't make excuses for him forever, is it nearly 40 games now? I would also have to differ when you say he does nothing wrong off the pitch. No - one forced him to do laughing gas or tattoo an AK 47 on his leg. He brings the media attention on himself imo.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not a fan of Sterling but it seems obvious to me if you must play him you need to play him as an out and out winger aswide as possible on one of the flanks. I think sometimes managers on millions of pounds a year think they can be so much cleverer than everyone else and shoehorn players into unnatural positions to accomodate fancy formations and ignore the blindingly obvious which the man in the street can see as plain as day. And that's not specific to Southgate by any means.

I'd have liked to have seen Kane and Vardy together at some point but it seems Vardy is struggling with an injury now.

I Don't have a problem with chaddy unlike seemingly 99.9% of the m/b and there was no offence intended whatsoever. It's just that at the moment he seems to be picking up on what TM has said in interview at various points and using those criteria to either absolutely slaughter or praise to the hilt any name mentioned. Thank you for being offended on Chaddy's behalf. I'm not that sure I'm the one who needs to get out more. Sorry Chaddy. Intended in jest. No offence meant.

I'd say consistently "scabbing" games in normal time was more a sign we had mastered tournament football than unexpectedly coming back from 2-3 down on penalties with 4 to go but good point.

I guess you'd very much class me as a NN so for what It's worth here's my two pennorth. Theoretically these lads despite being relatively young are all top top players so I can't believe anyone didn't expect us to get out of a group containing Tunisia and Panama. If we go out against Sweden I'd describe it as an ok tournament but nothing particularly special bearing in mind Sweden are well below us in the world rankings and tbh if we were playing them in a friendly most people would expect us to win comfortably. Losing semi finalists: good effort, a lot better than expected pre tournament probably, but to play devil's advocate, how much of that would be down to luck of the draw and Germany and Spain unexpectedly going out? We would still also be going out to a team below us in the world rankings. Losing finalist: Extremely good effort, I'm 54 and first World Cup Final in my lifetime I remember so a very rare event. Likely to be a playing a real top side so likely to be no disgrace in losing. Winners: Arise Sir Gareth CBE MBE OBE and all round good egg. I say with a perfectly straight face I always knew he was a good 'un and the Country goes into absolute meltdown.

I didn't really expect much before the tournament started, I expected that if the tournament went to form we'd probably reach the quarter finals and get knocked out by Germany. The majority of my dissatisfaction against Southgate was down to in my view an unbelievably stupid decision to risk losing momentum and also play a much harder last 16 tie against Colombia than Japan. If he did the same thing again tomorrow I'd still say it was unbelievably stupid. For all his rhetoric that he was merely resting players, would he have done the same if for the sake of argument we needed to top the group to play Saudi Arabia in the last 16 and finish 2nd to play Brazil? I very much doubt it. However, that's water under the bridge now, we survived by the skin of our teeth and whilst I agree with you that Panama apart we haven't impressed in the slightest so far, we are only 2 winnable looking games and a difficult looking Brazil/Belgium/France/Uruguay Final away from lifting the trophy. I Don't rate Southgate but regardless of my views on him he will deserve the utmost credit if he becomes only the 2nd English manager apart from Sir Alf to do the business. We just need 3 results now, it doesn't matter if we are terrible in all of the remaining games but win them by a combination of penalties or an own goal or a fluke off someone's arse in the 90th minute. The history books in 50 years won't care we needed 94 mins to beat Tunisia, lost to Belgium's reserves or needed penalties to scrape past Colombia etc.

You're right, football is a wonderful game and it is odd how we often see the game completely differently. For me Kane had to try and drop deeper last night to try and pick up the ball because no-one behind him was doing their job and he did a sterling (pun intended) job of holding the ball up and drawing the odd foul with no support around him to take the pressure off us a bit. I see You're also bending over backwards to justify Sterling's contribution to the team. Whenever I'm watching him I'm thinking "He wasted that" or "gave that away" or 'no end product there" and one of the commentators on TV goes "Great piece of play by Sterling there!" For me if he was a woman you'd describe him as extremely high maintenance. He's always doing silly things off the pitch which draws the media spotlight onto him. No -one would give two hoots about that if he were our outstanding performer but he then backs that up with being arguably our worst performer whereas none of the other players seem to get themselves in situations off the pitch and most of them manage to perform far better than him in an England shirt on it. I feel It's got to the stage whereby Southgate feels he has to pick him to show the media and the world at large the player retains his public support which in my view is wrong. Not sure what the answer is as Rashford didn't exactly impress against Belgium when given his chance but I still feel we have to try something different.

I would love us to sign someone you've completely dismissed then watch you doing somersaults trying to claim how pleased you are with it and what a masterstroke it is by TM!

I think your argument completely collapses when you state that Samuel would look to move elsewhere if someone came in on higher wages!

Sorry, it was a joke. It seems to be a hanging offence to say anything vaguely critical of England on here at the moment. You should know that we're going to bring the trophy home under the sage auspices of soon to be canonized Sir Gareth of Southgate.

Surely not sir. Don't be so treasonous. To the Tower with you and off with your head!!

I wish people would take off their England tinted specs and give it a rest telling me to give it a rest. We were poor last night, didn't muster a shot on target in 120 mins and were the width of a crossbar in the penalties away from a tame exit. Still we got away with it and I'm as pleased as the next man. Kane and Maguire were awesome last night, proper players and real men as opposed to a lot of the others who look like silly little lads running about at times. Surely we have to lose Sterling out of the starting line up, he's atrocious.

Best thing about tonight is the penalty hoodoo has been buried and the players know they can go through that way if all else fails.

Why? He made a deliberate choice to avoid Brazil in the QF and took the risk of playing a much harder last 16 tie. If you gave me the same choice again I still Wouldn't do it. He got away with it just about but having gone down that route has to see the job through now