England scored more than two goals in a game for the first time in what seems like an age, against a Nigeria that basically let them play s they wanted for the first half and England are gonna win the World Cup.
When the same set of players couldn’t figure out what to do when the visitors changed their formation after the break it really didn’t seem to dampen some of the excitement.
When getting hyped about going in two nil up, where was the talk of all the chances missed. Good chances. Chances that against better teams, and there’s better ones than this Nigeria about, you can’t afford to miss when you won’t get as many as England were gifted in the first half.
Unfortunately most of the opportunities fell at the feet of Sterling. But of course we’re not allowed to criticise Raheem because… well. You can bang on about the goals he scored this season but only a couple or three were decent ones, the rest were all tap ins created by the better players at City, De Bruyne, Silva, Aguero, Sane etc. Then there was the sitters he missed and there was a few of them, a yard out, open goal and he puts it yards wide and so we see that gurning confused look on his face that we saw here on the number of occasions he was through on goal and either picked the wrong option or just completely blew it.
Hell, his final ball was so poor I doubt he even meant to find Kane for the second goal.
Saw some criticism saying Dele did link up so well with Kane. Hmmm let me think, was there something getting in the way.
It’s a shame Dele didn’t get a chance to cup his ear to the booing from the Nigerian fans. Who we were told were excellent even though they think it’s wrong for a player to play for the country of his birth and not that of the father who abandoned him shortly after that birth and whose name he doesn’t want on the back of his shirt.
Infamously Gareth Southgate was the one that said “We needed Churchill but got Iain Duncan-Smith” after one of Sven’s half-time speeches. Well, look at England under Southgate. Hell have they even got IDS. It’s a clusterfuck come the second half of nearly every single game under this dullard.
Nigeria match up the formation and Southgate’s men are stuffed and he just sits there with that dim look on his face and doesn’t know what to do. “Keep doing what you’re doing lads, playing out from the back, as slow as you want now.”
Nigeria go like for like and Ashley Young is shown up for not being a defender, while Kyle Walker is floundering between back passes. The Nigerian goal was the usual defensive omnishambles but it wasn’t the real highlight of the second half. No that was Sterling’s dive. Dear god, that was even more pathetic than the way he runs or his final ball.
He went down like a small child having a tantrum and he did it after being warned about such things because of VAR and he still did it. But then he was told to turn up at a certain time but didn’t because he didn’t know where his flight was going or stopping. Who gets on a flight and doesn’t know where it’s heading to? Who? Never mind the M16 tribute tattoo, it reminded me of the Bill Hicks bit about Christians and the cross and JFK.
Anyway, Nigeria were picked as a warm up because the FA or Southgate wanted an African team because they’ll be playing an African team in the group stage. But is Nigeria anything like Tunisia. You wouldn’t pick Norway for the warm up if the European team you were facing was Spain. And Nigeria are the lowest ranked of the African teams at the tournament.
But joy of joys, Jordan Henderson will be back for the next game…