the one half against Croatia is the exception.
England have played four halves of football so far at this World Cup and the one decent half against Croatia is the outlier, the rest is just Tuchel’s Southgate 2.0.
It’s almost as if the pundits didn’t watch any of the qualifiers, just saw the final score, or the friendlies in which they were well beaten.
It’s almost like they’ve forgotten the first half against Croatia. Ponderous, clueless, tedious. Just like the two halves here. Nothing has changed.
I mean, you have media types saying it’s not the same as Southgate, that Tuchel’s England are built to beat top teams. Croatia aren’t a top team. The same report states that…
Anthony Gordon, Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Noni Madueke are all powerful runners capable of attacking into space against fewer defenders.
Except that doesn’t happen, no matter who the opposition is, it’s never happened. All of them get the ball in plenty of space, have acres of space in front of them and immediately stop, let the defence close them down and either just cough up the ball or play the coward’s ball sideways.
Madueke the prime example, twice in 83 minutes he actually got past his defender and made to the byline and put a cross in, once from the right, once from the left – The one thing you can say in his favour was it was two more things than Gordon achieved in his time on the pitch. Barcelona must be looking for a get out clause, £68m is a lot of buyer’s remorse. Decent crosses.
But why was it never done again?
Well, like the rest of those mentioned there, along with the likes of Bellingham and Rice, they see no personal glory in laying it on for others. That’s why yet again – while we all watch Portugal play balls for Ronaldo, Argentina for Messi, France for Mbappe and Norway for Haaland – Kane gets no real service.
So we get the same old same old while the pundits act shocked that this could happen.
But at least they noticed this, unlike Konza’s knee high lunging challenge in the box that should have seen him red carded along with a penalty given, which Alan “I’ve put on my earnest voice while saying what I see” Shearer and his sidekick just completely glossed over.
They also glossed over Pickford’s challenge that could have, should have been carded, Bellingham’s petulance that should have been carded, while being happy about a card for Ghana for a challenge that was almost exactly as the same as the one they were outraged that Rice was carded for.
Speaking of Rice, apparently the studio did mention it that Djed Spence was the only one that didn’t shake Partey’s hand, while Rice was all hugs with the man up on rape charges.
https://x.com/bob__spurs/status/2069712978778206620
The same article that talked up the wide players also stated that the defenders and Pickford are so comfortable on the ball, so will pass it around against better teams “in order to draw pressure”. Yet how many times have we seen the likes of Pickford and Stones go into a state of blind panic and cough up the ball.
There’s been a few big scores but honestly no team has really stood out for their whole performances. A good team and this World Cup is there for the taking. England are not a team, good or not, just a collection of names, which is exactly the opposite of what Tuchel and his media fawners claimed he was doing with the squad.