World Cup Post mortem (76 replies)

Thought this piece is a decent reflection on England’s tournament.

[www.theguardian.com]

For me, we often played in a different way from the many stodgy, excruciatingly frustrating performances in the past from players who, on paper, were better than the current ones. As for the defeat to Croatia, the contrast between the first half and the rest of the game was startling. Keane says we ‘reverted’ to the same old England, which is sort of true, but does say why. Croatia were able to assert their game by pushing up and we didn’t have the capability - players good enough really - to counter it. Some of that might come from better experience, some of it will have to come from better, tougher players. See how France snuffed out Belgium while ahead.

Overall though,we played a lot of entertaining, pacy stuff and have made a lot of progress, off the pitch as well. We need now to not accept this is some sort of high point and start to compete better against the best teams too.