Video Assistant Referee, (VAR) as it is called by those in the know, has been a relative success in this World Cup. It has made incorrect decisions almost a thing of the past and that is the whole point.
“Incorrect decisions” suggests that a clear and obvious error has been made and VAR is there to right these wrongs.
In the final of the World Cup there were two opportunities to use VAR, or there were none, depending upon your point of view. (more…)
(England supporters strike a pose which has become all-too familiar over the last 50-odd years)
Now that the dust has settled on England’s World Cup success/failure, do we really have a team capable of winning a future tournament?
On the evidence of this one the answer has to be a pretty emphatic NO.
Even the “experts” are finally starting to come round to our way of thinking which, all along, has been that this was an average England team and they put in some very poor performances on their way to fourth place. (more…)
After tomorrow there will probably be very few articles on the subject of the World Cup. The winner will have been decided and, hopefully, Croatia will have collected the trophy for the first time ever. The alternative is another four years of French strutting and preening which, while not unusual, would definitely be more annoying.
Today, England met Belgium in the meaningless third placed play-off game. A game into which the England manager was trying to inject some life. He was doing so by trying to convince a very dubious public and an even more dubious WSA, that the game was not meaningless. (more…)
It doesn’t really matter whether England finish third or fourth. For them, the World Cup is over. FIFA prolonging their stay in Russia is more like a punishment rather than any prestigious ending to the competition.
On the positive side, the game on Saturday gives England’s reserves a chance for some revenge on Belgium’s reserves for the 1-0 beating they handed out in the group stage. On the negative side, nobody cares.
The result of that game, which decided who won the group and who finished second, was the biggest mistake made by the two teams. Had they contrived to let England win the group then the team would probably have lost in the quarter-final to Brazil. (more…)
England finally reverted to type. Having beaten the team four places below them in the world rankings to reach the semi-final they then went out, quite tamely, to the team eight places below them.
In fairness, they have made massive strides forward by getting this far in a World Cup but, also in fairness, they came a cropper as soon as they met a decent team.
Forget Belgium in the group stage. That wasn’t a competitive game. It was a game between two reserve teams who had seen their senior players already qualify for the next stage. So the first real test was against Sweden and they passed with flying colours. They passed mainly because Sweden failed to work out the English system. (more…)
Well that was quite a day! Belgium can now look forward to trying to be the third best team at this World Cup when, in actual fact, they were probably the best albeit with a manager who didn’t know it.
They created very little in their semi-final defeat to France and, apart from a couple of shots from distance, the French defence coped very well and relatively easily with anything the Belgians threw at them, which wasn’t very much. (more…)
It’s not a bad time to be Mancunian at the moment. The city itself is far and away the best in Britain and would do well, if it were possible, to sever all ties with those idiots in Westminster who think that life begins and ends in London.
The weather is hot and sunny, the two Manchester Premier League clubs are the best two teams in Britain, Lancashire have just beaten Northants in a T20 double header at Old Trafford and England are in the World Cup semi-final.
Now, some of our more discerning readers may be wondering what the last bit about England being in the World Cup semi-final has to do with Manchester but there are tenuous links. (more…)
Win one more game and England are there! They will be participating in their first World Cup final since 1966.
Why is that? Do they suddenly have a team better than the one which included Gary Lineker and Paul Gascoigne? Are they a notch up from the Alan Shearer generation which included the likes of Paul Scholes and David Beckham? How about the team of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard? (more…)
After four years of waiting, not quite with bated breath, the World Cup arrived and here we are already at the semi-final stage. What is surprising about this year’s tournament is that England’s players are still there!
For the first time since 1990, (Gazza’s tears at missing the final they never made it to, and all that), England have reached those dizzy heights once again.
Whether by luck, good judgement or good play is debatable but they are there, no denying it. (more…)
(Harry opens the scoring but it isn’t Kane, it’s Maguire!)
So the final match in England’s bid to reach their first World Cup semi-final since 1990 got underway today. After a cagey opening twenty minutes or so England grew into the game. Sweden didn’t really threaten at all in the first half and it was no real surprise when an Ashley Young corner was headed powerfully into the net by Harry Maguire.
They would have scored at least another goal, if not more, had they had someone other than Raheem Sterling on the pitch. He dithered, dallied, lost the ball, made the wrong decisions and was almost personally responsible for the score only being 1-0 at half-time.
He hasn’t yet scored at this tournament and, on the only occasion he was dropped in favour of Marcus Rashford, the United player looked a lot better in the role. (more…)
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 