Brutally succinct quote from Šime Vrsaljko "The all-round perception was that this is a new-look England who have changed their ways of punting long balls upfield but when we pressed them it turned out that they haven't. "
One thing that drove me mad was our obvious desire to keep the ball resulting in countless occasions where, rather than risk a tricky pass forward, we recycled the ball back to Pickford.....who then slammed it long upfield for them to win possession. I thought Pickford had a superb tournament by the way.
He's got a point and it was very frustrating - but a lot of that goes back to experience and game management. They forced us into playing like that second half, and we didn't have the knowhow to deal with it. That will come. I left the stadium last night feeling very deflated by t our lack of real threat after half time, but the truth is a very wily and talented Croatia side who are now at their individual and collective peak did a very good job on us.
You've also got to think this is probably the majority of their top players last role of the dice, most are 30+ and this probably their last World Cup, whereas our lot have got at least another 2/3 World Cups in more of them, so I think they were more determined to do it in the end.
Thought that England were missing that 1 spark of a player who could make the tricky pass or take a player on in a dangerous position and not worry if they lost it and even have a dig from 25 yards i needs be. The style that they were playing, whilst encouraging from recent England teams who couldn't pass to each other and control the ball with the first touch, reminded me of games like hockey and rugby where if you score from open play great, but teams are happy to take a short corner/ penalty as they know they are a threat in those situations. Also the Stirling/ Kane partnership doesn't work up front, not even sure if they knew of each others existence.
If only Kane HAD been playing up front. He was the deepest lying top scorer that the World Cup have ever seen. It seemed like he wasn't worried about increasing his tally. Sterling is no centre forward that's for sure. No idea what he is to be honest.
Too many teams (including Barnsley) play that tactic far too often. It drives me mad when I see a creative midfield player bottling out of trying a killer forward pass in favour of an easy sideways one to a defender. So what if the forward pass doesn't come off. Why give the responsibility to a defender who, more often than not, plays it back to the keeper who then does what you just said. Drives me bonkers!!
Tbh I don’t think they did ‘play’ the long ball, most of the so called long balls were when we were under pressure when instead of passing out they decided to just clear it upfield to sort it out upfield.And don’t tell me that most of the fans wouldn’t have been shouting to get rid and not piss about with it.
We didn’t play long ball at all! We kept hold of it which was great to see. The only few punts were v late in the game
Of the 600 minutes of football played by England we spent maybe 50 mins punting it long so I think that quote is a little unfair . Of course every other team now is going to press our backline as Croatia did , it's for us to re address our tactics when this happens . Luckily we have a very young team , with time to learn .
Croatian coach sort of forgot they were dreadful against Denmark and should have gone out. Their passing was pathetic and it got worse as the game wore on. They also came near to exit at the hands of Russia and England generally get the better of them. Selective criticism is often unfair and I say that as someone who tipped Croatia as a decent bet for the final. England just lost their way in this game.
Got to think Wilshere would have made a difference, we really need someone who can create from open play. The game management from Southgate was shocking again though just as the Colombia game. So infuriating watching that happen infron of your eyes knowing a couple of simple changes could turn it around yet watching Southgate stood there not knowing what to do. All in all we are no better than before, we've had an incredibly easy path, scraped through against one half decent side and lost to another. Don't get your hopes up.
Iv got to agree im afraid, dunno if wilshere would be the answer but i see what your saying.... Incredible achievement tho reaching the semi finals, and the team rightly deserve the plaudits for that. The so called ''bigger teams" that we played belgium, colombia, croatia were when we needed to step it up and prove we can cut it...... Truth be told we didnt really and as you say pretty much scraped through. Overall it was much more entertaining than i thought it would be tho, thats watching england and the world cup in general.