...but England have been the best side we've seen by absolutely miles. Apart from our extremely suspect defence...
We’ve all complained about our defensive set up in the last couple of tournaments so it was refreshing to see how we played on Monday. Just hope we don’t slip back into the old style because of the two goals we conceded against Iran
That may be until France have finished here. Australia are a much higher calibre than Iran, despite what rankings may say. It feels like if France turn it up, they could batter them.
Do you honestly think the defence is suspect? Maguire consistently outperforms in major tournaments (team of the tournament Euro 2020 and absolutely robbed out of it in 2018), Trippier has been the best right full back in the world by a clear margin for 5 years (WC 2018 team of the tournament and it wasn't even close, currently carrying Newcastle into the top 4) and Shaw and Stones are solid. With Walker to come back available soon. And for the first time since early days Shilton we don't have the worst keeper in the tournament. I don't see the issue? I hear the anti Maguire narrative but the fact remains that he's been the best centre back in the tournament in the last two we've played.
No good getting excited because as soon as we play anyone decent Southgate will put the handbrake back on and play for penalties. Our best chance of winning the World Cup is by attacking thereby exposing our brittle defence to less pressure. If we insist on playing out from the back we will pay the price eventually. That said I really hope we win it but let's win it in style
I thought that we left a lot of gaps against Iran and got caught in possession in very dangerous areas on a couple of occasions. A better side could have really punished us. However, we were comfortably ahead by that point, so that may account for why we were playing in quite a carefree manner. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved how we approached the game, and some of our play going forward was mesmerising. Better defences than Iran would have struggled to keep us out. I just hope that we don't get ourselves knocked out by making a careless and wholly avoidable defensive howler in the later stages of the tournament, because I think we have a genuine chance of winning the whole thing.
Iran are notoriously solid at the back. At the last World Cup, Spain edged them 1-0 in the group stage, whilst they drew 1-1 with Portugal. They recently beat Uruguay 1-0 building towards this tournament whilst drawing 1-1 with Senegal. They lack firepower once they play outside of their territory, but they’re defensively sound usually and ranked 20th in the world because they don’t lose often. I can say with some certainty that neither Wales or USA will obliterate them like we did.
We played well but France look several notches above on that performance still early days and all that.
I think that losing their keeper made a massive difference. Still think we'd have won reasonably comfortably if he'd not got injured, but it was clear what a psychological blow it was by the reaction of the bench when it became clear that he couldn't continue.
A lot of people are saying that Oz are much better than Iran, but are they really? Admittedly I only saw the second half, but they looked slow, ponderous and short of any creativity or real quality to me.
