Quality commentary from Dion Dublin…”it’s an easy finish for him, it really is, culture finish, curls it into the corner, it’s not an easy finish at all” now is it? Or isn’t it Dion?
It’s just rubbish really. Rubbish referee failed to give England two penalties. Rubbish VAR, as always, on the disallowed goal. But most of all rubbish team performance.
How much will it have cost the poor sods there to watch this tripe? No doubt Gareth will be along in a few minutes to tell us it was actually a good solid performance! Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
The decision to disallow Rice's goal was horrendous. Mind-bendingly bad. Luckily it was completely immaterial to the match and the group standings, but it's somewhat concerning that VAR is one again being "utilised" to chalk off a completely legitimate goal on a pointless technicality.
I agree, it looked like us playing. Which gave me a thought. Are we trying to play a "clever" way in League One? Hear me out. Southgate would argue that, when playing teams of Malta's standing, they stay in rigid blocks, deep, keeping their shape, making it difficult for teams to penetrate their defensive lines, no space "in behind" etc. So you have to pass it around at the back first to coax them out to press you, therefore leaving gaps to play through when they break shape to press. Malta didn't do that last night, they stayed in shape. What you need then is top level quality to play, intricately, through them. England did that on a few occasions, scoring an OG, a well-worked goal from Kane and a chalked-off effort from Rice. I think Collins is attempting to play this way, slow build-up from the back in the hopes we can break the press, exploit the gaps and let our quality show through. This doesn't work at this level. We don't have that quality to play this way.
I missed it .... saw the last ten minutes and was bored rigid with that. You may ask, "Badger, what else were you doing that was more important and interesting?" Answer, I was shopping at Lidl instead of Aldi for the first time and had a fun time comparing prices on similar items. Their Danpak butter is exactly the same as Aldi's Norpak which itself is the same as Lurpak. Isn't that interesting?
Butter is one of the products in which I find least variation between the brands. We also did Aldi instead of Lidl this week. Fresh veg is way better at Aldi, but their cottage cheese is horrible, and there's no bakery even in the big one down Tritton Road. (assuming that's where you were?) Booze is also better at Lidl, although I usually go to Morrisons as their beer range is superb.