desperado

Great day of rugby. Good performance from England. Fair play to Fiji fantastic effort from them. But the quality in this semi is something else, sensational rugby.

Didn’t hear too much about Dapo, but it may explain his deterioration in his latter days here. Heard plenty of rumours about the other two though

Don’t disagree about ability. But as we know plenty of talented players don’t fulfil their potential. Application, attitude and character need to be there as well - Sarce and DJ were lacking in those areas - wouldn’t want either of them back.

There’s some very good reasons (some we know about, some that we don’t or aren’t public knowledge) why both Fat Sarce and Declan John are both playing football in the 4th tier of professional football.

Is that for that farce of a fight between 2 reality TV kids? Kids have just taken over the main telly and firestick, I’ve just shook my head at the nonsense of it all and gone to bed

It was a great game. How ridiculous that England are the last home nation left in the tournament! 🤣

No!! Don’t go there!! Thought you were at New Order or something 🤣

No logical reason whatsoever to be saying this, but I think we’re going deep, last 16 style, this season COYFWM 🤣👏

I wasn’t even born in 66! Cant forget something you weren’t there for! 🤣 70 - quarter 74-Not there 78 - Not there 82- 2nd group stage 86 - quarter

Crazy really that now a semi would be seen as Southgate out! But back then we’d had the quarter in 86, but everything else was failure. And that semi could and should have been a lot more

Semi final of a World Cup! 🤣

Yeh shocking defeat. Blackpool the big winners today. Theres only Portsmouth and Oxford at the moment who look like they are capable of consistency (in a good way 😊)

We’ve stayed in the premier inn last couple of times in the centre. Despite the defeats and general poor opinion of this away trip, we’ve always enjoyed it. The centre is pretty good and can get a bus to the Hour Glass which is nearest pub to ground and its decent Half-term bonus will make it a good trip - enjoy 👍

Oh don’t worry about that, a standard defeat at Wycombe will help that thread gather some momentum - thousands of posts saying the same negative dross. 🤣 Meanwhile our good record at Charlton may continue and a win will slow down the post traffic - leaving just a few happy clappers like myself saying how well we did 😊.

This debate raises its head periodically and repeatedly on here - and I’m all for it, it shows how iconic Gazza is. I’m unashamedly sat here in my 1990 top, as I usually do when England play. I hope in 30 years my kids are wearing Bellingham shirts, I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt they will. With Gazza you have to look beyond comparative skills of players from different generations. I believe Bellingham is a better prospect and has more to his game than Gazza. I also think Gazza would have run rings round Tom Finney. That doesn’t make Tom Finney any less of an icon and doesn’t dilute his impact on the game. It all comes down to your age. If you were 16-25 in 1990, a football lover, an England fan, who’d knew nothing but World Cup misery, then Gazza is up there as one of your favourite England icons. And he was because at the time he was a world class player, the most skilful Englishman you’d seen grace the green turf, a young skilful, mesmerising player who, in his youth, was taking us to places we never thought was possible as an Englishman. Such a shame he got his injury in 91.

I can’t think of any response that would have been perfect. They were on a hiding to nothing whatever response (non-response) they decided. In my opinion they got it right. Or are you suggesting a different approach should have been taken?

No drama England 2nd eleven 1 - Aussies - 0

It was absolutely the right response. Well done England, Southgate and the FA

I’m ok with it! Mind you I’ve just read 4 pages on the Isreal thread (which was actually very informative!) so needed something different to read! I think you’ve made some fair observations. Adding to your last paragraph, the things we do well need to lead to more goalscoring opportunities and the conversion rate increasing. Kind of linked to your post, I found this graphic quite interesting, albeit open to some misinterpretation based on number of games played by individuals and the position they are playing in. Dempsey not appearing more in that final third is surprising seeing as he’s played in an advance midfield role most of the season. And I think it demonstrates the importance of Santos from both a defensive and creative perspective.

West Brom?

You’re right mate. And at the moment that individual ability for someone to do something a bit different would be great to call upon! We debated to death the rights/wrongs, the whys/why nots of his sale 10 months ago, so not going into that. But when you go back to some of those wins we’ve had without him, let’s take the pinnacle - the 4-0 Plymouth, at no point that afternoon was anybody missing Dapo! The issues we have at the minute should be in relation to how we consistently get to those same levels we did on that sunny afternoon, getting the most out of the squad we currently have.

Don’t read this as saying I don’t rate him. But to be fair our record without him since he left hasn’t been too bad, just had a quick look think we’ve won something like 23 games

@tomski @royal white agree with you both - I didn’t have a problem with him going up. But I disagree that Evatt has said the wrong thing in the media. If he’s asked the question about whether it was his decision, he’d look a bit silly if he lied! And he goes on to say “Nathan, in particular, was one of the only players to walk off with any credit.”

I know that. Look at those names from 3 years ago. Would any of them who we voted for have done as well as Evatt? He wasn’t even on there! Where are any of them now? With the exception of Nolan (who has only had a couple of player/manager stints a few years ago) the rest are frankly laughable 🤣.