Football (World Cup 26)

[kaosmark2]

1 hour ago, lost said:

I saw a comment that said Qarabag should of got a percentage of the sell on fee not Everton as they are the main reason he got that move.

 

Did I also see a comment that said at some point during the winter time he hadn't scored or assisted in open play for a year?

Yeah no assists/goals in open play Jan25-Jan26. His stats really were buffed by being on pens post-rat. 

[charlierc]

4 hours ago, lost said:

I know he took madueke because he slots into the Saka role easily but last night it felt like trying to same thing against the low block wasn't working and a Palmer or Foden with a different approach might of helped.

I'm not quite so sure - Foden has never really impressed for England and Palmer had a bad season with Chelsea and looked exhausted by the end of it. But equally, both play better as number 10s through the middle rather than necessarily being a solution out wide, even if both can play there. Not that I'm entirely sure on the best other English wingers you could've picked. Harvey Barnes, maybe? But then as a fan of the club he plays for, I think he's better as a substitute.

 

Left-back seems problematic as well, given Spence is a right-back by trade and O'Reilly is still fairly young, even if he was excellent at Man City last season. Feel like one of Shaw or Hall would've been worth bringing as a back-up, no?

[charlierc]

3 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

Yeah no assists/goals in open play Jan25-Jan26. His stats really were buffed by being on pens post-rat. 

There were a lot of our fans who felt Barnes should've been the first choice wide left and that Gordon was only being picked due to work ethic. Though he himself said he felt he could effect games more in the Champions League where generally wingers seemed to get more freedom to do stuff than in the PL, where the spaces become tighter and tighter. There's also seemingly been a tactical shift for wingers to go back to being the feeders for strikers rather than the wide-forward role that's been in vogue for most of the last decade or so.

[balti-pie]

That was an absolutely dreadful game - fair play to Ghana though, they came for a point and pretty much always looked like getting it. England do have to stink the tournament out at least once every group stage - i still remember the Algeria game in 2010 (2010? i think it was) as the absolute zenith of unwatchable tournament toss. 

 

And im so happy Djed has a moral backbone, good on him! 

Lord knows how he's a starting leftback, cos its only been as a stopgap at spurs due to the injury nonsense and us literally having nobody else to play there, and now somehow he's starting at a tournament as a LB 😄  He's so much better at RB, and while i know very little about Reece James, based on this tournament he's . . . . (lets be polite here) really very ordinary. Get Djed in at RB! 

[Skip997]

Good effort Ghana, but all in vain as sadly England will still qualify 

[Skip997]

2 hours ago, charlierc said:

6 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

 

There were a lot of our fans who felt Barnes should've been the first choice wide left

Surely he’s a bit too old and out of shape 

[kaosmark2]

1 hour ago, balti-pie said:

And im so happy Djed has a moral backbone, good on him! 

Lord knows how he's a starting leftback, cos its only been as a stopgap at spurs due to the injury nonsense and us literally having nobody else to play there, and now somehow he's starting at a tournament as a LB 😄  He's so much better at RB, and while i know very little about Reece James, based on this tournament he's . . . . (lets be polite here) really very ordinary. Get Djed in at RB! 

Agreed about having a spine, full credit to him for that.

 

I think Reece James is a pretty elite right-back tbh, very solid defensively, can stay wide or invert, and has a decent cross on him (not that you could tell yesterday), but his strengths - playing against wingers attacking him and then transitioning defense into attack, were just irrelevant against that low block.

 

Chelsea's atrocious period of form last season came pretty precisely when he was injured, and while I like and rate Spence, I think Reece James is a clear step ahead of him. 

[charlierc]

I think that's Scotland out barring a lot of results going their way over the next few days. Not impossible but only 2 results in other groups need to go against them to send them out and I suspect they probably will.

 

Shame as it seems like they've had a whale of a time over there and it's fair they were given a difficult group with Morocco and Brazil. But it is what it is.

[charlierc]

15 hours ago, Skip997 said:

Surely he’s a bit too old and out of shape 

Tbf that Barnes looked old when he joined Newcastle in 1997. Not as ancient as Ian Rush when Dalglish also signed him to make Dalglish's Dad's Army, as it got nicknamed at the time. And also not quite an effective stand-in when Alan Shearer suffered a knee injury that made him miss the first half of that season.

[pink_triangle]

21 minutes ago, charlierc said:

I think that's Scotland out barring a lot of results going their way over the next few days. Not impossible but only 2 results in other groups need to go against them to send them out and I suspect they probably will.

 

Shame as it seems like they've had a whale of a time over there and it's fair they were given a difficult group with Morocco and Brazil. But it is what it is.

I hope fortune is on their side and they scrape through, that South Africa result is a bit of a kick for them.

 

Unfortunately Scotland have offered nothing this World Cup and remind me of Wales in the last one. I actually think they are very lucky to be on 3 points and -3 goal difference, I think in each game the result they got was better than the performance deserved.

[charlierc]

38 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I hope fortune is on their side and they scrape through, that South Africa result is a bit of a kick for them.

 

Unfortunately Scotland have offered nothing this World Cup and remind me of Wales in the last one. I actually think they are very lucky to be on 3 points and -3 goal difference, I think in each game the result they got was better than the performance deserved.

Aye it subverted my expectations given that group was looking like one where 4th place might not top the 3 point mark. The Czechs were truly hopeless against Mexico last night, summed up by the ridiculous second goal, but I did not see South Africa's rug-pull coming.

 

It's very difficult to know where exactly the results that will scrape this together for them are gonna come from. 3 points isn't the kicker so much as the -3 goal difference. And yeah, Brazil could've had more than that. Though I will still contend I think Morocco were fortunate with decisions in their game against the Scots with the Diop red card and one of the penalty shouts. But heyho. It is what it is and all that.

[balti-pie]

Scotland have been a bit hard done by, but they've also been really short of quality - obviously up front, No squad with Lyndon Dykes in it deserves to progress - but also defensively, they're just not technically good enough to keep the ball. No shame in it, they just plain dont have good enough footballers. I wont throw stones at them, Ireland have exactly the same problem at the mo. Some decent players here and there, and a whole lot of nothing alas. Getting to a tournament is a kind of success in itself, i know thats small time. But countries of under 7m population are quite small. 

 

Ive long thought it was mega harsh that they have both Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney at left back - they're both very much good enough, why cant one be right footed?  That'd be an excellent pair of full backs. But no, two left backs and a gaping chasm at right back . . . . unfair! 

[pink_triangle]

32 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

but also defensively, they're just not technically good enough to keep the ball. No shame in it, they just plain dont have good enough footballers. I wont throw stones at them, Ireland have exactly the same problem at the mo. Some decent players here and there, and a whole lot of nothing alas. Getting to a tournament is a kind of success in itself, i know thats small time. But countries of under 7m population are quite small. 

 

I declare my interest being a Wrexham fan but our captain Dom Hyam is the one centre back who hasn’t been given a chance. I’m not saying he would have made a significant difference, but going into the tournament I said he was better than some of the alternatives and watching some of the calamity defending I’ve not changed my mind.

[balti-pie]

15 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I declare my interest being a Wrexham fan but our captain Dom Hyam is the one centre back who hasn’t been given a chance. I’m not saying he would have made a significant difference, but going into the tournament I said he was better than some of the alternatives and watching some of the calamity defending I’ve not changed my mind.

Having never seen him play, id say with 90% accuracy that he's going to be better than Grant Hanley. 

[charlierc]

1 minute ago, balti-pie said:

Having never seen him play, id say with 90% accuracy that he's going to be better than Grant Hanley. 

I'm kinda surprised he's still around. I remember him very quickly going from signing a 5 year deal with us at Newcastle to falling down the order.

[charlierc]

54 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

Ive long thought it was mega harsh that they have both Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney at left back - they're both very much good enough, why cant one be right footed?  That'd be an excellent pair of full backs. But no, two left backs and a gaping chasm at right back . . . . unfair! 

These things can happen tbf. I think the England Golden Generation could've won stuff had the best players not been concentrated into certain positions - the keepers were always a bit suspect and there never really was a good left-winger, plus Gerrard and Lampard couldn't co-exist in a 4-4-2. I think they could've worked in a 4-2-3-1 with Gerrard deep and Lampard as a second striker with a DM, but by the time they tried that, everything had just kinda atrophied with that crop of players.

 

There must be a load of national teams with that headache though, right? I remember reading in my World Cup history book that the Italy team who reached the '70 final had two brilliant playmakers who got a half each.

 

56 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

Ireland have exactly the same problem at the mo. Some decent players here and there, and a whole lot of nothing alas. Getting to a tournament is a kind of success in itself, i know thats small time. But countries of under 7m population are quite small. 

A couple of years ago, I heard people talking up a possible new generation of Irish talent that would haul it back out of the John Delaney-enforced doldrums and get back to tournament qualifying like in the 90s. And tbf that double whammy against Portugal and Hungary made me think it was on.

 

The fact Ireland's path wound up being one by a Czech team whose World Cup has been a disaster is quite the strange look for everyone else. Not least Denmark, who on paper look like a stronger side but clearly didn't do the job in the moment.

[pink_triangle]

16 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

Having never seen him play, id say with 90% accuracy that he's going to be better than Grant Hanley. 

Hanley struggled to get a game with Birmingham in league one. Admittedly they were a championship level squad already, but I don’t think he would get a championship team now if he came back down south.

[pink_triangle]

Ecuador winning is a stinker result for Scotland, but watching that game today you feel they have more to offer the knockouts than the Scots.

[Punksnotdead]

Guess I'd better select another team to support now, but after tonight it certainly won't be Germany! 

 

We don't deserve to get through but Clarke needs to go! Got his tactics totally wrong against Brazil - should have had 2 up front & every time we had the ball at the back, play it long. Our defenders are not capable of playing out from the back! We still would have lost, but not 3-0.

[gary1979666]

Looks like some juicy games in the next round already....

 

Netherland v Morocco

Brazil v Japan

[charlierc]

2 minutes ago, gary1979666 said:

Looks like some juicy games in the next round already....

 

Netherland v Morocco

Brazil v Japan

Those are the two stand-out looking ones. Though it's curious that there seems to be a random element to how some of these ties are being paired yet the teams got 1st/2nd in the Brazil and Netherlands groups are just directly taking one each other.

[charlierc]

On 25/06/2026 at 23:00, pink_triangle said:

Ecuador winning is a stinker result for Scotland, but watching that game today you feel they have more to offer the knockouts than the Scots.

They still have a 0.07% chance of progress... that's not absolute zero just yet.

 

One that's definitely gone is Uruguay, which is an interesting one. I heard a pundit suggest pre-tournament they could have a difficult tournament given there were a lot of signs of tension between Bielsa and the players, and yeah, it does seem like things have properly blown up there.

[steviewevie]

 

[charlierc]

On 24/06/2026 at 17:09, Skip997 said:

Good effort Ghana, but all in vain as sadly England will still qualify 

And after yesterday's results, it's confirmed. Though realistically, this odd format means 4 points was likely to be enough given the way the weird third place thing works.

[lost]

Yep