[Football] England V Wales

[Butch Willykins]

Another game which is like beating a third tier team, then we are old beaters again against crud opposition. As soon as we play any half decent or big nation we will be going home, simple as.

Remember the golden rule.......They are only half decent if they beat us. If England win then it was a poor <insert big nation here> team . That's how it works I think.

 

[Mellotron]

Same idiots criticising Southgate after we drew with Scotland, we then got to the final and could have won the euros. Same again after USA game, same unwarranted criticisim despite still wiping the egg off their face from 2 years ago. Clearly don't know football

2006 - Italy - Drew 1-1 with USA
2010 - Spain - Lost 1-0 to Switzerland (yes, THAT amazing Spain side lost their first group game)
2014 - Germany - Drew 2-2 with Ghana
2018 - France - Drew 0-0 with Denmark

Last 4 world cup winners. Every single one of them suffered at least one TURGID/poor/"underachieving" result.

I'm not for a second suggesting we are going to win the World Cup, but the overreaction to the USA draw has been completely ridiculous and a bit embarrassing. As was the reaction to the 0-0 with Scotland at the Euros.

 

[rebel51]

I would support Ecuador, coz I despise all these overrated ego driven england players that get payed a fortune to be bang average bar Foden, and a couple of others

 

[Mellotron]

Another game which is like beating a third tier team, then we are old beaters again against crud opposition. As soon as we play any half decent or big nation we will be going home, simple as.

I remember when Germany and Denmark suddenly became crap in the Euros, coincidentally just after we beat them. Weird that.

 

[Mellotron]

Genuinely hadn’t realised that anything better than a 4-goal defeat sees England qualify tomorrow night.

Granted, with the Dutch almost certain to win Group A (we’ll know for definite before we kick-off) top spot is what we really need to be aiming for, to avoid them in the last 16, but even England couldn’t f*** it up so badly as to not qualify. Could we?

I'm not sure the easier route is avoiding Holland, as it means facing France.

Holland and Argentina is a bloody hard route, but from what I've seen of each, I can imagine a world where we could beat either/both of them.

I struggle to foresee a world where we beat France.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

I remember when Germany and Denmark suddenly became crap in the Euros, coincidentally just after we beat them. Weird that.

And world cup finalists Croatia.

 

[Mellotron]

That is how Southgate will approach this game. He is a pragmatist's pragmatic. Avoiding defeat pretty much ensures winning the group. I can see it being a painful watch. I hope you are right - we go all out to smash them, but he won't do that. It will be risk management.

I would agree except Wales have to win tonight.

This will force a more open game as they will take more and more risks. The longer the game is 0-0, the more this probably suits us. We're also fortunate that their best players will probably be absolutely knackered by 60-70 mins, whilst we'll have numerous strong attacking options to bring on.

 

[Stumpy Tim]

I'm not sure the easier route is avoiding Holland, as it means facing France.

Holland and Argentina is a bloody hard route, but from what I've seen of each, I can imagine a world where we could beat either/both of them.

I struggle to foresee a world where we beat France.

France and Brazil seem to be the teams to beat this year. I'm not sure what side of the draw they're on, but it would be nice to avoid them

 

[Mellotron]

For me this outlook slightly underestimates how easy it is to simply “win against the USA”. They’re 16th in the world, well above a good number of even less fashionable footballing nations to have beaten or held the established elite - Saudi Arabia, Japan and Morocco just off the top of my head.

People seem to lose all sense of context and nuance when it comes to England. Forget what you might think of the names Iran, USA and Wales, we faced comfortably the highest average ranked opposition of any Pot 1 team in the tournament - the stealthiest group of death you will ever see, and yet we qualify with anything better than a 4-goal defeat tonight and remain in pole position to top the group and face one of Ecuador and Senegal in the next round.

Besides England, 10 of the world’s top 12 teams are at this World Cup and at least 5 of them are having a worse time than us so far, with the Italians sat at home staring miserably into their pasta.

There remains time for this World Cup to be yet another notch on the list of England tournament disasters, but it most certainly isn’t as of right now. Let’s not beat Southgate up for a performance that hasn’t even happened yet.

Couldn't agree more. People's expectations of England are bizarre. We overachieve by getting to a semi and a final in the last 2 tournaments, but everyone's furious because it wasn't done "the right way" or some bollocks.

We are what we are - probably about the 4th-7th best side in the World, and our tournament showings now reflect that. Prior to Southgate, we constantly underachieved. We are now at about par, to slightly overachieving in my opinion.

 

[Mellotron]

France and Brazil seem to be the teams to beat this year. I'm not sure what side of the draw they're on, but it would be nice to avoid them

I think they're on the opposite sides to each other, and yes right now it feels like they're destined to meet in the final, all things being equal.

 

[Commander]

Another game which is like beating a third tier team, then we are old beaters again against crud opposition. As soon as we play any half decent or big nation we will be going home, simple as.

Or if we beat them then they suddenly become a crap team that aren't what they were- don't forget that scenario.

 

[Surf's Up]

Wales will be running on raw emotion and a hatred (real or imagined) of England. England will be running on er.................er..............a belief that they are a better team than Wales

 

[Mellotron]

The fact that Wales have to win probably helps us. If a draw suited Wales, we could see another turgid affair.

They will throw everything at us and leave gaps. I also do not rate Danny Ward as being anywhere near the standard required.

 

[Poojah]

I'm not sure the easier route is avoiding Holland, as it means facing France.

Holland and Argentina is a bloody hard route, but from what I've seen of each, I can imagine a world where we could beat either/both of them.

I struggle to foresee a world where we beat France.

It was always unlikely we would have a repeat of our run at the 2018 - to reach the semi-final having only had to beat Tunisia (just), Panama, Colombia and Sweden was a remarkable stroke of luck, and I say that purely as an observation, not to undermine the achievement.

Assuming we go onto win the group, we at least get a 2nd round opponent against whom we will be heavy favourites. The potential saving grace of that route is that there remains the possibility that a France will face Argentina in the last 16 should the latter fail to win their group. An attritional, ill-tempered affair between those two might give us a puncher’s chance in any prospective quarter-final, maybe.

Regardless of how things play out, it’s going to be a lot harder reaching the semi-finals this time around than it was 4 and a half years ago.

 

[Springal]

Will be interesting, there’s definitely been a huge influx of Welsh fans from yesterday and has been some needle between fans, an England or Wales loss could be interesting out here.

 

[Mellotron]

It was always unlikely we would have a repeat of our run at the 2018 - to reach the semi-final having only had to beat Tunisia (just), Panama, Colombia and Sweden was a remarkable stroke of luck, and I say that purely as an observation, not to undermine the achievement.

Assuming we go onto win the group, we at least get a 2nd round opponent against whom we will be heavy favourites. The potential saving grace of that route is that there remains the possibility that a France will face Argentina in the last 16 should the latter fail to win their group. An attritional, ill-tempered affair between those two might give us a puncher’s chance in any prospective quarter-final, maybe.

Regardless of how things play out, it’s going to be a lot harder reaching the semi-finals this time around than it was 4 and a half years ago.

Agreed on all of that. Going out narrowly to France/Argentina shouldn't be seen as unmitigated failure/disaster, but you know full well the knives will be out for Southgate if that is what happens.

We have a talented squad but I actually think some slightly overrate it. Giroud, Mbappe and Griezmann is a fantastic attacking trio.

 

[Swansman]

I think England are going to win this comfortably. 2-0 or something. If you're lucky your boys can go 2-0 up before half time so you can switch over to the real thriller between USA and Iran.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

Off to concorde to watch it this eve!

 

[BrightonCottager]

I think England will shade this one, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the Fulham pair, Wilson and James (& Neco Williams who was at Fulham last year and links up well with Wilson) do for Wales.

 

[BrightonCottager]

I think England are going to win this comfortably. 2-0 or something. If you're lucky your boys can go 2-0 up before half time so you can switch over to the real thriller between USA and Iran.

TBH I'm a bit more interested in this one as well, not just because of the Fulham pair playing together for the US but both teams have more attacking potential than originally assumed and there's a lot riding on the result for both teams.