DrillingCobbler
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My observations…
I felt that, until Wednesday night….we 'managed' our way through quite nicely, albeit against (in the main) moderate competition. BUT. You can only beat whose put in front of you!
The group games:
Tunisia…battered them first half, then struggled. But definitely deserved the win, albeit earned in the last minute. 7/10.
Panama…chances all went in. One of those days. I thought we played better in the first half V Tunisa than we did in this match but you can't argue with 5-0 at HT! Regardless of the opposition. 7/10.
Belgium…irrelevant. Id have done the same, fielded a 2nd 1x.
Columbia…felt we definitely deserved the win. A better ref would have ensured we'd have won it comfortably in normal time. They scored at the bitter end, despite never looking likely to score. That goal 'was one of those things'. We did look leggy in the first half of extra time but sorted ourselves in the 2nd period. 7/10.
Sweden…Easily our best performance of the World Cup, and most controlled. Comfortable. 8/10.
Croatia. First 30 minutes - excellent. Got deeper and deeper. 2nd half and extra time - Id go as far as saying we were rubbish! I've said for many years, the worst time to score is in the first 5 minutes. It relaxes the opposition and the winning team gets nervous. What I found frustrating was the lack of proactive changes made by the management; Id have brought on an enforcer 5-10 minutes into the 2nd half to help Henderson screen the defence and for us to try and take some control of the midfield area. Like for like sub Sterling/Rashford was never going to work and it didn't. The last hour of play was on a par with the performance against Iceland. Indeed, much of the game reminded me of that match…early goal, all over them, got deeper…and deeper…misplaced passes, the inevitable happened. 5/10.
Overall, we had a good world cup. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was amazing, we didn't beat a big team. BUT. What we have is a first x1 that I believe can improve significantly and give it a real go in 2-4 years time. They precisely met my expectations pre-tournament in the sense that we had a decent run and came away having given us hope for the future. I never believed they were good enough to win it this time round, that said I did get carried away with it all, I had my flags in the front windows etc! Its been a dam good 3 weeks. Our future looks bright for once!
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