Most liked posts in thread: England v Croatia

Jury's out !!
Croatia were a very poor side
Ask me again when we have played the likes of France Italy Belgium and Germany or whoever we come up against
You can only beat what's in front of you and that wasn't very much

 

I would like to you repeat this post on Friday please!
You will get a like from me then

 

Lost me there mate ??
Scotland will be completely different opponents

 

Horses for courses. He picked a side to win today and it worked. Phillips was immense and Sterling frightened them all game. Hopefully that will setup Stirling for a good tournament after a poor run of form.
I think he was going to put Grealish on but that changed when we scored.

 

Decent result, decent enough performance. Hope Southgate proves me wrong I just feel we are capable of so much more. Test will be Spain, France, Portugal etc

One thing I learnt is Phillips is now a shoe in. Mount superb too.

 

Bit of a weird game really. Croatia were really poor which meant we didn't need to be anywhere near our best to beat them and beat them pretty comfortably too.

Hopefully over the next two games we'll take it up a few gears.

 

It's hard to know exactly how 'poor' Croatia were today. Maybe they looked ineffective because we were really good at nullifying them. Our defence - Mings and Walker in particular - played well. They are a technically good passing team, but our midfield largely contained them and kept Modric very quiet - causing him to drop ever deeper and curtailing his threat.
Let's see if Scotland or the Czech Republic are able to stifle them so comfortably.

 

I'm not suggesting that Scotland and the Czechs are the best comparison and I accept that we will need to improve against the serious contenders. But if Croatia stick three on Scotland or the Czechs then our performance may look a bit better than it did today. Alternatively, if they lose to either of them then it decidedly won't.

 

The weird format means we're pretty much through already.

But these games against Scotland and Czech Republic need to see England put a marker down and show what we're all about. These next two performances will dictate whether sides are wary of us in the knock out stages or not.

On today's evidence, I don't think any of the decent teams will be more worried about England than they were last month - that needs to change IMO.

 

If England win the group they will face the second team from France Germany Portugal. And Hungary stiff tests ahead

 

And if they finish second they'll likely play France in the quarter finals. No easy route to the later stages.