England matches discussion.

Again I specifically said apart from against France. You can't always take 1 game in isolation though. Especially when France's players just all didn't turn up. Were Spain great or was it France were dreadful or a bit of both?

And I said 'Fairly poor' not 'poor'. I also haven't said I wanted them to play around 100miles an hour. I praised them for the last Euros where they got the balance right but here they haven't. As we saw post their World Cup 2012/Euro 2014 back to back wins having lots of possession and making a ridiculous amount of passes means very little if you have no penetration.They haven't been as bad as that period but they have struggled to unlock defences to create alot of good chances.

Having watched every match at this point I actually don't think there has been a big team who really has stood up, they have had flashes but overall below par. France until the last 2 games are the closest but they also bottled it. The conditions and the amount of travel hasn't help any of them (although some teams like France barely had a to travel) and maybe its the tough leagues and the extended European competitions plus the club World Cup for some that has caused it or like England too many players have either been rushed back from injury or are carrying knocks (certainly a big part of Spains has to be Yamal not being full fit and Nico Williams injury issues but its been a fairly poor tournament for all the top teams, its been the less fancied teams who have stepped up.

 

Did Argentina play well across the tournament though? Did England? You can have that quality to get you over a line in sport without being anywhere near your best. The semifinalists all dragged themselves through the rounds either against far weaker teams or against other top teams were equally poor. I'm not sure why so many of the top teams struggled to hit their heights, with England the fitness of the players certainly played a massive part and maybe the conditions and the travel didn't help or the fact so many came off tough seasons with extended competitions etc but it wasn't the exactly the highest quality of football you will see at a competition although that did come with some extra drama.

First of all did you actually watch all of Spains games? And be honest don't just pretend you did. They didn't play like they did yesterday, yesterday was more like how they played at the last Euros, kept control but we always looking for that progressive pass and when it opened up they tried it. For much of the tournament they were playing more akin to those toothless Spain teams after their golden generation were world and European champions. Side way pass after side way pass, never taking a progressive action. Even in the final where they were trying to be progressive they were still missing that killer edge when they got into the good positions (Although Argentina were defending well, unlike what England did against them they kept their 2 banks so there wasn't the space, that was Englands failing in that they basically dropped to one flat line so there was space they couldn't close down)

And sure they won't care that they won it without being anywhere near their best just as Arsenal don't care they won the Premier League playing largely anti football