The spuds’ glove butler (© ArsenalGent) Hugo Lloris predicted before the semi-finals began that a spud would win the World Cup.
On Tuesday Vertonghen, Alderweireld and Dembele were dumped out with the meaningless 3rd place play-off the only thing delaying their flights home.
Last night potential Golden Boot winner, H Kane and his fellow English spuds were dumped out by Croatia. whose stuffed peppers were too hot for the national team to handle.
It would appear that barring a hat trick in the Final from Griezmann or Mbappe, Kane will be that Golden boot winner and reveal himself as the obvious candidate to replace CR7 at Real Madrid. Cmon Madrid, you know you want to.
So, anyway, Hugo now remains as the only miscreant left who could kiss the World Cup trophy. So that means it’s Croatia for me in the Final. 🙂
Last night began with a bang, Trippier’s glorious free kick flattering to deceive, but ended with a whimper with the superior footballing side creating the majority of the relatively few chances created.
At least we can now go back to proper football, club football, rather than pretend we ever enjoyed following a team with Welbz riding the pine as our only representative. Cheering on Ashley Young, Dele Alli and Eric Dier has been so so difficult.
Good luck to VP and Eddie’s chequered boys on Sunday.
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when the England captain is a Spud and others in the team are spuds, then their DNA does not contain the gene that enables you to win a trophy…
First up, massive thanks to Chas for his daily WC posts
I’m definately in the phew that’s over camp as I suspect we’d have been absolutely thrashed by France
Last point on England’s WC
I think there are/were at least eight teams who could have beaten England. We’re a last 16 side, but with a bit of luck on the draw, a last 8, with a miracle on the draw a last 4.
bottlers
i’ve been winding people up, but I was sure England were going to wipe Croatia out last night. Croatia – country with just 4mil people and which didn’t exist 30 years ago. How the hell did they do it??
I loved the English team. Yes, they lacked experience and some talent, but they made up with enthusiasm and confidence. Southgate is a giant of a man, did better than all the previous foreign managers and Arry achieved together
be proud!!!
VP 🙂 🙂
BTW – why 3 lions?? Most countries have native animals or birds as their symbols, like eagles, kangaroos, tigers, elephants, but lions in England??
Irish Gunner on FB:
“So tell me again how an England team built on Spurs players thought they were going to even get to a final never mind bringing it home …
SPURSY!SPURSY!”
Eddie
The House of Windsor crest has a unicorn as well as a lion. Not something you should lose too much sleep over 🙂
“Three squirrels on my shirt, Jules Rimet still gleaming….”
unicorns and dragons, and other nonexisting things are ok, but lions in England, what the hell?
I know, English are cat lovers. Lions are big pussycats. English like blowing up their trumpet…all clear now
Where the hell is LB??
Watching the Tour and looking forward to a vibrant new season under Emery.
Red squirrels, obvs
what about red squirrels?
Chas
“Three squirrels…..red obvs”
Brilliant!
France – 3or4-1
How can Harry Kane that belongs to a team that only dreams of top 4 aspire to move further when they are already in world cup top four position? What he knows how to fight for best is his personal glory. Someone that can claim another man’s pregnancy. I even heard he’s been begging FIFA to give him Mandzukic goal to add to his goal for golden boot. I salute your efforts Mr Harry Claim.
Thanks Chas
We were pants. One shot on target in 120 mins. They should be placed in the Tower
that is hugely unfair Peter. Harry Kane has been an excellent captain, great player and top professional.
who would you have as the captain then? Welbeck? Walcott? I think not
raddy – it was that Lingford, missed sitters
Lingford was shit
But he was good at running!
Delly Ally was shit too
Very English. Yesterday open bus tours, today hang your heads in shame 🙂
This defeat is for 3 people:
– Southgate poor coaching and game management;
– Walker on the first goal
– Maguire on the second goal
The 3 players that stood yeasterday for England were Pickford, Trippier and Sterling.
I do not know why England stopped playing from the 50th min onwards. You were controling the game, controling Croatia by being dangerous not by sitting back…Once Sterling was off, there was no threat whatsoever and boy oh boy, Delle Allie was a ghost yesterday. In terms of coaching and game management, it was a poor display by Southgate. The team was more comfortable pushing rather than waiting and in the second half, the press was too low on the pitch. I am very disappointed.
Walker’s poor clearance on the second goal really tarnished his performance as he was doing OK until then
Maguire – what a mistake! You can’t walk at this stage of the game, just quickly align to put the forwards offside. Shame coz he had an amazing WC until then.
England beat Tunisia, Panama, Columbia and Sweden. England lost to Belgium and Croatia. While the team reached the semis, it must be said that they had a good run-in and were serious against weaker opponents but struggled against good teams. The big plus of this WC is that England has finally found cohesion as a team and that the fan base is energized. I don’t think they should be hailed as heroes or overachievers – they performed as per expetations given the draw they were given. I think that if they are put on a pedestal, some of them (Walker, Delle Allie especially) may not work hard enough to improve. Potential is there, belief is there and you need to capitalize so congratulate them on a job well done but when I hear about “Heroes’ welcome”, I think it would disservice the squad.
Anyways on a personal note, I am sad not to face England and one must give credit where it is due: well done VP for another good prediction
England players of the tournament and your spine for the next two years:
Pickford – Trippier – Maguire – Henderson – Sterling – Kane
England most disappointing players:
Lingard – Delle Allie –
Well done to Croatia
PSG willing to sell Rabiot for 40 Mln.
thank you RC, we Croats are very proud today
didit – what shame ffs?? Nothing shameful finishing 3rd or 4th. 99 other countries would like to get that far
Because Eddie, as VP correctly pointed out, Croatia have a population of 47, of which only 11 are male grown ups. In other words, everyone has to lace up and we still failed to beat them 🙂
Such a shame Iwobi didn’t opt to play for England
Eddie – I am French so am rooting for France but Croatia has a wicked team with very impressive mentality and outstanding players on each line (Subasic – Vida – Modric, Rakitic – Perisic, Mandzukic). They are not the most flamboyant team but they are clinical and hard-working and they have strong tactical awareness whereby they can absorb pressure and counter attack as well as be comfortable on the ball.
Again, the key battles will be:
Perisic – Pavard
Mandzukic – Umtiti
Rakitic – Pogba
Modric – Kante
Vida – Mbappe
Lovren – Giroud
On the France side, it will come down to Pavard, Umtiti and Giroud to be outstanding and then I think we have a chance but if these three do not perform, I think Croatia has a real shout at winning the Cup.
What is VP predicting?
RC – that would be just amazing, one of the smallest countries in the world winning the best trophy there is. I hope you are right
If i wasn’t Croatian I would be French on Sunday, one of my favourite countries.
the only problem Engalnd made (the fans, not the team or the manager) is jumping the gun. Instead of taking it one game at the time they starting celebrating before it happened. Since the terrible feeling of losing
Will they ever learn?
When I read RC’s “Giroud needs to be outstanding” I let out a really odd high pitched noise. A cross between a giggle sniff snort and cry all rolled into one
Eddie you are right on the one game at a time approach. Modric has come out and said one of the key things they used for motivation was how the english media showed them no respect and were expecting a straightforward run into the finals aka Sweden. They were really fired up about that.
RC, this morning I predicted Croatia has a 25% chance of winning. The odds are very much against us and we are celebrating more on the achievement of being in the finals rather then a belief that we should win it.
But it is a WC final and anything can happen even after 3 games of 120mins. Modric said that the media focus on this was wrong. In the semi-final you forget it all and are so focused on winning that tiredness does not exist (or something to that effect).
So my prediction is that we wont win but we might.
Lukaku can also still win golden boot
Mandzukic – “We were like lions out there tonight and we will be the same in the final.”
Ooo, exciting times
News popped up on some google site that possible Ramsey replacements include Gomez, Nzonzi, Benega and the good Dembele
Could be more life left in this window. Nice
He claims another man’s pregnancy explain sound’s intriguing
I think Vardy should have been given a starting birth over sterling
He wouldn’t have been in the team
Delly Belli is shit too!
Mandzukic is a big pussy.
Shit housing and rolling around like some kind of big girl’s blouse.
He does it all the time at Juve as well.
Lion, my arse.
Ramsey replacement huh
Lingford Chrispy hasn’t aged well
I was excited for England’s chances during the 1st half but around 3/5 minutes into the 2nd half the whole momentum of the game changed along with my attitude. I couldn’t understand why they went onto the back foot and allowed Croatia to have so much of the ball. Was it a tactical decision to protect the one goal lead or did they just fall apart?
It became increasingly obvious that allowing Croatia so much possession could backfire so it came as no surprise to me that they lost. It will be a 2nd half of football that will be argued about for years to come – a total F up in my opinion.
Emery says transfer business is over unless big opportunity arises. 2 players to leave tops according to him but I still feel our squad is too big. We have loads of players, inlcuding deadwood that we need to get rid of
Nice to see Arsenal doing their transfer business early. Personally, I’d like to see a world class CB brought in as I still don’t think we have a solid starter in that position. It feels like we have lots of 2nd choice CB’s fighting it out for the positions but no real starter who you would want in there 38 games a season. We will have to see if that is a weakness once again this year. Really like all the signings though and hopefully Emery can get the team to fight and be more disciplined whilst still allowing them to play football.
West Ham could be fun to watch next year with Yarmalenko, Felipe Anderson and Wilshere coming in. Looks like they are having a total overhaul of their attacking players. Shocked to see Seri end up at Fulham too. Great signing for them.
RC
Is Ems Emery a 3 or 4 at the back man?
433 in psg
Sokratis is our big CB but agree that he may not be at Ramos or Bonucci or Godin level but we ll take him anyways 🙂
Leno – Bellerin, Mustafi, Sokratis, Koli – Ramsey, Torreira, Xhaka – Miky, Ozil – Auba
Could that be the first line up?
At PSG he was a 4-3-2-3 and in Sevilla he was 4-3-2-1 or 4-2-3-1. In PSG he tried to enforce a 4-3-2-1 but the team rejected it
I like the sound of 4-3-2-3.
So many players!
Would prefer lacazette starting over Xhaka but that would mean changing from a 433
4323 that not football he playing
Thanks RC
Perhaps your line up for tricky games with both Torreria and xhaka, but for easy home sunshine days, then Mhiki and Ramsey either side of Torreira
And this……………..
7:18 and still here?
Wow, that Mahrez welcome must have been highly embarrassing for him.
Re Trump
That Owen Jones has organised a demo, and sky news showed four lesbians outside the US ambassadors residence making noise to keep him awake.
Oh and according to their spokesman woman, they were showing solidarity with their fellow workers in the US ie the one’s that voted for him 🙄
7:06 caption
Mr May “for fuck’s sake, look at your wife compared to mine”
or Mrs May “bitch”
micky, behave!!
ok, Mrs Trump is stunningly beautiful but she is married to the most repulsive individual in this country. Would you want to walk in her shoes or more to the point shag Donald? No, exactly.
matteo is a nice looking kid, great hair
Not the point Eddie, as that’s rather like saying you shag for personality and kindness of heart. I’ve seen pics of Mother Teresa 🙂
true. I thought my ex was handsome, never thought him kind
Okedoke, that’s shagging protocol all sorted.
Suppose we should be dealing with 4-3-3’s, 2-3-5’s and all that!
that’s a pity 🙂 my limited knowledge of shagging is still greater than the one of formations 🙂 🙂
Hazard to Madrid for £150mil !!! That has to be a joke, no way he is worth that. Nobody is worth that much
Real aiming for Neymar, Hazard, Kane, Lewandowski and alternatively Dybala to replace Ronaldo.
Let us see what happens but I cannot see Neymar or Kane leaving this summer. Dybala is very much like Benzema but younger. Lewandowski wants to join and Hazard is keen to move abroad as well so I d think these two are possible signing.
On another note, I think that Emery will not keep the players loaned out last year.
Shaqiri to Liverpool and now Fekir is available
Can’t see any more signings coming in. A couple to go. But most importantly get Ramsey to sign a new contract
7:12 who needs to slide when you can do that 🙂
Bloddy hell, anyone see the score in the first Wimbledon semi-final yesterday: 6-7, 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 26-24!!!
That’s 99 games and six and a half hours!
How the heck do the guys in the next game prepare?
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