Pre-Season 2018 and Getting it Right - So Far...

Armstrong.  Nice Hair.

Where were we… oh yes, we stayed up by the skin of our teeth.  Since then…

Ralph Krueger gave an interview which was the usual mixture of microscopic amounts of detail and a whole load of management bollockspeak. The main topic of conversation was of course who the new manager was going to be and without saying that it would be Mark Hughes, Krueger basically threw every compliment in the book at him - about him having passed his audition and all that sort of stuff so it appears like a formality with the only question being, why it hasn’t happened yet? The future of Les Reed was addressed, sort of… and it appears that he retains the trust and confidence of the Chinese owner, who we still haven’t heard a fucking dickie bird from.  The players at the time were off to visit him as we had a preseason tour there to play two matches, one against a Chinese side and one against Schalke. I would’ve thought we could have arranged a friendly against the team that Graziano plays for or even the one that Big-Time Fonte plays for. The one complete clunker in the Krueger interview was by him at redefining what the pathway means. For the last seven years we have assumed that the pathway meant the pathway from our Academy through to the first team but according to Ralph it now means the pathway from Europe to Southampton to Liverpool for players like Sadio Mane.  No I’m not bothered about Mane but with the anger at Liverpool still barely beneath the surface, it was a bit of a PR own goal.  When you think about it though, there has always been two pathways but the problem is that the one I’m on about has stopped for the last few years.

Politically, holidays were blamed for a delay but eventually Mark Hughes, Mark Bowen and Eddie Niedzweicki were confirmed as Southampton Football Club’s new management team for next season. It really had to be this way for a number of reasons. Firstly, Hughes completely deserved it and secondly, with the board hadn’t appointed him and then got another appointment wrong, their position would’ve been completely untenable.

A couple of ‘out of contract’ players moved on in Florin Gardos and Jeremy Pied. Gardos had some good games for us before his bad injury and I was always a bit mystified why he didn’t get given least a chance in the last two seasons when we were struggling defensively and Pied was bought in as cover, got injured straight away and never really looked the part.  In Pied’s case in particular, you can say he was a pathway blocker, a cheap experienced player from abroad brought in simply to cover, take up a squad place and stop any promising right back we may have coming through.

The squads for the World Cup were announced and some of our ’in contention’ players made it and some did not. Predictably, Maya Yoshida made the Japan squad, Tadic the Serbia squad and Cedric the Portugal squad. Less predictable was Jan Bednarek making the Polish 23 so fair play to him.  On the flip side, Pierre Hojbjerg had made the extended Denmark squad but when it was cut to 23, he found himself on the beach.  A quick search on Twitter revealed that most Denmark fans were pretty pissed off that he was left out.

The biggest shock I guess was that Ryan Bertrand, having played in 6 out of 10 qualifiers and never letting anybody down, didn’t make the England squad or even the standby list. There were several reasons given for this, none of which made any sense to me as he was easily the best English performing left back in the season just gone. Danny Rose had been injured all season, only coming back into the Spurs side for the last two games but he’s been taken as the only specialist left back in the squad. I didn’t really have an issue with Rose being in the squad but seeing as he has had so many problems with injury the season, it would make sense to take the second specialist but instead of that he went for the Man United squad player in Ashley Young who is as right-footed are you like but has been playing there for United this season. If ever there was an accident waiting to happen then it’s that. Another strange one is that in addition to Young who could easily play right back, there are three other right backs chosen with Trippier being first choice and Walker expected to play on the right of about three. If anything happened to Trippier then the latest Liverpool youngster in Trent Alexander-Arnold was the back up or maybe he’d switch Walker out there and play one of the three reserve centre backs he has in the squad or play Young there. Southgate was asked about Bertrand and gave a bollocks excuse, saying he wasn’t at the level of the other options. His opinion of course but not one that I think is justified.  It used to be the case that sounds players left Saints because they didn’t get picked for England and then it became the case that soon as a Saints player got in England squad, they move to a bigger club and we lost them anyway and now appears to have gone full circle again with the Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool players picked instead despite not being regulars at the club or a regular in the position in question.

The new kit design was eagerly awaited by some and of course there were some leaks in the media like the new Southampton shirt for sale on the Under Armour website in Hong Kong. It looked pretty average to be honest and the rumoured third kit is very similar to the All-red design that we wore in our first season back in the Premier League and looks very average as well. I quite liked last years effort but I’m too old to really get arsed about kits to be honest. As long as it’s red-and-white I don’t really care.

I am a season ticket holder and as a season ticket holder you don’t get a discount anymore when renewing, any more than the new season ticket holder would. What you do get however it’s a request from the club to fill in a survey about the club but it’s not about the football side of the club, it is just about the other bollocks with questions like what would make you turn up to the ground earlier and what do you think of the hospitality packages? In short it’s all about the corporate side which I gave absolutely zero fucks about. I, like a vast majority I would guess, am a football fan. I am not a fucking customer and as long as I can see the whole pitch from my seat, I don’t really give a fuck about anything else. I don’t care about catering I don’t care about artificially induced atmosphere, I don’t care about hospitality. I want to turn up 10 minutes before the game, watch the game, clap the players off and then fuck off home. This questionnaire seems obsessed with making people stay behind after the game and spending more money. A good question would’ve been if you wanna leave on 75 minutes, what would make you stay to the end of the fucking game to support the team? Anyway, my responses were full of sensible suggestions but not what they would’ve been wanting. Question: What ruined your match day experience? Answer: the team announcement when Shane Long is upfront on his own…. Question: What annoys you during games? Answer: The manager not having a clue what he’s doing.

The kit was actually release and the home shirt is red and white stripes and the away is yellow and blue which on the face of it is what everyone would have chosen. It’s amazing quite how much people find to get annoyed about regarding the kit which is (I repeat) changed every year. Some are annoyed because of some very minor detail on the shirt like a logo bring the wrong colour or the Under Armour badge being slightly too big and the wrong colour. Some people get annoyed because the kit was leaked on overseas websites first. Some people got annoyed when Saints media team tried to make light of it and implied that the leaked kit wasn’t the actual kit. Some people even got annoyed because the leaked kit that they didn’t like was possibly not the real kit and they felt they were being trolled by the club. For fucks sake. As I said at the start, the home shirt is red and white stripes and a away shirt is yellow. Happy days and if you don’t like it, don’t buy it and it will charge again in 12 months time. Important details are that it has the Southampton badge on the front and it has Premier League matches on the sleeve

Meanwhile, back on things that matter.  After the last few transfer windows and us all becoming quite pessimistic about us sorting out the things that need sorting out with regards to players - this year with the transfer window closing early, we have no choice but to get on with it and so Stuart Armstrong arrived from Celtic for £7 million quid. Armstrong is an attacking midfielder with an eye for goal and seems an exact replacement for Steven Davis who of course has no eye for goal at all and hasn’t left yet. The signing of Armstrong rises intriguing questions about how the team is going to set up to play as there doesn’t appear to be on the face of it, a place for him in the 5-4-1 formation that we were playing at the end of the season. Still, the one thing we’ve lacked in the last few years is a goalscoring midfielder so hopefully, this is a guy who can get near to double figures. Oh, and he has nice hair apparently.

Probably unrelated but one in was soon followed by one out with Dusan Tadic completing a move to the Ajax. I have mixed feelings about this. On his day he is a brilliant player and when they happen, he is untouchable.  In his four seasons with us, he has played well in the main under the two decent managers that we’ve had, Ronald Koeman and Mark Hughes. Under Puel and Pellegrino he was pretty shocking at times going 15 to 20 games without actually contributing much at all. He’s had some great moments in the Saints shirt though, dismantling Sunderland on the 8-0 win, scoring the winning goal at Old Trafford and recently of course, his major contribution in keeping us up in the game at home to Bournemouth. He was of course originally brought in to replace the shit house Adam Lallana and for the first two seasons, no one would question that he had been successful. I think that he leaves on good terms so as long as we replace his creativity then I’m ok with it.  Apparently he’s talking a pay cut to move and his partner is Dutch so fair play to him.  It is a bit of a surprise that he is leaving now, given that Hughes obviously really likes him but I have a feeling that this deal has been in place for long time and to be honest. If he had left in January, then no one would be that bothered. Four seasons was probably the length of the original contract that he signed and he has of course signed an extension which means that we got a not insignificant lump of cash for the sale of 30 year old who was inconsistent.

Alex McCarthy signed a new four-year contract which is really good news and something he completely deserves and it was really interesting that we were heavily linked with Angus Gunn, a promising young goalkeeper at the same time. I guess this means that Fraser Forster’s days are numbered and the club must be pretty confident about getting his wages of the books somewhere.

And another one - Mo Elyonoussi, a Norwegian winger, arrived from Basel to fill the void left by Tadic‘s departure for £16 million quid. On the face of it, he looks an exciting addition to the ranks and with only YouTube clips to go on, all we can do is hope he adapts and turns out to be decent, unlike Boufal and Ramirez who both arrived with an accompanying YouTube highlights real and high expectations which proved to be unfounded.

Please Don't Be Another Boufal

The squad for the trip to China was announced with a couple of notable omissions and a couple of notable inclusions. Jordy Clasie was involved which was a surprise after he’d turned into a bit of a forgotten man last year when on loan in Belgium. Not included were Boufal, who is clearly still persona non-grata and Guido Carrillo who as far as Hughes is concerned is clearly persona non-ability. Saints have a friendly against Schalke in one of those friendlies we have a different teams in each half and drew 3-3 with goals scored by Redmond, Harrison Reed and Jake Hesketh. It was interesting to see Harrison Reed was picked as a right wing back which I think is probably going to be his position this season as back up to Cedric if he hasn’t taken his Boyband and tight shirts somewhere else by the time the season starts. The formation was a variant of the 5-4-1 that he was played at the tail end of last season and though nothing is definite of course, until the transfer window has finished-this looks like the way we are going on personally I am fine with that and with England doing so well at the World Cup with three at the back, I can see it being fashionable for a while anyway.

The Angus Gunn interested became real and he signed from Manchester City with the accompanying sound of Fraser clearing his locker out (and dropping everything because he wasn’t using his hands).  Another game in China and a 3-2 win with Stuart Armstrong setting up Gabbiadini for the first goal, Nathan Redmond scoring again and then Sam Gallagher coming off the bench for the winner. Meanwhile, big news, with the emphasis on fucking big and the signing of Jannik Vestergaard from Borussia Monchengladbach, a highly rated 6 foot 6, 25-year-old centre back with over 200 Bundesliga appearances under his belt. We were linked with him last year but he’d only just signed for Borussia so the significance of that is that it’s clearly a ‘club’ signing, like most of our best signings have been in the last few years.

We March On... With Massive Fucking Strides

So far, this transfer window has been excellent and that we have addressed the obvious issues. The players of course need time to settling in to the Premier League but on the face of it and on paper, it looks really promising and I suspect it’s not over yet.  In my opinion, the squad need an alternative to Cedric at right back and the front end of the team needs some maintenance. If we are going to play with one striker, which seems likely then there are question marks over all the strikers we have who could possibly play that role. Gabbiadini has the movement but not really the physicality, Austin just doesn’t have a fitness and you know he will be injured for three months of the season, it’s just a case of which three. Shane Long isn’t even in the conversation really and should of course be moved on if we are looking to progress as a squad. If he is used as anything other than an emergency right winger this season then I think I might cry. Sam Gallagher has the physicality to play up front on his own but he is raw and unproven at this level.

The World Cup ended.  We sent four players out there but of course, Tadic didn’t come back.  Maya Yoshida had a great tournament with Japan, reaching the last 16 and the man himself putting in a superb performance against Belgium.  Jan Bednarek scored his first goal for Poland and it turned out to be the winner against Maya’s Japan.  Cedric started the tournament ok for Portugal, got a shit penalty given against him aginst Iran in the 3^rd game and then got dropped for the last 16 game against Uruguay which they lost.  The three have all had a late holiday – guess who of the three have posted the most photos with their bro’s and shirtless selfie’s on social media?  Take a wild stab in the dark.

The we had a disastrous blow when our record signing went out on loan.  We didn't want to lose him and fought tooth and nail to keep him but Guido Carrillo is far too good for Southampton and we were lucky to hold on to him as long as we did.  Fair play to him for wanting to challenge himself as he clearly found it too easy here - so he's off to play up front for Pellegrino in Spain.  Good luck to them both,

World Cup 2018 - Semi's and Final - Ok, France Didn't Implode Like I Said They Would

Fair Play Carlton

Semi-finals and France against Belgium. It’s really tough to pick a winner from this match but I’ve gone Belgium, simply because of the greater attacking flair. I should’ve known. To be fair, France played this game absolutely superbly, scored the one goal that decided it with a header from a corner by Umtiti and then saw the game out impressively by defending properly and not over-committing players forward from midfield, making themselves immune to the counter-attack at which Belgium are absolutely deadly. When confronted with this, Belgian looks fairly ordinary and nearly all of their attacks fell down when the ball got to Lukaku who was absolute pocketed by Varane and proved that whilst he is a very good striker, he hasn’t got the first touch to be regarded as world class.  Mbappe and Griezmann had moments when they were absolutely brilliant but I’m going to give a shout out to Carlton Pogba who played a superbly disciplined role for the team to nullify the seven foot wig that is Marouane Fellaini. Oddly enough, I feel that should we go through against Croatia, then we would have a better chance against France than we would against Belgium.

Southgate named the usual team and here are England in a World Cup Semi-Final against Croatia.  In 1990 I was watching the game in a pub near Fratton Park of all places.  Oh the misery after that one.  Anyway, 28 years later and in five minutes, dreamland as Trippier brilliantly chipped a free kick over the wall and into the top corner. Fuck me – what a start!. For the rest of the first half, we absolutely battered them but couldn’t score with Kane being denied one-on-one by Subasic and then managing to hit the rebound on to the post via the goalkeepers boot.

Just for a Minute - We Believed

It was obvious that Croatia would be better in the second half and so it proved as they pushed up on our defence and we were severely found wanting. There was no playing out from the back and every time the ball went to Henderson in midfield, it was hoofed aimlessly forward.  Not good and from about the hour mark onwards it was obvious that we weren’t going to score again and we were just hoping to hang on but it wasn’t to be with a cross from the right hand side finding just one player moving towards the ball in the box and everyone else static.  That one player was Perisic and he got in front of Walker to knock it into the net. We hang on till extra time and the first 15 minutes were fucking dreadful as we struggle to get any sort of foothold at all, rel;ying on the excellent Pickford to keep us in it. The second 15 were better but we still didn’t create much and then a shit clearance up in the air from Walker, it came down, it was nodded back into the box, Stones was playing statues and Mandzukic reacted and scored easily. World Cup semi-final, 2-1 down, five minutes to go and we’re going to need a hero but we don’t have any. Sadly, it was completely gone and there was no way back. Rashford had a free kick and aimlessly floated it into the box and it was easily cleared and that was the last chance and with it went England’s participation in the World Cup in 2018, aside from the bollocks third place play-off they now have to endure.

We have lost to a very good side but it’s one that contains Dejan Lovren and that’s hard to take because he is a fucking wanker. I think we can have a little bit of a gripe of the referee as he let the Vrsaljjko and Rebic in particular get away with murder but we didn’t do enough from the 45th minute onwards to say we deserve anything out of the game.  Croatia with the better side and good luck to them in the final.

Overall, we’ve had a really good tournament but there is a case of what might have been. What might have been if we had put it to bed in the first half which should’ve done. What might have been if we had some game changers on the bench. What might have been, bearing in mind how the draw opened up which in all likelihood, won’t happen again. As has been pointed out by numerous other people, the English National football team has reconnected with the public after the all time low of the Iceland debacle which was after all, only two years ago. Gareth Southgate has undoubtedly been a massive improvement on Roy Hodgson and is probably the most likeable England manager this side of Bobby Robson. England lost this game because they didn’t take their chances in the first half and when Croatia got to grips with us and started asking questions of us, we didn’t adapt and we didn’t deal terribly well with the pressure that we were put under. If you’re being harsh then you would say it is pretty much as predicted. We would do okay until we came up against a good side and then defensively, we would be found wanting. The first goal was pretty bollocks but the second goal was appalling and you can’t give away goals like that at this level and expect to win many matches.

There are many who have come out of the World Cup with a reputations enhanced like Pickford, Trippier, Walker, Maguire, Stones, Henderson and Kane and there are some that have a little bit more to do like Dele Alli, Lingard and Sterling and some that just shouldn’t have been there like Young, Welbeck and Jones. Raheem Sterling - for all his running and work rate has the same attributes as Shane Long and that he doesn’t seem to have the faintest idea what to do with the ball when he’s got it.  I feel like we should’ve seen more of Ruben Loftus-Cheek who looked the best option in the front half of the pitch where the alternatives were all slightly underwhelming. Jamie Vardy never really got involved and Marcus Rashford look like a season of being undermined at club level has taken some of his confidence away. 

At the tournament, given the squad that he had there, I don’t think Southgate did too much wrong but I would take issue with some of the players that he picked for the squad, particularly the ones who you want to come on and make an impact. We really needed another creative midfielder and we also really needed a proper left back. Trippier was brilliant on the right hand side and just imagine if we’d of had the same sort of quality coming in from the left. We needed more creative midfielders, we needed some left sided balance, we needed a plan B.  There is work to do and I’m sure Southgate knows that.  Football didn’t come home, as that bloody song implies it might do one day but at least following England as a tournament was an enjoyable experience for once and one that people look forward to doing again in a couple of years.

So, Croatia against France who have got stronger and stronger as the tournament has gone on so I’m afraid I can’t see anything other than French win.

I had decided that I couldn’t be arsed to watch the third place play-off but come 3 o’clock on the Saturday, there I was watching the third place play-off. At least the managers took a relatively seriously this time with only a few changes each. Belgium started the game well and were in the lead in five minutes as Danny Rose totally lost Meunier who ran in from the Belgian right flank and connected with a cross and gave Pickford no chance. The rest of the first half was played a testimonial pace but Southgate improved things, taking off Rose and Sterling for Rashford and Lingard.  We were the better side in the second half until we got completely done on the break with Hazard scoring with ease.  Ah well – who cares?

A feature of this World Cup has been that there has been a lot of bollocks spoken, mainly by the Welsh, Scots and Irish. By that, I mean mainly the Welsh about the fact that we had a relatively comfortable path to the semi-final and we lost when we played a decent side etc etc. To them, I say this.

If you look at our recent tournament history it is this…. 2016 – Lost to Iceland, 2014 – out after two games, pathetic, 2012 – bored everyone to death, out on penalties to Italy, 2010 South Africa, smashed by Germany, 2008 – McClaren, did not qualify, 2006 – Portugal penalties, Rooney sent off, Sven clueless, 2004 – shone briefly, Portugal penalties, 2002 – sven clules, lost to 10 man Brazil, 2000 – Phil Neville.  We’ve been shit and underachieving for ages so this is better.

England have just finished fourth in the World Cup, a competition that every country in the World entered and all bar three of those countries would like to have finished where England have finished. We came fourth in a tournament that Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Holland and Wales were in and we did better than all of them. The team and the players have conducted themselves with the utmost respect and dignity which is a marked contrast to Wales at the Euros with their tinpot celebration video after England lost to Iceland. If there was ever a bigger display of arrogance and disrespect by an actual team than that, then answers on a postcard please. Also, because we have a bit of dignity and respect, we are not having any sort of open top bus parade for losing a semi-final. We will leave that to others.

Meanwhile, back with countries that actually matter in World football terms, France against Croatia.  Croatia are favourites because they have one of the best defenders in the world (© D.Lovren).  It was rather a silly proclamation to make by Mr Lovren when you consider that he’s about to play against Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann who are likely to tear him a new arsehole.

Finals tend not to live up to their billing but this one certainly did. Croatia were by far the better side in the opening 20 minutes with France looking like they didn’t really know what to do and how to handle the aggressive play in midfield from Croatia’s superb five of Perisic, Modric, Brozovic, Rakitic and Rebic. With virtually their first attack though, Griezmann took a horrible dive on the edge of the box and won a free kick. The shithouse himself took it and Croatia had got their defensive line all wrong and in the panic, Mandzukic nodded it past his own keeper. You would’ve thought that one of the best defenders in the world would have sorted the defensive line out properly.

Emotional Shithouse after Successfully Pulling Another Excellent Dive 

Back came Croatia from the injustice and a ball into the box was nodded down and Vida laid it back to Perisic who took a touch before drilling it past Lloris from the edge of the box. Game on and then just before half time, more bollocks. Over came a corner which was flicked on and it hit Perisic on the arm directly behind the guy who flicked it on. No penalty given by the referee but eventually, the VAR operators obviously made enough noise and told the referee that he had something to look at. Over he went and watched the TV before deciding that Perisic had clearly done it deliberately and that he had made a clear and obvious error in not awarding a penalty.  This is sarcasm.  Utter, utter bollocks. The beneficiary again was of course fucking Griezmann who slotted home the penalty to give France a totally underserved 2-1 lead at half time.

Bullshit!

The start of the second-half was even until the hour mark, when in exactly the same way that they had done in the Round of 16 game against Argentina, France upped a gear and scored twice in five minutes with near identical goals. Firstly Pogba had an effort blocked before picking up the rebound and passing it around the defender and into the net and then Mbappe drilled one in from roughly the same spot and none of the Croatian offenders, including one of the best defenders in the world, got close enough to stop the shot. 4-1 and game over.  Hugo Lloris then came up with an absolute classic. Mandzukic was the only Croatia player in the French half when Lloris tried to dribble around him on the 6 yard line and Mandzukic tackled the ball into the net. Another Croatia goal would have made for a hilarious last 10 minutes but sadly it wasn’t to be and France held out for what was ultimately a fairly comfortable win. To be honest, I probably just about deserved it but Croatia can have every reason to be pissed off with the officiating on the first two goals.

I didn’t know who I was going to want to win.  Normally it wouyld have been Croatia but they have Lovren but even that wasn’t enough to tip the balance.  We did get a close up of one of the best crying defenders in the world though so that was alright.  Arsehole.

Before the presentation it pissed down and I mean really pissed down.  President Emmanuel Macron of France and the wonderful President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović of Croatia got absolutely soaked whilst Vlad the Impaler stood under a flunkey’s umbrella.  A really good tournament and a feather in the cap for Vladimir.  Well done.  For he’s a jolly good fellow.

When does the Premier League start?

Have a Losers Medal.  Dick Head

World Cup 2018 - Quarter Finals - Neymar Dives Out

I Wish That Witsel (Right) Had Hoofed the Cheating Fucker in the Head

The quarter-finals. The last eight. From a blogging point of view. I have never arrived at the last eight of the tournament with England still in it. Usually, we have been shit and on our way home by now. We are of course still in it and so games that would usually merit only a passing interest became very important.

France v Uruguay
France and Uruguay got the ball rolling and Uruguay were missing Cavani which in my book, immediately made France the favourites and so it proved as they ran out comfortable two nil winners. The first half saw them took the lead as Griezmann flighted in a free kick and Verane flicked home really well. Uruguay had a great chance in the second half after a header by Caceres was brilliantly kept out by Lloris and France sealed the game when Griezmann tried a potshot from miles out and Uruguayan keeper Muslera, basically, did a Karius and dropped it over his own head into the net. Griezmann had made a point before the game that he felt part Uruguayan which was a bit fucking wierd and not celebrating scoring a goal in the World Cup quarter-final is very fucking weird as well. So out go Uruguay and that’s probably the last we will see of bucktooth psychopath Luis Suárez at the World Cup. At least this time he didn’t blatantly cheat like in 2010 or bite someone like in 2014.

What Happened Next?

Belgium v Brazil
Belgium and Brazil was a clash between two of the tournament heavyweights and promised an intriguing clash between Brazil’s commitment to attack and Belgium being excellent on the counter-attack. Brazil nearly scored from a corner when Thiago Silva managed to bundle the ball onto the post from about 3 inches out and it was a Belgian set piece that did for Brazil when zero communication meant two players went to head out a corner and succeeded in neither of them doing it and the ball flew into the net off Fernandinho’s shoulder. Brazil then went into full attack mode which basically played right into Belgium’s hands as they lost the ball and a lightning quick break by Lukaku ended with Kevin De Bruyne arrowing the ball into the far corner to the Belgians 2-0 up at half-time.

Brazil were better in the second half and penned Belgian back and then Neymar, took time off from losing the ball every time he had it, to start driving around. Firstly, he completely initiated contact with Fellaini went down like a sack of shit in the penalty area.  The referee saw it, basically gave him a bollocking to diving and then didn’t book him.  What the fuck is going on?  A few minutes later, this dive came back to bite Brazil as Gabriel Jesus was trashed by Vincent Kompany what look like an obvious penalty but even after a review by the VAR officials, no penalty was given. Brazil eventually got one back through and Augusto header Belgium held out thanks to a decent Courtois tip over from Coutinho and despite collectively blowing out of their arses for the last 10 minutes, secured a semi-final against France.  A final piece on Neymar – he’s a cheating fuck and the referees encourage it.  If you deal with a  problem in the correct way then it goes away.  If he dives then book him, if he does it again, send him off.  It’s like the grappling in the penalty area – start giving penalties and it goes away.  Neymar’s legacy from this World Cup has been encouraging hundreds of kids to make videos of themselves rolling around.  Even the kids know how ridiculous he is and I hope he’s proud of that.

So, France against Belgium in one semi-final and now we move on to the other half of the draw.  

England v Sweden
I moaned again when Ashley Young was picked but this (I have to accept) is Southgate’s first choice team so let’s get on with it. Sweden are more or less at full strength as well and I can’t believe I’m watching England in a World Cup Quarter Final and am confident we’re going to win. After England looked the better side from the first whistle with Sterling in particular, stretching the Swedish defence to breaking point, especially Granqvist who was really struggling to keep up. It took 25 minutes to take the lead and it was yet another set piece. I was not full of optimism when Young went up to take it but he put over a great ball to roughly the penalty spot and Maguire found himself completely unmarked to power a header into the net for 1-0. It should’ve been two before half time when a superb through ball from Henderson found Sterling with just the keeper to beat but the keeper delayed him a bit and then Sterling delayed himself trying to make up his mind what to do and the chance was gone.

"Gerrout the Fookin' Way"

The second half started with Sweden in the ascendancy and we seem to be asleep as a cross was met by Berg and his firm downward header was superbly clawed out by Pickford who was suddenly looking twice the goalkeeper he looked in the earlier matches. The save made England re-focus and concentrate and on the hour it was 2-0 with Lingard putting a cross right on Dele Alli‘s head. He had timed his run perfectly and headed past Olsen for 2-0. Pickford had to be at his best on a couple more occasions but overall England saw this game out fairly comfortably and you sensed, could have won by more if they have wanted to or needed to.

This is fucking brilliant so far. I was not over enthused when Southgate got the job but he has done the one thing that I have been crying out for every England manager to do since 1990 and build a team and not pander to big name individuals. Of course we have star individuals in this team like Harry Kane and players who play for the traditional big clubs but everyone of those players is playing for the team at the moment and not for themselves.  I’m sure that if a situation in a game needed Southgate to tell Harry Kane to play centre back, then he would without question. Sven Goran Eriksson couldn’t even get Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard to stop bombing forward and play as a defensive midfielder. Southgate has found a system that works for the players that he has, moving Kyle Walker to a slightly unfamiliar role for the benefit of the team. It makes me laugh reading Twitter where fans of Manchester City for example are aggressively defending Sterling because he plays for Manchester City. You see United fans aggressively defending Rashford and demanding he be included ahead of Sterling. It’s laughable really. The reason this England team is still in the tournament is because club rivalries have been completely put aside. England’s latest hero is Harry Maguire who most recently has played for Leicester and Hull. Previous managers would not have even had him in the squad, let alone in the team ahead of Chelsea’s Gary Cahill or Manchester United’s Phil Jones. It just wouldn’t have happened. Southgate needs applauding for that, more than he needs applauding for wearing a fucking waistcoat. He also binned Wayne Rooney which Hodgson should have done four years ago.

I always find it interesting to compare the BBC and ITV coverage of England matches. ITV usually get the gig during qualifying but it is shared in the finals. The BBC coverage is usually absolutely miles better and was good yesterday apart from the commentator (Guy Mowbray) who was a complete fucking arse from first to last.   Co-commentator Martin Keown was ok aside from trying to sell Harry Maguire to a big club as soon as he'd scored.   It worries me that every football fan has the Kenneth Wolstenholme iconic commentary from 1966 etched in their mind... "some people are on the pitch... they think it's all over... it is now".   Even fans who weren’t born at the time have these iconic words. If England win the whole thing, what the fuck are we going to have this time? Some prick shouting “England win, England win” and Mark Lawrenson making some glib joke in the background... and some other tosser speculating on which of the big clubs Harry Maguire is going to join as soon as he gets home... and how Karius had concussion in the Champions League Final... and it all reminded us of when Solskjaer scored in the last minute for United.

After the very tiring experience of watching England it was then time for...

Russia v Croatia
Personally, though Croatia are undoubtedly the better side, I would prefer England to play them than the Russians. I can’t be the only person who is slightly concerned that Russia are suddenly performing amazingly and way above expectations, in a major sporting event. I don’t feel bad for thinking in this cynical way because of the ridiculous amount of evidence there has been recently. Maybe it’s down to the training camp that they just are the fittest team who cover the most ground. Maybe it’s all a big coincidence.  I also don’t think you’d have a prayer of getting a decent shake off the referee and off the VAR if you were playing the Russians in a semi-final.

Halfway through the first half, Russia’s star of the tournament Denis Ivan Drago-Cheryshev, plays a 1-2 and bends a left-footed curler over the top of the keeper and into the top corner from 30 yards. Dodgy positioning by the keeper but an amazing goal nonetheless.  Just before half time, a break down the Croatian left, a cross from Mandzukic and a header from Kramaric makes it 1-1.  We then had a goalless second half of players dropping like flies with cramp and Ivan Perisic hitting the inside of the post for Croatia. I’m sure no one supporting England was remotely bothered that it went to extra time with Vida giving Croatia the lead again with a header from a corner and Drago-Fernandes equalising for Russia with another header with five minutes to go. Penalties again. The first Russian penalty - bearing in mind everything that was riding on it, was right up there with the worst penalties I have ever seen. Drago-Smolov tried to chip it down the middle but instead of doing that he hoped, managed to chip it to his left and Subasic, the goalkeeper who had already dived and was on the ground, had time to make a second movement and just pat the ball away. Utter shit.  Croatia missed the second kick and so it came down to the Brazilian player Mario Ivan Drago-Fernandes, who Putin had granted some sort of express Visa to so he could play in the tournament. He tried to smash it but he almost looked like someone who doesn’t know how to kick a ball when he shanked it horribly wide of the post.  As in the last round, it eventually fell to Ivan Rakitić to take the fifth Croatia penalty which he dispatched easily to send the Russians out and give England a World Cup semi-final against Dejan Lovren.

You Look a Right Prick if the Dink Doesn't Work

So, Russia go out having achieved much more than they thought they would – not winning it but not embarrassing themselves.  They would certainly have taken that at the start and they can be proud in having staged a great tournament so far.  For England now - Croatia are a better side than anyone we have played before (I’m ignoring the game against Belgium’s reserves) but it’s certainly not a team we should fear – they’ve needed penalties to beat both Denmark and Russia - and there is no weight of history against us like they would be if we were playing Germany or Brazil.  I predict England will spend a lot of time without the ball but will win simply because our attackers are better than their defenders.  1-0 to England.  Belgium and France is a flip of a coin job but I’ll take a punt on it being and England v Belgium Final on Sunday – without the reserves this time.

World Cup 2018 - Round of 16 - It's Coming Home (Maybe)

Listen Radamel - It's Coming Home You Shithouse

France v Argentina
The round of 16 kicks off with France against Argentina. These are two sides who were not supposed to meet at this stage but they are two sides have both been pretty poor so far. France won the group of life whilst Argentina were as desperate as Diego Maradona is when he runs out of marching powder. So, me being the football expert that I am, expected this to be really really dull when actually, what followed will go down as one of the best World Cup matches of recent times.

France have obviously had some sort of revolution behind the scenes – I mean, Deschamps is still in the dugout but maybe in some sort of coup d’état they’ve had him murdered and just propped him up and said ‘Viva la Revolution – we have all these attacking players – let’s go for it’  Griezmann smacks the bar with a great effort before Mbappe takes off like an Olympic sprinter and Marcos Rojo has almost no choice but to clumsily knock him over.  Penalty, Griezmann, 1-0.  The Argies have been pretty shite all tournament and one of their chief shite players, Angel di Maria produces a ridiculous long range effort which gave Lloris not a prayer to make it 1-1.  Second half and Argentina in front as Messi shanks and Mercado sticks out a foot and deflects it for 2-1.  I’m waiting for the French to implode but not a bit of it – a cross from the left evades everyone and French right back Pavard – who like di Maria, has looked shit in every game, hits across the ball on the bounce and it swerves inside the far post.  It’s an unbelievable goal.  You could try that 20 times and the other 19 would be row Z.  Mbappe has been ok without being outstanding so far but he killls it dead in 5 minutes, firstly firing under the keeper and then finishing easily when put through by Giroud.  4-2 and Aguero flicks a superb Messi cross into the net with his head in the 93^rd minute to give them the faintest of hope but no – France through, Argentina out, Maradona on a massive fucking drugs bender in his role as FIFA ambassador or whatever the fuck he is. It’s enough to make Diego have a fucking heart-attack and I hope his bag of cocaine went all lumpy when he cried on it

Uruguay v Portugal
It turned out to be the day where Cristiano Ronaldo couldn’t drag his team over the line. It just never look like working out of him at any point in the game. Unsurprisingly, no one else really stepped up to help. Uruguay have got two very good attacking players and they combined brilliantly with Cavani sweeping a long ball out to the left for Suarez to cross back in Cavani to continue his run and bullet header past Patricio to give Uruguay a lead which they never look like surrendering before half-time.

The second-half was not all about Ronaldo but was about King Shithouse or Pepe as he is otherwise known. Pepe is such a likeable chap so everyone was thrilled when he had an unchallenged header at the start the second half to draw Portugal level. Such joy at Pepe having such a great moment but it quickly turned round the opposite way when he totally fucked up a basic defensive header and the subsequent cross from the Uruguay right winger fell for Cavani to brilliantly sweep to the net for what ultimately turned out to be the winning goal. Uruguay are a bloody good side and one that you’re certainly glad, as an England supporter, to see on the other side of the draw.

Not Bad These Two

Russia v Spain
Russia’s game plan, which is perfectly valid against Spain, was to keep 10 men behind the ball at all times and see if Spain could play through them which of course, they couldn’t. It was Spain at their worst going sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards. They did take the lead early on when a corner was heading towards Sergio Ramos and the Russian who was wrestling with him turned his back on the ball and hit his heel and flew in the net for a comical own goal. Russia equalised just before half time with a strange goal. A cross came over, Pique got underneath it and to some reason threw his arms up in the air. The ball was headed goalwards and hit his arm but Pique was not even looking at it. As the rules stand at the moment, handball has to be deliberate. Important distinction to make is that this is a rule, not open to interpretation. My interpretation of the incident is that Pique knew exactly what he was doing but there is no way, according to the rules of the game that that is a penalty. Regardless, Dzyuba scored to give us another 45 minutes and then another half an hour of boredom and Spain passing the ball about. Half the time they don’t even look to pass the ball to a striker. There was one bit on about 90 minutes where Busquets played a straight ball in to the feet of Isco on the edge of the Russian penalty area and he just fired it first time, straight back to Pique without looking for any other strikers next to him. No holding the ball up and wait for support-he just knocked it straight back out back to the halfway line like a clearance. Fucking bizarre.

There was one controversy in extra time when Pique was clearly wrestled down in the penalty area but hey this is Russia, this is Putin’s Russia and there is no fucking way that that’s getting given by VAR. To be fair it wasn’t Tunisia and Panama level holding but it should still have been given. Penalties and it was one of those shootouts where you could pick who was going to miss from the way they walked up to the ball. You could also tell that de Gea wasn’t going to save a fucking thing. There was one that he really should’ve reached and one which he dived over the top of. In the event Koke missed and when Iago Aspas had a kick to keep Spain in it you knew the game was over and so the Russians went through and probably the best team in England’s half of the draw have gone out which makes it interesting If we start getting ahead of ourselves, which of course we do.

South Korea 2002 All Over Again

Croatia v Denmark
Croatia have been excellent in every game in the group but knockout football is different and it suits them more pragmatic, organised and some would say fucking boring teams like Denmark. There’s a goal in the first minute for Denmark as a ball bounces kindly for Jorgenson and then a similar scenario three minutes later at the other end which allowed Mandzukic to level it. There then followed 86 minutes of mind-numbing bollocks followed by another 26 minutes of mind-numbing bollocks in extra time. At this point, Modric split the difference with a pass through to Rebic who skated round Kaspar Schmeichel and was about to roll into and empty net when Jorgensen trashed through the back of him. Penalty of course and a yellow card. Absolute bollocks. I know the rule has been changed so that if you make a genuine attempt to play the ball then you don’t get sent off but think about it - three minutes to go in a knockout World Cup game, the striker’s gone round the goalkeeper and he has an empty net. He deliberately trashed him and he should’ve been sent off. There is no fucking way you could say he was going for the ball. The only reason this is relevant because Modric stepped up and hit a tame penalty which Schmeichel pushed aside to send us into a penalty shootout. It was 2-2 as we got the 5th kick for each team with Johansson seeing his kick saved by Subosic and Ivan Rakitić rolling penalty past Schmeichel to send Croatia through. Bye Denmark. Thanks for nothing.

Brazil v Mexico
I always feel that teams from South and Central America going to any game with Brazil are half beaten before they even start. Mexico looked lively to a point but it was only Brazil who were ever going to score. Ochoa, the Mexican keeper, saves well from Neymar and Coutinho but he was never going to get to 90 minutes without letting in a goal. When Neymar stops rolling around like a fucking little pussy, he’s actually a brilliant player and his backheel caused mayhem in the defence before Willian put the ball across and Neymar himself finished off from close range. Mexico didn’t really threaten at all and in the 92nd minute they got caught on the break as Neymar went away on the left and via a deflection, found Firmino in the middle to roll into an empty net for 2-0, nice and easy for Brazil.

Belgium v Japan
Belgium were remarkably low in intensity in the first half and Japan held out fairly comfortable with the magnificent Maya Yoshida to the fore. The second half started with the Japan breakaway, the through a ball that should’ve been cut out by Vertonghen but he missed it and Kawaguchi fired across Courtois to tear up the script. After Hazard hit the post, away went Japan again and Inue let fly from 20 yards and found the corner of the net again to give Japan a ridiculous 2-0 lead. Sadly, it wasn’t to last. Vertonghen made amends for his earlier fuck up for scoring with a fluke head across goal which dropped in the far corner of the net. Then a cross found the wig of Fellaini to make it to 2-2 and in the last minute, Belgium showed how good they can be. Courtois cleaned the corner and bowled it out to De Bruyne.  He charged forward, found Meunier on the right and his low class was dunmmied by Lukaku and there was Chadli to break Japanese hearts. Japan were fucking brilliant and unlike some of the shit teams who added nothing, they will genuinely be missed.

Switzerand v Sweden
It will surprise absolutely no one that the most predictably shit game of the World Cup was a predictable shit game. Two bollocks teams is very little attacking intent produced a diabolical first half with a few chances each but nothing great until Sweden’s Emil Forsberg produced a fitting winning goal for such a shit game with a half hit shot which was deflected in off a Swiss defender before it could roll to the goalkeeper. Fucking rubbish really. Switzerland go home having got a point against Brazil courtesy of a shit refereeing decision, two points against Serbia due to VAR not picking up the double assault on Mitrovic in the box and that’s about it really. They really haven’t had much to the proceedings. Sweden go through to the quarter-finals of the winners of England and Colombia.

England v Colombia
Same lineup as the opening game With James Rodríguez missing for them and a cagey even slightly boring first half.   Columbia are intent on making it as niggly as possible with lots of off the ball stuff and the referee, who is apparently American, is trying his best to keep a lid on it. We have another VAR farce as Colombian midfielder Barrios clearly nutted Jordan Henderson and though Henderson made a meal of it, there was definitely deliberate contact but instead of inviting the referee to go and look at the pictures for himself, the VAR officials advised him from afar that it should only be yellow card. Complete fucking joke. 10 minutes into the second-half and Harry Kane gets his usual rogering off a defender when he’s trying to make himself free at a corner and the ref gives England a penalty and mayhem happens, Led by Colombia’s captain and chief arsehole, Radamel Falcao. The Colombians are all round the referee and taking their opportunity to scuff the penalty spot and all that sort stuff and I’ve seen this a few times in this World Cup now and I just don’t understand why the referees don’t say, “you have 30 seconds to clear the penalty area, anyone still here will get booked. Anyone who leaves the penalty area and comes back in will be booked. Simple. Three minutes later, Colombia decide that the game can go ahead and Harry Kane passes it down the middle and puts us 1-0 up. The next 20 minutes are fine and then Southgate fucks up. He didn’t fuck up taking off Dele Alli who was clearly injured but he fucked up putting on Eric Dier instead of Ruben Loftus-Cheek because all of a sudden we completely lost our shape and just became very negative. Dier was playing like someone had won a raffle to play in a testimonial match. Kyle Walker then chose the wrong moment doze off and lost the ball on the halfway line which allowed Columbia to break and luckily, Cuadrado smashed it over the bar. Colombia manage their first shot on target in the 91st minute, a long range effort from Uribe which Pickford brilliantly clawed out of the top corner. From the resulting corner, Yerry Mina beat Maguire in the air and headed down seeing it bounce over Trippier on the line and fucking unbelievable, the scumbags had equalised. The first half of extra time was fucking dreadful and it look like England had gone. The second half was better as he took the woeful Ashley Young off and put Danny Rose on and the left-footed left back came closest to winning it for us with a shot across the goal that went about 6 inches wide of the far post.

Penalties. We’ve been here before. Pickford didn’t get near the first three Colombian penalties with Kane and Rashford converting for England. Up stepped Jordan Henderson, a bit of ball juggling, a very short run up and saved. Bollocks. Uribe then tried to take the roof of the net off and succeeded in clattering the crossbar so we were back in it and Trippier made it 3-3. The final Colombian kicker was Carlos Bacca and you could tell that he was absolutely shitting himself as he stood on the spot. I would be shitting myself too if I was intending to go home to Colombia if I missed. Pickford dived one way and stuck up a strong hand the other way and push the ball out. Superb save. I was waiting for Jamie Vardy to walk up but oh fuck, it’s Eric Dier. In this tournament, he could only have been more aptly nine if his name was Eric Completelyfuckinguseless. Buried it, 4-3, cheating cunts are going home and football is coming home. Perhaps. Peak England. Make it as difficult as we possibly can. The difference is this time that we actually managed to get over the line.

There are still issues for another day. Sterling and Alli totally failed to provide anything of note for Kane to feed off of, Ashley Young provided nothing whatsoever from the left hand side which is becoming a theme and having both Dier and Henderson on the pitch in midfield just doesn’t work. However, despite these problems, we are in the quarter-finals of the World Cup with the game against Sweden.  Get past that and it’s Russia or Croatia.  We will never have a better chance than this of making a World Cup final.

News gets even better when you find out that the Diego Maradona was supporting Colombia and he thinks England won by robbery. Maradona has of course been supporting the Colombian economy for many years the cocaine addled fat cheating fuck. Hurry up and OD you horrible bastard. Just stop fucking lingering.

Quarter Final Predictions....

Uruguay to beat France

Belgium to beat Brazil

Croatia to beat Russia

England to beat Sweden

World Cup 2018 - Group Round 3 - Sadness as Germany go out.

Where the Fuck is Manuel Neuer ?

Round three and the end of Group A with Russia playing a decent team in Uruguay and the battle of the top place in the group quickly went to shit for the Russians with Suarez drilling a freekick into the corner when the wall decided to stand about 10 yards right of where it should have been. It was 2-0 soon after and it was game over with the Russians having someone sent off the two bookings. Vladimir will not be pleased. The rest of the game just petered out with the highly rated Edinson Cavani scoring a tap in in the last minute with his 300th effort on goal in the tournament so far. In the dead rubber match, Egypt took the lead in when Salah lobbed in with the commentator giving it the big one and “Mo Salah never misses from there“. It must be difficult for these commentators to both hold a microphone and wank themselves into a frenzy every time Salah is playing. 10 minutes later he did in fact miss from the place he never misses from when he chipped wide when clean through. This miss was costly as back came Saudi Arabia. They won a penalty which was expertly saved by the 74-year-old goalkeeper, then got another penalty for handball which they scored and then spawned an equaliser in the last couple of minutes to send Egypt home without a point. So, Uruguay top and Russia second. It did make me laugh the people taking the piss because Russia had finally played a decent opponent and come up short. These are probably the same people saying England are going to win it after wins against world superpowers Tunisia and Panama

Portugal versus Iran and Spain versus Morocco didn’t promise that much but it was a fascinating evening with Spain quickly going behind. Even if they lost, their qualification wasn’t under threat but even so, Isco equalised soon afterwards. Portugal and Iran was a decent match with Ricardo Quaresma putting Portugal ahead with the ridiculous goal the outside of his right foot. In the second half of the Portugal game, the referee came under intense pressure from the players and the Iranian manager, Carlos Queiroz who has always been a fucking arsehole. First of all Ronaldo was given a penalty after VAR. He was clearly fouled but Mark Lawrenson thought it wasn’t a penalty because he didn’t have control of the ball which is of course, utterly irrelevant. Up stepped the chosen one and the goalkeeper correctly guesses and saves it. Iran, clearly incensed by the correctly awarded penalty then going to playacting overdrive, encouraged all the way by the shithouse of a manager. The next major incident was a tussle between Ronaldo and a defender with the defender going down and everyone appealing for it to be reviewed on VAR which duly was and the ref, quite rightly in my view, decided it was a yellow card and not a red. With 90 minutes on the clock it all went fucking nuts as Cedric and an Iranian striker went out for a high ball and the Iranian unsurprisingly won it because he’s taller than 5 foot 5. Cedric was right underneath the guy with his eyes shut and the ball may have skimmed his arm on the way down. There are so many reasons why this is not a penalty and the referee quite correctly didn’t give a penalty. What is bizarre is that no Iranian appealed for penalty because it clearly wasn’t but somehow it got reviewed and the referee got called over. Somehow, probably through the shit house antics of Queiroz, he looked at the television pictures and decided that that was a deliberate hand ball. Utter fucking shambles. Anyway, they scored and then had a glorious chance within a minute to knock Portugal out which thankfully for the world at large they didn’t take. VAR is not the problem-it’s the fucking idiot referees and fucking idiot VAR operators. They are only supposed to call the referee if it’s a clear and obvious error so they are basically not doing their job correctly. Sadly, at the moment they are just appears to be giving incompetent referees one more opportunity to fuck it up. Meanwhile, Spain manage to go behind again to Morocco before equalising with a correctly awarded VAR goal in the last minute so, after all that shit, Spain win the group and go on to play Russia and Portugal, thanks to the dodgy penalty that was awarded against them, now play Uruguay.

VAR-cical

The group of life, or the group of complete fucking tedium as it should be known, drew to a close with the most predictable 0-0 bore draw between Denmark and France. Australia, when they actually needed to go out and win a game, predictably had no fucking idea how to do that and lost 2-0 to Peru who perhaps showed what might of been if only they hadn’t of missed that penalty against Denmark. The forthcoming France implosion will now happen in one of the knockout rounds. Whoever Denmark are playing in the next round, they will probably play for penalties from the first minute and hopefully not get there.

It was do or die for Argentina as they took on Nigeria with Croatia taking on Iceland in the other game. Basically the Argies had to win and all looked well when Messi brilliantly controlled a long ball from Banega and put them into the lead. My opinion of Mascherano has always been that he is a brainless moron and he proved that again when, after having seen penalties given the grappling in the penalty area he decided to wrestle a Nigerian bloke to the ground and was then genuinely shocked when a penalty was given against him. Victor Moses made it 1-1 and it seemed for a glorious 20 minutes that the Argentinians and their cheerleader, the cocaine addled fat fuck heart attack waiting to happen that is Diego Maradona, were heading out the tournament. With three minutes to go however, a cross from the right wing and Marcos Rojo, a left footed centre back found himself on the penalty spot to convert a right footed volley into the corner. To be fair, it was a brilliant finish and only serve to highlight that Gonzalo Higuain, a striker who is been transferred for about hundred million pounds in his career, it’s fucking garbage. They have another big reputation player who never does anything and that Angel DiMaria, the most one footed player I have ever seen. So, with Croatia reserves beating Iceland 2-1, Argentina are through to the next round and apparently Maradona ended up in hospital but this was not before giving out entertainment, flicking the double bird at some supporters who had predictably been given him a load of shit during the game. Add that to the slitty eyed gesture he aimed at some Korean fans earlier on in the tournament and he really is a great bloke isn’t it he. I remember 1986 and yes, you’re still a fucking cheating twat.

After the game against Germany when he conceded the foul in the last minute to allow the Germans to win, Swedish winger Jimmy Durmaz, because he happens to be of Turkish origin and has a beard, received a lot of racial abuse, death threats and the usual predictable bollocks that goes on these days. He stood in front of the whole Swedish the squad and made a little video and the last two words of it were 'fuck racism' which I thought was rather cool. So Sweden have my new found respect and I hope they get through today as they take on Mexico. The other game is of course Germany playing South Korea which will no doubt be the predictable German win and passage through to the last 16 like they always do.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

The Sweden v Mexico game was pretty much over bar the shouting with Sweden winning 3-0 but Germany were still drawing 0-0 with South Korea with 20 minutes to go. Just one goal needed for the Germans and it would be Mexico who will be going home despite having won the first two matches. But oh glorious day, a scramble from a corner and South Korea find themselves with the ball 5 yards out with just Manuel Neuer to beat, goal. Hang on, the fucking referee's gone and disallowed it but thankfully we have this wonderful new invention to this World Cup called VAR and they go and review it and Germany now need two goals in the 10 minutes that remain. To be fair, they go for it because they have to do but they are fucking shit. They just don’t have the players in the forward positions with no replacement for Miroslav Klose and Thomas Müller looking about a third of the player he was four years ago. Mesut Özil - If ever there was a time to come out with an assist mate, it’s now. Mats Hummels puts a couple of headers over and they disappear into the crowd along with his future international career. Then, hilarity. Manuel Neuer thinks he’s a midfield player and starts fucking around 40 yards from goal. They lose the ball, one big hoof forward and Son Heung Min is not going to miss given that he has the ball, 40 yards from goal and no one in goal. 2-0 and off you fuck Germany and off you fuck Joachim Low you dodgy looking geezer. Good player Son - probably better than Mo Salah and he’s had a better World Cup. Not that it matters as long as they go out but Germany actually managed to finish bottom of the group and 15 years of extreme smugness has come to an end. For the record Sweden smashed Mexico 3-0 so go through as top of the group.

Dodgy Geezer Directs Germany to the Lufthansa Check-In Line

I thought that Brazil might have been in for a difficult time against Serbia but in the end they ran out comfortable 2-0 winners without too much drama. Once Paulinho had given them the lead, there was really no way back for the Serbs, a couple of half chances but that was it. So, Brazil won the group and Switzerland finished second after drawing 2-2 with Costa Rica in what surprisingly, turned out to be a really entertaining game. I can’t see the Swiss going much further and it was amusing to see the penalty in the last minute which Bryan Ruiz smashed off the crossbar, into the back of the goalkeepers head and into the net.

The last round of matches in Group H saw Colombia play Senegal and Poland play Japan. Both games were pretty dull until Southampton’s very own Jan Bednarek put them in the head against Maya Yoshida’s Japan. A few minutes later, a goal for Columbia meant that Japan were hanging on to 2nd place by virtue of having had less bookings then Senegal and so the final 20 minutes was an absolute farce with Japan prepared to pass the ball around the back and happily lose 1-0 whilst hoping that Senegal wouldn’t score against Colombia which of course they duly didn’t. Colombia first and Japan second and awaiting the second and first place teams respectively from England’s group.

The excitement that has built up around England was dissipated the moment the teams were announced for the game against Belgium. Both teams rested everybody and played all of the squad players. Whilst Southgate has not a lot wrong at this World Cup, the starting 11 highlighted some of the poor choices in the squad. The first half was fucking boring with Belgium nearly scoring following a scramble when Batshuayi was allowed to kick the ball out of Pickford's hands. Neither team could really be arsed and they were cheers from the Belgian fans when a couple of their players got booked which meant they were four bookings behind us in the race for second place. In the second half, Januzaj, a player who I have always thought was a complete waste of space, scored what was actually a really good goal but probably not what his manager wanted as he cut inside a pathetic challenge from Danny Rose and curled it past Pickford who did some sort of midair handstand in very bizarre fashion. England have a fantastic chance to equalise when Vardy puts Rushford clean through but he put the shot too close to Courtois who got a finger to it and deflected it wide. Make no mistake, this was a diabolical miss. If Raheem Sterling had done that then he would’ve got absolutely slaughtered by everyone but because it’s Rashford and there's no real agenda against him, none of the commentators on the TV say anything about it and none of the pundits in the studio afterwards said anything about it either. No one also said anything about Trent Alexander-Arnold and his free-kick delivery where none of them got above knee height. I know he is a young lad but he’s been picked for a World Cup squad. I’ve said all along that he shouldn’t of been picked but he has been so he should be able to get a free-kick more than 8 inches off the fucking ground. England’s back up players looked very very poor. Phil Jones, Fabien Delph, Eric Dier...all terrible. Again, the decision to give Danny Rose special dispensation when he is clearly not fit looks more and more bizarre by the day. Ironically, Ryan Bertrand started preseason training today. And so we lost and now face a second round match against Colombia . Win that and we are playing one of Sweden or Switzerland for a place in the semi-final so it really hasn’t worked out badly. Belgium go through to play Japan which should be straightforward enough, but then they get Brazil so who are the real winners today? Not the fans that’s for sure. In the other match which was the deadest of dead rubbers, Tunisia beat Panama 2-1. That’s Panama who qualified ahead if the almighty USA.

The thing that I keep coming back to when I think about the tournament as a whole is that it's currently the perfect size.  32 teams is ideal as it of course, neatly goes 16,8,4,2 with half of the teams exiting after every round. 48 teams is going to be a joke as you're going to have 12 groups of 4 and 8 3rd place teams qualifying from the groups.  Not only does this mean more substandard teams but you'll be able to get through a group with two 0-0 draws so it's going to mean more dull games.  There haven't been many in this tournament so far and that's been refreshing.  The format we have now is perfect for the World Cup but whatever format we have, Germany would still have gone out.  

Anyway, in the Germany free last 16, my predictions are.

France to beat Argentina
Uruguay to beat Portugal
Brazil to beat Mexico
Belgium to beat Japan
Spain to beat Russia
Croatia to beat Denmark
Sweden to beat Switzerland
England to beat Colombia

Now it gets interesting...