SydneyChelsea

Imagine an Australian being more optimistic/right about this England team than all you sorry English. This game was a glorified friendly, a real American All-Star game vibe (not a compliment, for non-Americans). No defending to speak of. Mbappe laughing and joking with Tuchel in the tunnel at HT. Gusto starting. There are only two things that should be gleaned from this game; Kane's England days are finished, and Gusto's footballing days should be finished if he can't even perform in this televised open training session. Gabriel injured, Saliba injured, Hincapie injured, Rice knackered, Saka on the way to the knackery, Madueke starting. Arsenal won't make the CL next season.

I own it. I didn't count on England to be so miserably bad against Argentina they wouldn't get to meet them in the first place. Arguably the first time since 1986 that England came in as favourites and again England underestimated an irrepressible genius. Only Messi makes a perfectly flat square cutback just begging to be hit, followed up by a perfectly aimed cross that somehow evades 3 6ft+ English defenders to land on the forehead of the second smallest guy on the pitch. Maybe Olise or Yamal pull that off on a good day too. Tuchel built a team for the counter-press and the counter-attack and then decided to do neither. Two underwhelming teams but whereas Argentina rose to the level of its opponent, England descended to theirs. Tuchel deserves most of the blame, of course. Less for leaving out Palmer/Foden and far more for leaving out Adam Wharton who would have been a great complement or substitute to Rice or Anderson. His comments about 'DNA' are unfounded, given that he had three of the most recent PL winners, three CL winners (one of whom could legitimately be called his protege), a Treble winner, the current European Golden Shoe holder, and the form player of the tournament in Jude Bellingham. It was Tuchel's decision to play more defensively in the second half. The one thing in the world that Messi cannot do at age 39 is run, and yet, they never once required him to do it. They spent ~75 minutes denying him space only to give him the freedom of Atlanta from there on in. Firstly the wind went out of England's sails when Anderson, who pocketed both Paredes and Fernandez with ease, got a yellow card. Then it was Tuchel who ceded momentum the moment Gordon was taken off for Ezri Konsa when he could have easily switched in Rashford or Madueke or even Ollie Watkins to keep the pressure on.

He belongs in midfield. Just as Bayern did with Lahm then Kimmich, or Inter did with Zanetti.

For the most part this is true though? Argentina and Spain always bring through groups of players that played at youth and Olympic level, and have being doing so since the 1980s. England have had a great run of producing talent but it has come at the cost of other, possibly better talents. Forget Musiala, England could have started Semenyo and Olise (both born in West London FFS) instead of Gordon and Madueke. France and Spain have rarely lost a starting-quality player to heritage countries - can only think of Laporte for France, and Hakimi for Spain.

In case it needed to be said, Romano is an idiot. "Five-year contract" ...players under 20 can only sign a 3 year deal. The other two years are either an option or unenforceable. Makes him pretty damn expensive in PSR terms, 3m/season + wages. Yikes.

But it's true. 2005. I know you still watch the replays late at night. We have Martin Tyler. Don't blame the colonies for your mistakes.

Don't think we should go overboard with Cucurella lol. He did what he was supposed to do.

Spain's tactics conceded the width in order to clog the middle. They had a really hardworking front four that pressured hard to disrupt the counter, didn't mind fouling, and while France reset they formed a back five between Laporte, Cubarsi, Cucurella and Rodri with the spare midfielder in front. It's more Brentford than Barcelona tbh. France couldn't/didn't exploit it. They should have got Olise and Mbappe out wide opposite to each other to create at the back post. I think that was the first time this tournament that neither were allowed their favourite pocket of space, and that deadly rotation where Dembele plays 9, Mbappe plays in from the left, Olise plays right just never happened. Instead they had Mbappe moving from in to out, dealing with 3 defenders, Olise couldn't do much with the overlap or through the middle, and Dembele was pushed out wide instead of attacking the back post. France played too fast in attack and too slowly to break the press. Harsh but this loss is hugely on Deschamps, Rabiot and Kone were never going to win this midfield battle and he had Kante on the bench FFS. If he even got 20 minutes on him shutting down Ruiz it would have done them a lot of good. Spain won't have these luxuries against England. England's back four is excellent on the ball, as are Anderson and Rice. O'Reilly and James aren't going to give a sh*t about mid-tier La Liga pluggers. Other than Yamal they don't have players capable of exploiting big gaps on the counter. Their weakness is going to be aerial crosses and set pieces, which are Kane and Bellingham's bread and butter. It's England's best chance to win a World Cup ever.

Called it. From the start of the tournament. No one is winning anything with a midfield that Adrien Rabiot starts in. Spain kept Mbappe central and Dembele wide, completely neutered them. Anyway @just you might want to pick up some fireworks for yourself for Sunday. This Spain team will not beat Tuchel-ball. Get ready for the most dour, unsatisfactory WC final.

It's called the Declan Rice gap. You'll see it in Arsenal games too.

Good move for Derry and Chelsea. It's not a coincidence that England's international prospects have drastically improved since English kids started playing in other leagues more frequently. Both the mens and womens teams are reaping the benefits.

He said YouTube, not Only Fans

No Bates, no Chelsea Being younger than some on here I only ever saw the "good" side of Bates during the late-90s, and some of the stories you all have told over the years on this forum are truly hair-raising (electric fence pun intended). He was clearly a person who was disliked but respected. I don't know if I ever got the feeling he had the same emotional connection as say Roman Abramovich did, but he did a lot of things that set standards and expectations (as did Abramovich). Also he nearly sent Leeds to oblivion, which should also be up there with his crowning glories.

Every time these owners kick a goal, it turns out to be with a grenade

I think it's the wrong way to do the right thing. I actually don't think we monetise social media/media nearly enough, but paywalling a manager's first interview (especially given the context) is really poor form. Given the state of things, the club's priority should be building viewership, not revenue, at this stage. The success of platforms like Patreon proves that there is a big market for pre-release/early-release content, where subscribers get content early or in long form, before it is published to general social media and clipped for the attention-deficit. Given how much money BlueCo have invested in employing supposed experts in this field (8 senior roles in "marketing" as of last FY!) and as PE, this is their supposed area of expertise, our return on investments is disappointingly poor.