World Cup : Qatar Nov/Dec 2022.

Mr Jinx

Mr Jinx

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Devon Red said:
Interested to hear your thoughts on the game last night Mr Jinx?
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Sure. I did say Senegal were being bigged up before the game. A lot of ppl do it to get their excuses in early. England should've dispatched them comfortably and pretty much did. That wasn't without some early scares of course.

I'm not reading much into the game. Like I and Southgate himself is saying, next Saturday is the real test; this is where he and his team get counted.

Given where France are, you could say there's no shame in losing. I guess it depends as to the nature of the defeat. If it's simply a non-contest, then fair enough. If England take an early lead, don't capitalise on it, go all cautious, don't react to France changing things, then end up getting beat, you could say Southgate's bottled the big game, again. I imagine Deshamps has watched recordings of the Croatia SF and Italy final games quite a few times now.

France aren't completely unbeatable. They haven't had a clean sheet yet and they've had their own brief scares. They aren't far off being a one-man team, unlike England. How to nullify or at least minimise Mbappe? Pretty obvious that that's the key, if it's even possible. I think Kyle Walker coming back into the frame was for this purpose.
 
Devon Red

Devon Red

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Joined
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Messages
2,953
Mr Jinx said:
Sure. I did say Senegal were being bigged up before the game. A lot of ppl do it to get their excuses in early. England should've dispatched them comfortably and pretty much did. That wasn't without some early scares of course.

I'm not reading much into the game. Like I and Southgate himself is saying, next Saturday is the real test; this is where he and his team get counted.

Given where France are, you could say there's no shame in losing. I guess it depends as to the nature of the defeat. If it's simply a non-contest, then fair enough. If England take an early lead, don't capitalise on it, go all cautious, don't react to France changing things, then end up getting beat, you could say Southgate's bottled the big game, again. I imagine Deshamps has watched recordings of the Croatia SF and Italy final games quite a few times now.

France aren't completely unbeatable. They haven't had a clean sheet yet and they've had their own brief scares. They aren't far off being a one-man team, unlike England. How to nullify or at least minimise Mbappe? Pretty obvious that that's the key, if it's even possible. I think Kyle Walker coming back into the frame was for this purpose.
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Agree that Senegal were massively over hyped, I thought they were very average/poor but at the same time, how many of the 'big sides' have struggled to dismantle even the average/poor sides? We need to give credit where it's due.

I see the France game as relatively even but I have France as favourites, mostly due to their record in big tournaments. Maybe 55-45 in favour of France.
 
Mr Jinx

Mr Jinx

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
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Devon Red said:
mostly due to their record in big tournaments.
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And I think that's it. Look at the way they snuffed out Belgium in the semis in 2018. A Belgium team that beat England twice in that tourney fairly comfortably.

Anyway, not long to wait now.
 
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