buster.

Yes, the top generally looks and is considered by most of the footballing world, a tougher proposition to get out of than the bottom. Historically The top has 4 past winners with a total of 10 World Cups between them The bottom has 2 with 2 The top has both finalists from the most recent European Championship The bottom has 7 European teams, none of which made the Euros 2016 quarter finals Presently The top has 5 of the top 8 ranked FIFA teams The bottom has 1 plus Spain at 10th Form IMO Belguim are the side that has shown a little bit more than the rest. Croatia have impressed but I don't think they have enough to win it. Spain have shown a defensive vulnerability that would IMO make Croatia favourites to beat them. A prospective and hypothetical glance at the quarter final line-up shows IMO a narrower gap between top and bottom with England getting IMO the most favourable tie possible (same would be applicable if it is Sweden). Their route to a possible semi-final of an easy group, followed by an unconvincing Columbia side then Sweden or Switzerland is the stuff past England managers must have dreamt about. Especially when you add Croatia or a vulnerable Spain side in a possible semi-final. Will they be good enough is another thing but they won't get a better chance. Uruguay v France Brazil v Belguim Spain v Croatia England v Switzerland

That's 48 of the 64 games played and thusfar it's been a very mediocre WC. KO rounds will provide drama one way or tuther but I have my doubts there will be much in the way of real entertainment.

David Francey Loyal

Davis has been a good player for them but is coming to the end of his career, at least at that level. Armstrong has it in front of him, whether it be success or failure. They payed good money thinking/hoping it'll be the former.

A 33 year old Steven Davis linked (Sky Sports) with us. Missed a chunk of last season because of injury No Thanks !

Updated Do England fans want to win group ?

Agreed !

I don't think you can dismiss the Gullane sands approach and the benefits that brought to the team. It might not have been the complete approach but IIRC Jock Wallace brought in a specialised sprint coach as he appreciated the need for a varied programme. The thing about the Gullane Sands pre-season was that it was more than just fitness, it was about character as well. Jock came from a military background and appreciated the need for a group of lads to get through difficult challenges so as to make them mentally stronger. The other thing was that the Gullane sands pre-season without Jock Wallace wouldn't have been the same. It was a more holistic matter. You needed a combination of things to come together. - Fitness (stamina) - Character / Belief - Dressing room 'Motivation' from Jock - Team spirit - Ability and Talent

You'd hope good contract management (in the clubs interests) would have been an important part of the DoF's remit. Businesswise, the club desperately need it because in the absence of regular European group stage football, bringing in significant transfer fees will be important.

I just want a 1-1 draw for 3 points in the predictions league

If you want England to go into the easier half of the draw and probably a better possibility of going deeper into the competition........ Come on Belguim !

Whatever next....... -------------- The Sun provide another pile of pish. The blog they refer to is the following and isn't that bad a read............... https://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/england-and-world-cups-another-episode-in-a-lifetime-of-heartbreaks/ I’m old enough to remember watching (as a very young boy) England’s victory in the 1966 World Cup final. At the time, I thought it was in the natural order of things that England should be world champions. I was fully expecting us to continue to dominate world football. I was already puzzled that we had had to wait for the eighth World Cup to win it — though I learned that this was because we had boycotted the first three world cups (there was no need to participate in a vulgar tournament to prove our superiority); that we had been too nonchalant and complacent the first time we participated in 1950 (when we had lost to a USA team composed of English amateurs); and somewhat unlucky in 1954 (losing to Uruguay), 1958 (when we were undefeated, but failed to qualify from the group stage) and 1962 (losing to the eventual winner, Brazil). Now, surely, the natural order of things would see the inventors of football win the World Cup again and again… So I was bitterly disappointed in 1970 when, from 2-0 up in the quarter-final against Germany, we managed to lose 3-2. It was, of course, a fluke — Uwe Seeler’s equaliser for Germany came off the back of his head with him having no idea where it was going, and benefiting from the absence of our invincible goalkeeper Gordon Banks who had suspiciously fallen ill, being replaced by the hapless Peter Bonetti. Never mind — we would win in 1974! But we failed to qualify for the tournament in 1974. At Wembley, we lost the crucial qualifying match to Poland in one of those games where one side is totally dominant, has all the chances to score bar one, hits the woodwork several times, and the opposition goalkeeper has the match of his life. To cap it all, our own legendary captain (Bobby Moore) made an uncharacteristic error, letting the Poles score. The fact that Poland went on to finish third in the tournament was conclusive evidence that England would have done even better! Puzzlingly, England also failed to qualify in 1978 (having lost out in the qualifying group to Italy, on goal difference). But maybe this was just as well, with the World Cup played under the auspices of a fascist military junta and characterised by some very dubious refereeing decisions. And so to 1982. England were the only undefeated team in the whole tournament — yet somehow still managed not to win it. We won all three matches in our group stage, though in fact we would have been better off had we let France beat us. Their second spot in the group led them to play Austria and Northern Ireland on their route to the semi-final whereas we faced the host nation Spain and the dreaded Germans. This World Cup had a second round of group matches in which our two draws against those two teams were insufficient. Had a particular header by Kevin Keegan gone in, instead of narrowly missing, we would have gone through. Clearly another case of rotten luck — with extra salt rubbed in the wound by the fact that eventual winners, Italy, hadn’t won a single match in their group stage! 1986 offered further proof that events simply conspired against England. Eliminated by the ‘Hand of God’ — Maradona’s blatant handball goal that none of the officials saw — was clear evidence that the authorities (God or officialdom) were biased against us! 1990 provided further rotten luck. Dominating the semi-final against Germany, we lost to a fluke goal, while the woodwork came to their rescue. Gazza’s tears and Pavarotti’s Nessum Dorma ensured that this pain was etched into memories for ever. 1994 saw England fail yet again to qualify, beaten famously by Norway (!) and the Netherlands in the qualifying tournament. 1998 saw England lose again to Argentina in the quarter-final, despite a brilliant performance. Down to ten men after Beckham had been sent off, England scored what seemed to be a perfectly good winning goal only for it to be disallowed by the referee. We inevitably lost the subsequent penalty shootout. 2002 saw us going out on another fluke, the long-range goal by Brazil’s Ronaldinho, probably never intended to be a shot, that caught out goalkeeper Seaman. It also raised an interesting question of why we so often managed to come up against Brazil or Germany (eight times!), whereas those two teams themselves never played each other in the World Cup before meeting in the 2002 final. Between the two of them, they had reached every postwar final except one until 2002, something clearly impossible without a hefty dose of luck — luck that never seemed to come England’s way. 2006 was surely to be our year. With no trace of a dominant team, we seemed to have a good chance and progressed smoothly to the quarter-finals where we only needed to beat Portugal. Yet, after Wayne Rooney contrived to be sent off, we could manage only a 0-0 draw and we of course lost the penalty shootout. Were we cursed? Or was it natural that in a tournament that was now a knock-out cup from the last 16 onwards, where just one slip meant you were out, the best team (usually us, of course!) would only rarely win the tournament. After all, at club level, the best team (by definition, the league winners) only rarely wins the knock-out cup as well. And statistically, only the width of a post (in the 1990 semi-final against Germany — and assuming we would have won the final against Argentina) had stopped us from winning the same number of post war world cups as Germany, Italy and Argentina, ahead of France, Spain and Uruguay, trailing only Brazil. If any of the other injustices/bad luck/refereeing howlers had gone another way, we would have the second-best record of all! But 2010 saw ultimate proof that we were cursed. Again we met Germany, and again we were eliminated in a match remembered for one of the most blatant refereeing mistakes ever, ruling out a perfectly valid England goal on the ground that the ball had not crossed the line, when it easily had. This gave a big boost to the movement towards goal-line technology, but, alas, too late to save England. By 2014, I was finally resigned to English failure. But for once it was not bad luck! We came bottom of our Group in the initial group stage, behind Costa Rica(!), Uruguay and Italy. And now? Come on Belgium!

Interesting post Gaffer I look back over decades with a degree of frustration because most of the time, I don't think we've been run in a professional way that befits a big club. We could often get away with it domestically but it will have been shown up more in European football #BiggerStrongerFaster It's not all about fitness and as well as ability/talent, a team spirit can go a long way and I think this was very apparent in 92/93.

Talk of a sell-on clause netting Dundee Utd between 400-500K It was said that the clause was 10% of any profit 7M - 1.6M = 5.4M If it's possible to look at the clubs financials next year, we may get a better idea of the truth. Although even that is difficult given payments will be staggered. https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/dundee-united-to-get-six-figure-sum-as-stuart-armstrong-completes-move-from-celtic-to-southampton/

I think that was a good example of a squad that wasn't on the same page as the manager. ie. no matter what was tried by the manager regards a 'professional approach', it wouldn't translate into results on the park.

The recent Derek Ferguson and Ian Durrant interview (by Simon Ferry) featured an interesting line from both that we weren't as fit as some of the other teams in the division when they played. DF gave Hearts as an example, saying that when he joined them it took a while before he was able to get to their levels.

Strange set of circumstances around the England v Belguim game today. FIFA should step-in and say winner of game gets to choose the half of the draw they want

Rangers could lose Josh Windass with Cardiff City poised to make a £3million offer which will trigger a release clause in the attacker’s contract. Windass could still opt to remain at Ibrox and play under new boss Steven Gerrard, though the lure of playing in the English Premier League may prove to be too strong. (Daily Express)Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/competitions/premiership/rumour-mill-rangers-set-to-lose-windass-gerrard-eyes-four-more-signings-rodgers-opens-up-on-odubajo-interest-1-4761030

Hope so, they are a pale shadow of some of the old Brazilian teams.

48, 681 https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40410727

Bottom half of draw is shaping up like the last 8 of a European Championship. so far Spain v Russia Croatia v Denmark Sweden v Switzerland Top half Uruguay v Portugal France v Argentina Mexico v Brazil

The way the Germans have been playing and their manager managing it's no real surprise........only I guess it is simply because it is zee Germans. As I said a while back in this thread, Low came into the WC not knowing his best starting XI and without a reliable goal threat. The team hasn't looked fluid or attacked with real menace. Thing is, they have the players to be able to and the manager has to carry the can. That said some of those players today need to have a look at themselves, awful !

80 years ago:............. Last time zee Germans were pumped out at the first stage 56 years ago:............. Last time the WC was retained by previous champions. 28 minutes: ...............Time that Low should have left as German manager

Maybe but they don't deserve it.