So England booked their place in the Semi Final last night, and I have to say, Jude Bellingham is showing every bit the star power you’d expect from a Real Madrid Galactico.
Are we still calling them that these days?
Regardless, his two goals were enough, on a night in which two teams duked it out who were clearly on equal footing to each other. In fact, if I’m honest, I thought Norway were slightly the better team. After England dominated the first part of the game, Norway gre back into it, got a flukey goal, but after that goal it felt like they deserved it and probably should have gone on and got at least one. _The Robot_ will be FEWMIN’ with Sorloth for not squaring to him when Norway had a counter.
The Arsenal boys were, I thought, a bit ‘meh’. Maybe I’m being harsh on Saka, who I thought showed some sparkles of the real Saka, but I’m still putting it down to him not being fully fit. How can he be? There’s no way Tuchel benches one of his best players in a quarter-final, unless he knows that he can’t get a full 90 out of him. And if a player can’t do the full 90, well, he ain’t fit, is he?
Rice, like Saka, clearly was off the pace, and the fact he couldn’t beat the first man was all the evidence Tommy T needed to hook him. Hopefully, that illness bug is all it is. If that is the case, maybe it is to England’s benefit that he came off, because it saves his legs, because if he’d have played the full 120, you never know what might have happened in terms of him breaking down. At this stage now, as with some of the noises around Saliba, it’s feeling like it’s a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ with Rice, which I’ll be honest and tell you, I’m very nervous about for next season. I was born in England, I live in England, I (loosely) support England and want them to win the World Cup, obviously, but there was a little part of me watching last night who was calculating when the English lads would be back home and resting up for the new season, should they have gone out to the Norwegians.
Noni was Noni, and you have to say he hardly set the world alight with his overhit crosses and general absentness, but then again that was a classic _Harry-Kane-In-Latter-Rounds-Of-International-Tournaments_ too, so it wasn’t just Madueke who was off colour. I also thought that Rice for Eze wasn’t the right move, a decision that I think Tuchel realised after he then brought James on at 71 minutes for Gordon, shifted Ebs wide left and then had James in the middle of the park. I get why he did it – Eze is a ‘moments’ player; so you wouldn’t be surprised if he cropped up on the edge of the box and leathered one in from 25 yards, but he struggled to influence the game. We’ve seen that ourselves last season. I feel like sometimes you can just tell if this “is going to be an Eze game” or not; the two NLDs, the Palace home game, the Newcastle home and away games last season – we was great in all of them. But there will be games that it just don’t seem to be ‘his’ game, and that felt like one last night.
It was more of an ‘intriguing’ game last night, rather than an exciting or interesting one. Norway was disciplined; they moved the ball well, and I thought Odegaard looked quite lively in the first half. He looked ok in the second, but despite Norway being more dominant and playing better than England in the second half, it didn’t feel like he influenced the match as much. He’s played well for Norway in this tournament so far, looking much like the old Odegaard, and weirdly if you’re looking at it from an Arsenal perspective, we probably could have done with him going further and the Arsenal boys resting up, but hey, he’ll now head home and let’s see if we can have him ready for the start of the new season.
And that’s pretty much it from the game. Oh, actually, one more thing – Thomas Tuchel. I kind of like the spikiness of his post match interviews. It shows the exacting demands he puts on the team, and it’s why he’s been a winner where he’s been. I think Neville said in his post-match commentary that he likes it too, so aside from the fact I’m agreeing with Gary Neville, I do agree that the mentality of continous improvement from the German is exactly what this England team need.
And that’s because they’re up against Argentina on wednesday night, which is a game that, if I’m honest, I don’t think England can consider themselves heavy favourites. Yeah, Argentina have the Messi factor, but I also look at that England back line and I remain to be convinced in the slightest. Very shaky indeed.
Right, got to head off, as I’m off to watch my niece in a play this afternoon.
Have a good one peeps.
Catch you all tomorrow.