Good luck England!

Tunisia don't really concede goals and are the highest ranked African team. Shouldn't be underestimated but confident of a sneaky 1-0 or 2-1
 
I fancy Shearer to continue his excellent form from the Euros with a first half strike. Scholes to get a late goal too, to settle the nerves.


Bobby Charlton from outside the box is my bet!
 
Seems there's a few new fifa directives especially for any team England are playing. 1) no cards can be issued for any foul on any England player. 2) England players can be wrestled to the floor when attacking their opponents and no action will be taken by either the match officials or var 3) if an England player looks in the direction of an opposition player it's a foul 4) only referees of the lowest quality (similar to those experienced in OUFC games) will be allocated to England games in the world cup finals

Of course if England had taken those early chances created those (spoof)new directives would be academic and wouldn't really matter!!

Another frustrating world cup finals for England seemed inevitably on the cards. Again.......and then thankfuck for harry kane :D:D
 
The poor officiating was typified, for me, after our winning goal. Having taken no action for the entirety of the second half as Tunisia stalled, strolled around, walked off the pitch for subs at a snail pace...his first action when we make a change is to inexplicably make Lingard jog off. Then start whistling Pickford to take goal kicks quicker.

Disgraceful, inconsistent, intensely frustrating officiating. Even before you take into account the extremely soft penalty against us, and laughable lack of penalty for us. Cheers VAR...
 
Decent first ten minutes, very poor and pedestrian next 70, then somewhat better once Rashford and Loftus-Cheek came on. Alli was left on too long. The ref seemed to want to give Tunisia every chance of taking a point. I thought that they were supposed to be clamping down on wrestling in the box? If they actually were going to do anything about at (as opposed to just lip service) we would have had at least two penalties!
 
I'd be disappointed if we had that ref in L1. What a complete joker. Running into an elbow is a penalty but pulling down a player in the box isn't, even when SHART is used to review it.

I do laugh at the Scotland fans on social media losing their moment of joy
 
Perhaps one of our resident referees could explain tonight's penalty (and lack of) decisions?
Fifas var officials arent justifying how harry kane being manhandled &wrestled to the floor twice didnt equate to two penalties and that needs explaining in depth .....wasnt var supposed to eliminate those sort of incidents from being missed???? ....it seems not! The corrupt shadow of blatter hangs over world football still it seems
 
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Positives from today:
Tunisia didn't create a single chance worthy of the name in the entire game, and were just gifted a goal by the ref.
We've got a genuinely World Class striker....which is something that, from the evidence of the games so far, not many teams in this tournament can say.
We looked like we were going to score off every set piece.

Negatives:
Our finishing in the first 20 minutes.
Pretty much everything from the 20th to the 92nd minute.
 
Perhaps one of our resident referees could explain tonight's penalty (and lack of) decisions?
It's been a long time since I was a referee... In the first one Dele Alli shoves another defender prior to Kane getting rugby tackled.

The way BBC showed repeats and repeats of Kane getting rugby tackled ignoring the first infringement, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar issue with the other.
 
It's been a long time since I was a referee... In the first one Dele Alli shoves another defender prior to Kane getting rugby tackled.

The way BBC showed repeats and repeats of Kane getting rugby tackled ignoring the first infringement, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar issue with the other.
There were around three occasions when Kane was wrestled to the floor. After the Tunisia penalty it was remarkable that England didn't get at least two penalties
 
Positives from today:
Tunisia didn't create a single chance worthy of the name in the entire game, and were just gifted a goal by the ref.
We've got a genuinely World Class striker....which is something that, from the evidence of the games so far, not many teams in this tournament can say.
We looked like we were going to score off every set piece.

Negatives:
Our finishing in the first 20 minutes.
Pretty much everything from the 20th to the 92nd minute.

I'd add to the positives that we now have centre backs who are comfortable on the ball and prepared to meaningfully joint attacks.
 
It's been a long time since I was a referee... In the first one Dele Alli shoves another defender prior to Kane getting rugby tackled.

The way BBC showed repeats and repeats of Kane getting rugby tackled ignoring the first infringement, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a similar issue with the other.

Thanks for the reply. Is that not a free kick to Tunisia then?
 
If that's the case (and I have no reason to doubt what you are saying) then VAR should have been used to give a foul against Alli. I'm not upset because we didn't get a penalty or two, I think that this wrestling and pushing in the box should be punished whoever does it.
And while we are at it, I would like to see VAR used (retrospectively if necessary) to give yellow cards for blatant dives. I am presuming that some number of yellow cards adds up to a match ban in this competition of course, or it wouldn't make sense to do it retrospectively!
 
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