The-Pilgrim":3l78xj9e said:
Clarke_B":3l78xj9e said:
The-Pilgrim":3l78xj9e said:
Peru beat New Zealand last night to complete the line up.
As others have said, there seem to be 4/5 brilliant teams at the world cup next year but there are also some pretty poor ones. England should make the quarters.
What do you base your theory on Pilgrim?!
England have failled to score, nevermind win, against Costa Rica and Slovakia in the past two tournaments and couldn't beat a poor Russian side and lost to Iceland. I think we would do well to respect the smaller nations and not be so blindly arrogant.
We even struggled in two games against the worst Scottish side I can ever remember. I'm going to Russia on the basis that I will happy to see England score a single goal in the three group games....nevermind get to the Quarter Finals!
I'm judging that on the fact that we have some players on fire at the moment. Butland/Hart in goal are playing well. Walker/Stones/Jones/Smalling/Rose/Cahill are playing well consistently for their teams, Stones probably the best defender in the PL this season. We have some solid midfielders which could be elevated if Lallana and Wilshere can get fit. Going forward with Kane/Alli/Rashford/Vardy we can cause any team trouble.
Of course a lot will depend on the draw but I'd be very disappointed if we went out in the groups, last 16 has to be a minimum but on our day we can cause any team trouble.
The problem with a lot of England supporters is that we see teams like Panama, Senegal, Peru, Serbia, etc and assume we will beat them based on our qualification and friendly performances. I think since around 2010 we have been proved embarrassingly wrong.
Imagine a group such as this for example;
Belgium
England
Egypt
Australia
I genuinely think we'd struggle to qualify from that group.