LAURA WOODS: WHY TUCHEL SHOULD STAY AND KANE STILL DESERVES BALLON D’OR
ENGLAND DEFEAT ‘AN ERROR’
I think the managerial decisions for the Argentina game will naturally get the main focus – and for good reason.
I'm in the camp that thinks we could and should have stayed on the attack because our defence has been our weakest area.
But also because I went to the Italy game at Wembley in Euro 2021 when almost exactly the same thing happened.
We all lived through the criticism of Gareth Southgate’s tactics so I wish we had kept going instead of sitting back and inviting wave after wave of attack just waiting to concede. I feel absolutely gutted for them [the players].
I actually thought the referee was quite good in the game. Perhaps he could have protected England more, though it was pretty clear in the first two minutes how Argentina wanted to approach the game.
They were very aggressive and tried to frustrate us but they also picked up a lot of bookings so I don’t blame the ref.
We knew what to expect from this team and should have worked harder to build on our lead.
It’s an error on our part – and Thomas Tuchel has taken responsibility.
TUCHEL SHOULD STAY AS ENGLAND MANAGER
I don’t want to let Tuchel go.
I think he got it wrong but that doesn’t negate all the good he’s done and I think he will learn a huge amount from this, too.
The difficulty is that he doesn’t have the chance to make this right anytime soon and he’s had two years with this team already.
But I do still think he’s a good manager and I’m not sure mixing things up again this quickly is actually a good thing for the team.
SEMI-FINAL WAS CRYING OUT FOR SAKA… AND TRENT?
I would have liked to have seen more of Bukayo Saka in the semi-final, maybe he was carrying an injury but I think it was crying out for him.
I also wish we’d kept Anthony Gordon on and I’m angry we took him off. I think he deserves a lot of credit for his performances; he was so influential against Mexico too.
He had a spark and a relentlessness to his game that we needed.
I still feel Trent Alexander-Arnold should’ve been involved this summer. It’s always an enormous shame to not include a player of that talent – he plays for Real Madrid, for goodness sake.
And we had so many issues in that area. A right-back who gets criticism for how he defends is still better than someone who is not a natural right-back, in my opinion.
ROTATE FOR THIRD PLACE PLAY-OFF
Honestly, I think we need to rotate these players and give others a chance to play.
Harry Kane or Jude Bellingham potentially winning the Golden Boot is great but it’s a very small consolation prize for how these players will be feeling right now.
Some of them are clearly overplayed and need a break.
We don’t want to go out with a whimper against France, but I honestly don’t think these third place playoffs mean a great deal.
MESSI SHOULDN’T WIN BALLON D’OR
It’s a very hard argument to give Lionel Messi the Ballon d’Or just for winning the World Cup when Harry Kane won the league, scored over 70 goals and got to a World Cup semi-final.
I just don’t believe it should work out like that.
Messi plays in the MLS, you can’t base it on just this World Cup. That said, it will be Messi if he wins the World Cup.
You can just see it happening.
SPAIN SHOULD WIN WORLD CUP
I want Spain to win – and I think they will.
They had far too much for France and beat them in every department. That was a proper performance.
I don’t like Argentina’s tactics. I think they’re incredibly aggressive and play with the dark arts far too much.
Spain haven’t been that impressive until that semi-final when they did it against the most solid team at this World Cup and made France look average.
They’ll manage the Argentinians.
