England v Argentina | World Cup Semi Final | 15 July 2026

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

cabbles said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

cabbles said:

Deep down I think we don’t have the talent/quality/experience as there has been some pretty ropey moments/performances during the tournament, and we’ve relied on Bellingham to pull us through and in a similar vein Kane (you could make the same argument about Argentina given Egypt and Switzerland), but it’s the context of last night that has me still seething.  We got 30 minutes from a final and when we took the lead, the game was tight and our goal was class.  The first few minutes of going ahead, keep it tight of course.  But what followed was unforgivable and for me on the manager.  Do I think on balance of the tournament we should be in the final, probably not.  Argentina did deserve to go through last night, but it’s only after we completely imploded in how we set up 

I concur with AFKA re watching a Charlton game.  I messaged my mates before they equalised and said it’s reminding me of our league one playoff final against Orient.  We led, Jones decided to shut up shop and we saw it out.  The difference was we were playing Orient, not Argentina 

I don’t see anyway back for Tuchel but it appears the FA is backing him.  Kane has potentially got the 2028 Euros in him, but the next WC is beyond him.  We’ve got absolutely no-one to replace him.  A huge hole to fill

I think we’re probably now going to have to go through a period of a rebuild.  What a shame for Bellingham given his age and talent.  If we just had 2/3 more of his ilk then we’d be a force.  

I wouldn't say we need a rebuild at all. There's still a lot of young players there for 4 years time. Trafford, O'Reilly, Spence, Quansah, Anderson, Bellingham, Rogers, Mainoo, Saka, Gordon will all be under 30 at the next world cup. Konsa, Guehi and Rice won't exactly be past it either.

There's also players that didn't make it like Hall, Lewis-Skelly, Livramento, Foden, Palmer, Wharton, Alex Scott, plus emerging talents like Ngumoha and Dowman. 

So i think in most areas of the pitch we will be fine but of course the biggest problem we have is (like you say) we don't have any half decent striker at all coming through to replace Kane. 

Yeah, should’ve clarified.  Rebuild as in how to set up now Kane is approaching his time.  Lots of potential and for some of the players you’ve mentioned, they’ve had more tournament experience which is a good thing, but look at the below.  I genuinely don’t know how we overcome this 

That is extremely bleak.

I had a look at our two most recent U21s squads, it doesn't get much better. The 'attackers' were:

Tyler Dibling
Tyrique George
Ethan Nwaneri
Romain Esse
Divin Mubama
Sam Amo-Ameyaw (who??)
Will Lankshear
Jamie Gittens
Tom Watson (who??)

The only actual strikers in that lot are:

Mubama, who last year played 28 games for Stoke and scored 5.
Lankshear, 46 games for Oxford, 12 goals.

The future signs are not promising.

It’s also that our game has been built around Kane for so long as the central striker.  There’s no way of knowing where our next reliable and consistent forward comes from, but there’s a huge gap up top that for me reverberates back down the team.  

My comment in WhatsApp group chat at 9:23pm;

"Dropping "Charlton" deep for half hour. Great".

Every man, woman and child in the country could see what was coming.

Why couldn't a footballing master tactician and/or his assistants?

We effectively gave them our half for 30+minutes when their team includes one of, if not, the greatest player of all time. Was gutted and disappointed last night.

Now I'm just angry.

MrOneLung said:

The substitutions were wrong but not sure why the players are not getting pelters as well. 

I don’t think Tuchel told them to all drop back 10 metres as soon as we scored. 

Or for Kane to become a CDM 

All before the game was hearing about dominance at set pieces as Argentina were a small team, yet we couldn’t defend crosses into the box. 

The players went negative well before Tuchel did. 

Have to agree with this, and it's a trait that raises its head for us every tournament, we score, and then almost shit ourselves that we're winning a clutch game....BUT tuchel was brought in to negate this, and take us to the next level. Inexplicably he succumbed to the same mentality as the players, instead of doing what his remit was. He has failed us all. 

ozaddick said:

MrOneLung said:

The substitutions were wrong but not sure why the players are not getting pelters as well. 

I don’t think Tuchel told them to all drop back 10 metres as soon as we scored. 

Or for Kane to become a CDM 

All before the game was hearing about dominance at set pieces as Argentina were a small team, yet we couldn’t defend crosses into the box. 

The players went negative well before Tuchel did. 

Have to agree with this, and it's a trait that raises its head for us every tournament, we score, and then almost shit ourselves that we're winning a clutch game....BUT tuchel was brought in to negate this, and take us to the next level. Inexplicably he succumbed to the same mentality as the players, instead of doing what his remit was. He has failed us all. 

Tuchel was worse. I don’t believe Southgate would have chucked defender after defender on in that situation with no outlets. 

Like a lot of you, I feel gutted and let down. 

Everyone, and I mean everyone (including my wife who knows nothing about football), could see us getting deeper and deeper, and I understand that naturally that can happen when you take the lead, but it's the mangers job to address that - and he royally fucked that up. Konsa for our only outlet, followed by Burn for Rice was criminal. We needed an outlet, we needed pace. He bottled the big occasion, and he gets paid the big bucks to not bottle it. I think he should go. 

Rothko said:

This is excellent from Michael Cox on what happened. 

"Same old England. On first viewing I thought Tuchel’s subs were disastrous. On second viewing, the retreat happened beforehand, a consequence of Argentina pushing on & England being exhausted. The three defensive subs did make sense. Analysis here…⬇️"

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7448592/2026/07/16/england-tactics-world-cup-argentina/?unlocked_article_code=1.yFA.e9hM.vLxupasc4rsE&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

That's somewhere around where I've landed with it this morning, though he's making a good defence for a person making logical choices for the wrong decision. The 5 at the back to challenge the winger is logical but it's also failing to spot that every change in shape creates a gap as well. Argentina took off their holding midfielder to create that width which meant there was space between their defence and midfield that could have been exploited. The players absolutely ran in fear and it's hard for a manager to fix that from the sidelines but the hydration break was the time to get the players together and reshape the narrative of the match. Kane and Bellingham looked absolutely spent. I can understand keeping Kane on because he's the best player in the squad for being able to receive the ball and on the half turn send an accurate long pass up the pitch, but he didn't have any runners. He would have been better off keeping Gordon on and taking Rogers off for Saka, or Madueke if Saka wasn't fit enough. Getting an out ball behind Nico Gonzalez would have forced him back to help his full back who now would be up against raw pace without any support otherwise. Bellingham's game is all about driving forward on the ball and he wasn't able to even close down anymore let alone run with it, so subbing him for Watkins to push up against the Argentinian back line and grant Kane a bit of space with one of Mac Allister or Enzo needing to drop to help his defence out would have meant Argentina couldn't fully commit their players forward. We needed freshness and change and something to make that Argentina team think twice about their ability to settle in to total dominance. By the time they scored they'd been in total control for so long the momentum didn't shift at all, we were mentally committed to a total defensive performance. We should probably be a bit grateful that they killed us off in regular time or extra time might have been a total murder. 

The funny thing is, it really reminded me of Southgate against Croatia. As the game went on their wingbacks started controlling the game and overloading us out wide and stretching a midfield that only had Henderson in it for control. The obvious thing to do was change the shape, push Sterling and Lingard out wide and high to force their wingbacks back and you only would have had to make one change to switch to a 4231. It's risky to make attacking changes when you're under the cosh and you can get grief for it if it doesn't work but alleviating the pressure and forcing the opposition to alter their plan to handle yours is better than a team not equipped to defend like that waiting to die.

However gutting last night was, and yes Tommy boy fu*ked up big time with the subs, but in the end we were beaten by the better side on the night, England did what England usually do, full of hope and promise but ultimately fail in the big tournaments, just my opinion of course...😉

Any of us who has played the game at any level will know that negative subs set the tone. When you go to the highest level it is exactly the same. Taking off Gordon and Rice for defenders lets the players know how the game is being approached. I can't believe Tuchel is still in a job. 

The only reason he is being backed and not sacked I should think is that any compensation payments etc are set based on progression and semi finals was probably a threshold of sorts.

ValleyLocal said:

Rothko said:

This is excellent from Michael Cox on what happened. 

"Same old England. On first viewing I thought Tuchel’s subs were disastrous. On second viewing, the retreat happened beforehand, a consequence of Argentina pushing on & England being exhausted. The three defensive subs did make sense. Analysis here…⬇️"

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7448592/2026/07/16/england-tactics-world-cup-argentina/?unlocked_article_code=1.yFA.e9hM.vLxupasc4rsE&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

Or if we are going to play aggressive, pressing and energetic football, why not use the fact that you can sub pretty much half the team nowdays to your advantage? 

Why go defensive? 

 We needed an outlet to relieve pressure. Ie watkins saka or rash. Dare i say it, hendo energy would have helped 

That was one of the worst squads we've had get so far in a tournament. 

We all rag on the golden generation for doing nothing with their time together, and they were all actually playing week in week out for their clubs, and were the main men of their club sides, people like Beckham, Gerrard, Ferdinand, Terry, Lampard. 

Madueke, Stones, Rashford, Spence can't even lock down a place in their clubs' starting XI, the level of players we are working with is far lower. Togetherness and determination only get you so far. 

Compare that to Argentina, they have Inter Milan's main striker, and Serie A's multiple golden boot winner, on the bench, because they have Atletico Madrid's first choice striker in the side instead. Nico Paz, a standout performer for Como also in Serie A, won YPOTY last season and this season helped them to 4th in the league and into the Champions League for next season, can't get on the pitch, Senesi, a stalwart for Bournemouth who have steadily risen up the Premier League with him playing most matches, he can't get a game for them either

Same goes for the France and Spain squads, Nico Williams, Pedri, Zubimendi, Merino, Gavi, Zaire-Emery, Hernandez, Doue, Cherki, Konate all on the benches in the semi finals, the 3 squads we played against are so much deeper than ours.

Jones goes on about gamechangers for Charlton, England don't have them, so we tried the other option of sitting back and hoping they can't break us down