British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

England put us through the wringer again and phew.

Crazy day yesterday - my wife bought tickets for David Gray at Cardiff Castle for Xmas. So we set of at noon down to Cardiff, enjoyed a brilliant concert from him - worth every penny just to here Babylon live , a song I defy anyone not to love - and then got back to hotel in time for England extra time.

Drive home today, then down to Stansted tomorrow - another 5 hours from Yorkshire- to take wife and daughter to airport and a return home for me, so 5 hours driving yesterday, 5 today and probably 10 tomorrow.

So not much time for anything else other than to say , yes, England didnt play well but Bellingham has been immense all World Cup and if we need a man to create moments, he is turning out to be the man.

Correct call to disallow the Norway second goal - ridiculous that you could shove someone over in the box and it not get called, even if ball is out of play. Youd have a free for all mayhem if that was allowed.

Judes first goal - got to assume the technology was correct, I didnt see a snick myself

Norway and Switzerland were both very unlucky, with England and Argentina kind of escaping into the SF.

If anyone doesn't think England were lucky, ask Tomas Tuchel who repeatedly said they were. Don't though question their mentality as the ITV interviewer found out from a feisty Tuchel. I am growing to like Tuchel more and more, in that when he talks you recognise the game you have just watched unlike plenty other managers. Though his substitutions and related to that players then playing out of position seemed a bit strange this time after spot in substitutions in previous matches. Got there though.

Saying Switzerland were unlucky was more about the control they had and just about the non existence of Argentinian shots from the Argentina early goal to the red card ( 2nd yellow ) a few minutes after the Swiss equaliser. They were also unlucky to have Mr Total Idiot Embolo in their team who decided to dive near the halway line whilst on a yellow and with his team having all the momentum.

As far as I can see an interesting quirk in the VAR rules though nothing dodgy. No doubt he deserved to go but he wasn't given a yellow card on the pitch, the Argentinian player was wrongly carded. Now I believe VAR still can't intervene to simply give or reverse a yellow card ( unless it thinks it should be a red ) but it can intervene if it considers any card has been given to the wrong player and recommend it is reassigned. So if the Argentinian player hadn't been yellow carded Embolo would have got away with it?

To my mind England can go to a higher level thsn Argentina. If they can produce near the level Tuchel is looking for they have a great chance of reaching the final. Rice fit and firing would help - a bug heading in and then that heat and humidity was clearly too much for him and he was subbed at halftime ( not had a great World Cup but still an asset if fit and well ). At least the SF is indoors in air conditioned Atlanta.

France vs Spain and England vs Argentina - been some great mstches, great underdog performances ( hail Cape Verde for starters ) but that's a proper last 4 line-up for a World Cup. Hope to see great SF matches and final.