30dg heat, 5-0 up - why run yourself into the ground when you've qualified? Second half was always going to be more pedestrian.
Lingard's goal was brilliant.
We can score goals, no doubt - can can also concede too, no doubt. It could make the knockout games very entertaining
Lingard's goal was typically Lingard. He's done that for United for a while now. He's been surprisingly under the radar but this should finally give his talent the exposure it needs. He's one of very few English players who can play 1-touch football going forward. He's very much like Paul Scholes in that respect (and that's high praise).
Raheem Sterling. Answers on a postcard please because I have no idea.. I've never rated him and he's never proved me wrong. He couldn't hit a Cow's arse with a banjo. Swap him for Rashford ASAP.
Harry Kane, World class. 4 chances and 5 goals. That's a great average. Kane, Rashford and Lingard is a dream forward line.
All you can do is beat what's in front of you but (a poor) Panama had 4 or 5 very good chances to score, chances that you'd expect the top 10 teams to score.
The Belgium game may be a good indicator of how good our defence actually is. I have Belgium as my sneaky outside choice to win it. If we look good against Belgium then we can look good against anyone.
The good news is that we'll play from - Group H (Poland, Sengal, Japan and Colombia) in the knockout. That's the best group, to have as opponents, by far. After that it's impossible to predict but chances are you'll get a real contender.
So our path to World cup glory is:
(1) A dead rubber with Belgium
(2) A last 16 game with average opposition
(3) Quarter final with someone good
(4) Semi Final with someone very good
(5) Lose the final on penalties to Germany