At the end of the day...Argentina deserved to win. England deserved to lose. 6 defenders! Scaloni, very positive changes. Tuchel, very bad ones... catastrophic ones, to be honest. The best team won.
A great coach/manager isn't someone who relys the on bravery of defenders throwing themselves in front of shots/crosses or the luck of hanging on with
X amount of defenders on the pitch.
Watch Spain at 1-0 last night. That’s courage. That’s bravery. And then watch England at 1-0. What’s the difference?
We are a better team than Argentina, I’ve no doubt in my mind. But we deserved to get beat in the end. In fact, it could have been 4-1.
Bringing on 3 defenders at 1-0 up. What message does that send? I wrote it in my Daily Mail column after the Mexico game. Until we understand that courage and bravery is controlling possession under pressure and not booting / heading it up the field 40 yards then this will always be the end result.
If Vladimir Putin changed the voting system days before an election to stop his opponents winning, every British journalist would call it what it is: rigging the rules.
Tonight, Labour rammed through a last‑minute switch in the Lords so that if Andy Burnham wins Makerfield and quits as Greater Manchester Mayor, his replacement won’t be chosen on a simple first‑past‑the‑post ballot, but on the supplementary vote system instead.
Why now?
Because Labour knows the race to replace Burnham would be a straight two‑horse fight with Reform UK – and under FPTP, the candidate with the most votes wins, no second chances, no back‑room redistributions, no “stop Reform” stitch‑ups.
Under SV, Labour gets a second bite of the cherry: if their candidate can limp into the top two, they can hoover up second preferences from every other party and magic a “majority” on the second count, even if Reform tops the poll on first preferences.
This isn’t “modernising democracy”. It’s the governing party using its Commons majority and the unelected Lords to hurriedly doctor the rules of one specific contest because it’s terrified the voters might choose someone else.
When the establishment preached to the world about “rules‑based order”, they forgot to mention one thing: in Britain, the rules are “based” on whether Labour thinks it might lose.
I’m not sure ITV are massively advancing the idea of women’s equality in football by having Emma Hayes give her analysis from a set which looks like she’s stuck in a kitchen?