I think he probably did have a plan, but it was never right to use Walcott and there was no reason to stick him on for the sake of it just so that he could shut a few people up. I'm sure he expected to be able to put him on during the group stages, but tough games against Paraguay and T&T meant that it was never right while the Owen injury meant he couldn't come on against Sweden. Ecuador was another tough game and it was never right to bring him on. Maybe he would have come on against Portugal late in the game had we had 11 players on the pitch but the sending off meant we needed someone to hold the ball up with pace around him, with Lennon already on it made sense for the replacement to be Crouch. If someone can show me a moment in the game when they would have stuck Walcott on then that is fine, but having a 23 man squad doesn't mean that you have to use all 23 and it also doesn't mean that simply because he didn't make it on that he isn't good enough.

4 out of 6.

That isn't true Dakefyre. About 4 of them got around the ref wanting a free kick.

You mean when he went down clutching his face after not really being touched? Not a mention. I just think for a lot of other countries diving is part of the game and they only care about it when it is against them, but don't mind winning because of it. For British sides we have the mindset of the noble victory and a tainted victory isn't one that we want. I saw an interesting interview with Maradonna recently where he said that English players were the most Noble around and that South Americans struggled to understand why they would play in such a way when it was to their own disadvantage.

Agreed, unfortunately in the modern game it is difficult to get a penalty unless you hit the ground.

Actually Neekoy I did respond to it. My point was that there are players from every nation that dive; however, not every nation seems to have all 11 doing it and having it occur every game as a sort of tactic. The English don't regularly dive (as I said Joe Cole being the only real diver) and if you remember when Gerrard did dive he was ripped to shreds by the media and fans (Ian Wright excepted). Somehow I don't see that happening in other countries and it is testament to the fact that we do not consider it to be part of our game.

I'm sure he planned on playing him, but the opportunity never really presented itself.

Henry made the most of the penalty, but it wasn't a dive as such, he was fouled.

It was pretty stuff, but did the two sides arrange to just pass the ball around and go for broke in extra time? Neither looked liked scoring. You can keep the ball as well as you want in the middle of the park, good performances come from what you can do in the final third and until extra time it didn't look as if either side could do anything where it counted.

Even I want Italy to win the world cup. France have been that poor.

Could have been worse, he could have been nixono.

Italy must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of playing France.

Hey hey now, it's vive la france, viva is spanish.

Will there ever be a worse world cup semi-final?

The English and Brazilians must be kicking themselves.

Good news is Rovers have also gained at least one supporter out of this deal. A friend of mine was a Wigan supporter simply because of Roberts but has now seen the light.

I don't think I was wrong. Were the Dutch, Argentinians and Brazilians also wrong? Of course not, they all had the ability to win it. Neville is world class, as is Zambrotta, Neville played well in every match he played in this world cup and we never looked trouble down the left hand side with him in the team.

I'm not saying that, I think the worst offenders of this sort in the World Cup were German. Like it or not though, much like diving, you will see this sort of thing far less from English players.

Trying to get other players sent off is still something that needs to be gotten rid of.

Yeah, but the problem with these sides is that none of them are really small, they are just sort of B sides. If there was a South Korea or someone in there then I would be right behind them and loving the success story.

I just like to see games between the top sides, as pleased as I am to see France going far, or as pleased as I would have been to see England get this far, one of the wonderful aspects of the world cup is the clash of the best sides in the world, especially once your side has been knocked out and you are once again a neutral. For me though this is really unconnected to my complaint. What annoys me is people who have suddenly developed this passion for the game where you know very well that on July 10th they simply won't care. You probably haven't experienced it to the same degree because in France I have been in a nation that has gone from thinking their team were old and rubbish and using every excuse to insult them to suddenly everyone praising them and thinking that they are world beaters and yes, I know that football is always a fickle sport. I understand the concept of tournament football and I do enjoy it, but that doesn't mean that every tournament shoud consist of the better teams not really turning up and the final four consisting of four unexpected sides, it gets a bit boring after a while. Will many of these supporters actually gain an interest in football? Very few. It is like any little fad for them and right now the thing to be is a football supporter. As for the personal insults, please leave them out. If you don't agree with me then that is all well and good, it is simply my opinion.

The guy is named after Reagan, what did we expect?

Don't agree with that. As has been pointed out, had England put on a display like either side did during the 90 minutes they would have been slaughtered for being unimaginative but solid. I think Germany lost because they were happy to go to the shoot-out, Italy were willing to do anything to avoid it, it told in the end.

Didn't he go through the man first?

Please someone, explain why no mention of the penalty appeal? I have yet to see it again other than on the big screen where I didn't have a great view.