Take it away.

Well, what I thought I'd do was give you a quick analysis of what facts happened last night.

And then you guys can chew over.

So almost like a mini FA report.

And you've got to make your decisions, right? These are five facts that I took from last night.

First fact, Tuchel set up the team positive.

Rodgers, Spence, Stones justified that call.

Can you understand it? In part of the LMA, if you like, can you understand how in the Fog of War he slightly lost the plot? Do you have some sympathy for it? Have you done it yourself maybe?

But it's not a big deal, this, is it?

Well, firstly, let's go back to the interviews.

I think it's quite important to put it into some sort of context.

Firstly, it was Messi, the first interview with Thomas from Gabriel, you know, and he was obviously just trying to get across the point.

Like all coaches, you know, the technical side of it, we could have been so much better, which was true.

And when he was talking about repetitive stuff, he was talking about, you know, constant attacks where we were sort of having sporadic attacks and not building on it.

So that was all fine, I thought.

It can't be easy.

We thought we'd ask you of your player of the tournament so far, the ones that have sort of stood out for you.

Oh, wow.

There's been some, you know, fantastic performances.

Um, I think when you, when you look at this, you always look at the big hitters.

Um, and I don't think it was any surprise to me that some of them fell short, uh, of delivering.

Ronaldo, Modric, uh, for examples.

Um, but you know, we've had a couple emerge.

[laughs] It has been some story, this, isn't it?

But just from a tactical perspective, Pards, I thought Thomas Tuchel was bonkers to go with a back five so early, but it worked, didn't it? How did you review the manager's performance in such testing circumstances?

Well, interestingly, he had good moments.

And our tier for Y, the setup of the team and the choice of the Y players was good.

It worked.

Gordon was definitely massively improvement.

So they've done a good job on him and getting him in a good sort of mental state to play.

everybody looked great and then obviously we take the lead they get the goal and then half time for the manager it was a massive moment for him because conceding so late he could have set the team up And not as well as he did.

And who's your idea of the winner?

What did you make of it?

Yeah, I think when you really analyse managers, it's important to remember where their influence comes.

At the start of the game, you're right, he did that and that was a good tactic.

I thought after halftime, we was probably the best we've ever been in the competition.

That sort of 10 minutes after halftime.

So after he got him in the dressing room, we really come out with a sort of, you know, our towels up and looking like we was going to push on.

And obviously the sending off, you know, sort of stopped that.

Where do you feel that can get at England apart from the obvious?

What Gordon, it wasn't just his energy, what Gordon brought to the table in his little cameo was so important, wasn't it, Alan?

Yeah, it was.

I mean, you know, I thought we was a little bit loose actually in our setup, particularly down the right.

Manu Uke was too high.

Spence has some flaws in his game where he doesn't read the game particularly well.

And that was definitely evident in the first half.

We really did struggle down that right side.

So, I mean, can you see a fast start in the Mexico game?

Is that down to Steve? Is it down to the players? How do you view it?

Well, firstly, you know, I think the SFA needs to have a little look at that whole setup because, as I understand it, none of his staff got full-time contracts.

They're part-time, apart from Steve, who has a full-time contract.

So that doesn't fit well with me, and I don't hope the new regime will sort that out.

I think he's done an absolutely brilliant job with a, let's be honest, with a team that technically and individually probably are good enough to qualify, but would find it a difficult tournament of the level we're at.

Now, you could argue Kate Verdi and everybody else that the other teams have done perhaps a little bit better.

But I think they were in a really tough group and it was always going to be difficult.

Ange because of the job he did with Celtic I know a few people I think Cass was saying yesterday his football was just too open with a team like Scotland to play like that so have you got any thoughts on it Alan?

Are you buying that?

Not really, because I was at Golf Day yesterday, Variety Club, and two lovely buses for uh the kids we presented yesterday and I'd had a speech there and and almost predicted what was going to happen you know um they they was always going to set up like that um there's no way they're going to open up the pitch against us particularly what we did to Croatia so the question marks really were um what we were going to change formation Were we going to put deeper crosses in and maybe put some height in the team, put Dan Byrne at centre-back? That might have been an option.

Tony up the top of the pitch.

Should we go to a diamond? Because the two full-backs, Semenya in particular, they're right backwards having the game of his life against Gordon and Ashford.

You know, we just didn't ask enough issues.

And sometimes you need a good assistant.

I'll give you an example.

In and out and playing in front of a team is pretty maddening, isn't it?

Let's talk about, uh, Newcastle, who were trailing themselves at halftime by a goal to nil, and Alan Pardew, they did not play well at all in the first half, and at halftime on Talksport, you were calling for more from Newcastle, and they delivered that in the second half.

Yeah, you know, part of your makeup as a manager is to, is to rectify that at halftime.

You know, when you see your, your, your team sort of going through, not going through the motions, but certainly playing a gear below the level you... that you're at, then you, you've got to get a spark in that dressing room, and, and Eddie did the job.

There's no doubt about that.

They come out as a team, not just as individuals and, and, and looked much more on the front foot, much more aggressive.

People were taking people on.

The crosses had a little bit more zip in it.

Yeah.