World Cup pundit delivers brutal England verdict with controversial 'ugly daughter' comment
England have been heavily criticised for their display against Norway despite winning the game and reaching the World Cup semi-finals
Former Leeds United forward Mike Grella have taken aim at England's performance against Norway in the World Cup. Despite progressing to the semi-finals, the Three Lions have come under huge fire with Grella bizarrely stating that praise for the display is like "having the world's ugliest daughter and saying 'oh, you're so beautiful baby'".
Grella, who also represented Brentford and Scunthorpe United, has been working for CBS Sports as a pundit on the World Cup. He was part of their panel for England's 2-1 quarter-final win on Saturday, and despite never making a senior appearance for the USMNT, he had plenty to say on the Three Lions.
In a clip uploaded to CBS' X account, he said: "The good news is you have two games left... and you can actually win a World Cup. The bad news is you're not very good at football. You're not good with the ball or in transition. You leave unbelievable spaces in between the lines.
"By English standards, a really poor performance. It's impressive how poor you are and are still able to get away with a win. It's like having the world's ugliest daughter and saying 'on, you're so beautiful baby'.
"Let's call a spade, a spade here, that was embarrassing how you got through that game. You made Norway look like world-beaters. The credit is, two more games and you can win a World Cup. You have unbelievable superstars in [Jude] Bellingham and [Harry] Kane, but through facets of the game, not good enough, at all."
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Former Premier League striker Troy Deeney was also on the panel and later shared his thoughts. While not quite as brutal as his colleague, the 38-year-old, who also did not make an appearance on the international stage, did not hold back in his assessment of England.
He said: "They keep telling you the performances are going to come, but they might not. In wide areas we are average at best, when it's 0-0, we're playing with the shackles on. They told us that they were going to play front-footed football. There's so many questions over what we see compared to the result.
"The results are brilliant, we keep winning but Norway with Haaland, who probably had his worst game of the tournament, was brought off when they were chasing a goal and they still had 10 shots in the game.
"So we don't dominate or control games and then also the changes, in my opinion, we got away with it. Bringing off Declan Rice, we had Reece James as a holding midfielder with Elliot Anderson further up, then we take of Konsa and put James at right-back.
"We just keep on changing different things, we are getting away with it. I don't care by the way if we win the World Cup, great, give Thomas Tuchel a statue. But again, I'm allowed to say that I am not convinced by what we see other than that we can grind out results, which is great, but there's another level."
Despite not winning in style, England have made it to the final four and will face Argentina for a spot in next Sunday's final. If Thomas Tuchel's get beyond the holders, one of Spain or France will be waiting in New Jersey.
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