HanoiVillan

Because I don't think they matter really. Pretty embarrassing for Argentina to have lost to Saudi Arabia! Oh but they won the World Cup so who cares. Groups are for getting out of, something Southgate has done each time and many of his predecessors failed to do.

Probably nothing! As I say, I don't think the stat is particularly meaningful, in any form. You're free to disagree of course. Performances is a better metric IMO, and I don't completely disagree, but it's a more balanced ledger: 2018 - Colombia (nervy but got the job done); Sweden (fine); Croatia (poor) (don't care about 3rd/4th place playoff, I'm sorry) 2020 - Germany (good); Ukraine (excellent); Denmark (nervy but got the job done); Italy (poor, and tactically outclassed) 2022 - Senegal (fine); France (disappointing result but a good performance in defeat to an excellent side) That's about even.

I have two other issues with this way of looking at things. Firstly, it is quite circular; if we beat them they were shit, but if we lost to them they were good. There's an element of disrespect in it too; did everyone agree in 2018 when we played them that Colombia were shit? I don't remember everyone believing that at the time. Nor do I remember everyone agreeing that Denmark were shit in 2020. It seems to suggest that only games against the top 6 or 7 sides in Europe or South America can ever be a challenge, which instinctively I don't like. And then secondly, essentially every manager at a tournament is going to have a record like this, except for the manager of the winners, and like, the Moroccan manager. It's just the nature of tournaments that most teams exit fairly early, having lost to one of the best sides, and having won - if any games - against sides weaker than themselves. Now I realise in picking holes with all versions of this statistic that I'm not offering a positive statistical yardstick to measure performance against, but really that's because I don't think there's an unproblematic one. It's just very different from club management, where you play every weekend so win percentages are more meaningful. International games are rare, and tournaments rarer, so the context of the moment matters more in evaluating performance IMO. And the context of 2018 was, we went into the tournament extremely pessimistic with an 'it's a free hit' attitude, we hadn't won a knockout game for decades, and then we won two. The context of 2022 is that we played well against France and didn't get the game to extra time because Kane missed a penalty. Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to whether people think 'nothing less than winning the tournament' is a reasonable expectation to set for a manager. I don't think it is, more or less ever. But clearly others disagree (this is the only possible meaning of 'we'll never win anything with him in charge' after all) so I suppose people who feel like that will and should simply ignore any wider context.

I seem to find myself taking the role of 'Southgate defender' more often that I actually want to (I don't deny he's a very flawed manager), but I do think it's worth putting a couple of asterisks in this statistic, namely: Presumably a lot of these games are friendlies, where the result is by definition not particularly important. Of course you don't *want* to lose, but international managers do need space to try new players and systems in competitive-but-not-meaningful games, or else they'd never do anything new. Nobody counts pre-season friendly results when assessing club managers' performances. A bunch of the other games are from the Nations League. My recollection of this tournament was that most fans, media and players treated it as an irrelevant annoyance for the most part. I also seem to remember a lot of players pulling out with 'injuries' and finding reasons not to participate. Now maybe that's wrong, or maybe we can argue that it's the manager's job to take all these games terribly seriously even if nobody else is, but I think it's a *bit* harsh to turn around after the event and be annoyed about results from games you didn't care about when they were played. That's not to excuse all the results or the performances, still less being doubled by Hungary FFS, but I think it's relevant context.

Well it isn't, I lived through many many examples of us doing worse under other managers. If people want to say he's a bad, tactically limited manager that's fine, but the historical record is what it is. He's done better than every single other England manager in my lifetime.

As I've said before, to believe the bolded you'd have to believe that we were betting on rank outsiders Hull to get promoted, and why would we have done that? It wasn't seen as likely at the start of the season.

I am.

tbf they're not going to do any of it, because we're not moving to a new stadium.

Ventured into the ninth tier yesterday to watch Bewdley Town lose 3-0 at home to Wolverhampton Casuals. Went with two other people, and in doing so increased the attendance by about 10%! Losing 3-0 at home might sound like a bad result, but it's arguably a better result than average for a Bewdley side who must be having one of the worst seasons in recorded football history:

I think it looks good - as an American football stadium. It isn't a football stadium, and I don't understand why Villa fans want to copy it. If people in this thread want red brick, then you need to want to stay at Villa Park, because if we move we will not be building out of brick, probably not even putting a brick facia on.

If Toney plays well on Tuesday he's on the plane and Watkins is staying home.

Thank you! I've been wearing gloves all day.

Anyone else think this sounds like there's actually something to these rumours? '“I’m the England manager,” he said. “I’ve got one job: to try and deliver a European Championship. Manchester United have a manager and it’s disrespectful to be talking about speculation. I’m the president of the LMA. I have nothing to say.” Southgate added. “If we did something, a contract, here before everybody would be saying, ‘why are you signing a contract before a Euros where you’ve got to prove yourself?’ I’m certainly not going to speak to anybody else ahead of that. I never have. I’ve been eight years in the job. I wouldn’t entertain speaking to anybody else when I’m in the job.”' from: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/mar/22/gareth-southgate-bemoans-england-injury-crisis-with-kane-unlikely-to-play

Maybe that was the impact he expected?

That would fall outside of the 3 year rolling period wouldn't it?

However irritable you feel about it, it's just unfortunately true that an accusation that named individuals have essentially falsified accounts over a ten-year time span is much harder to prove to a legally watertight standard than a self-reported number in a club's accounts.

Obviously Man City have been *charged*, that's how we know there are 115 charges. There isn't a *verdict*, because the case is massively bigger and harder to prove.

This isn't actually true; if you read the Forest judgement (posted earlier in the thread) they explain in quite lengthy detail how they came to the number they did, and also clarify that the extent of the breach is a factor.

Well there's no way Ratcliffe would 'come out and say he wants him', whether it is true that he does or not. Clubs (or ones not run by complete idiots anyway) don't issue press releases about who they hope their next manager will be while the current one is in place.

Sorry, I'm confused, not what? EDIT: Oh okay, sorry, I see, they're not in Europe. Yes that's true.

Probably yes, but kind of so what? For most of that United have been far above us in the table and playing European football. Probably wouldn't call up someone after 20 games for Rotherham either.

Yes, he'd definitely get bidders this season. He's clearly been their best player.

Maybe not one for this thread, I don't know, but the political orientation of Birmingham's football clubs is interesting. I would argue that both clubs are right-coded, but that Birmingham are, as you say, more street-fighting fash type right, whereas Villa has a bit of an establishment Tory vibe (we seem to be followed by a disproportionate number of Tory MPs and various hangers-on).

He was only really playing at a standard where he might have expected an England call-up for eighteen months tbh. And separately, in that same time frame, the manager who would never call up a player from Aston Villa had called up both Mings and Watkins.

Of fleeting interest in that link, looking for mentions of us, I see that Forest were actively touting Johnson for sale and we were one of the parties they offered him to: '12.28 Forest was aware that Player A was in the process of changing agents (which was completed only on 4 July 2023), which made an early deal more difficult. However, Forest continued to seek out buyers for Player A in June 2023, engaging with Unique Sports Management (Player A’s new agents), Brentford, Spurs, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Manchester City, and Atlético. Forest submitted that by 30 June 2023, it had made every effort to generate a formal offer for Player A but none had been received at that stage that were capable of being completed in time.'