England Euro 2016 Chat

[PaulC]

Yes producing a good performance and not winning is no good. Russia are the weakest team in the group, the pressure is on us now.

[VillaChris]

Been at Swamp Download all weekend so can't really comment on Euros as of yet...just looking at the paper though and seeing Lallana's name in the starting line up just facks me off. England doing nothing in tournament with likes of him starting.

Couldn't understand the subs either...where were Vardy, Sturridge, Rashford etc for the killer 2nd goal.

Old habits die hard I think...some apparently good England play let down by the old sitting back routine when 1 up in last 10 minutes.

I agree with Paul, Russia are an old team and I think Slovakia got more dangerous players in final third like Hamsik so this won't be a cakewalk for England. 

[BOF]

2 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Been at Swamp Download all weekend so can't really comment on Euros as of yet...just looking at the paper though and seeing Lallana's name in the starting line up just facks me off. England doing nothing in tournament with likes of him starting.

Couldn't understand the subs either...where were Vardy, Sturridge, Rashford etc for the killer 2nd goal.

Old habits die hard I think...some apparently good England play let down by the old sitting back routine when 1 up in last 10 minutes.

I agree with Paul, Russia are an old team and I think Slovakia got more dangerous players in final third like Hamsik so this won't be a cakewalk for England. 

Lallana wasn't the problem.  I know his place in the team perplexed some.  It perplexed me.  But he did well I thought.  It was the utterly hilarious Raheem Sterling on the other side who was the problem.  They may aswell have been playing with 10.

And as for deserving to win.  Pretty football gets you nowhere.  They didn't deserve to win because they didn't score the goals.  They then tried to protect a one goal lead by shutting up shop, throwing on defensive substitutions and then those subs let their man go in order to cross the ball and score.  England got exactly what they deserved.  But EVEN allowing for that, who really cares because let's face it, nothing is won or lost in the first group game.  If anything, the perceived injustice of dropping 2pts might be the best thing to happen them.  I suspect Wales and Slovakia will get a tougher England than they might have done coming off a win.

[Stevo985]

32 minutes ago, BOF said:

 

And as for deserving to win.  Pretty football gets you nowhere.  They didn't deserve to win because they didn't score the goals. 

All anyone means by "they deserved to win" is that they were the better team despite the result. Which is pretty hard to argue against. England dominated but didn't take their chances.

I'm not sure why people seem to suddenly have an issue with this phrase. It's been used that way for years.

[BOF]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

All anyone means by "they deserved to win" is that they were the better team despite the result. Which is pretty hard to argue against. England dominated but didn't take their chances.

I'm not sure why people seem to suddenly have an issue with this phrase. It's been used that way for years.

Absolutely.  They played much better, yes.  In the middle of the park, away from the goal things.  'Problem' is a strong word for it though.  I think if people are trying to say that one team played better football then that's what they should say, rather than saying something that means something else and which doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

[Stevo985]

4 minutes ago, BOF said:

Absolutely.  They played much better, yes.  In the middle of the park, away from the goal things.  'Problem' is a strong word for it though.  I think if people are trying to say that one team played better football then that's what they should say, rather than saying something that means something else and which doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

But you could apply that to any time anyone uses the phrase.

if the logic is "well they didn't score more than the opposition so they didn't deserve to win", then any time someone says "They deserved to win", then you should be arguing against it. 

So it is a problem with the phrase, because that's how it's used. 

I've seen quite a few people take issue with it when applied to Saturday's game.

[BOF]

Just now, Stevo985 said:

But you could apply that to any time anyone uses the phrase.

if the logic is "well they didn't score more than the opposition so they didn't deserve to win", then any time someone says "They deserved to win", then you should be arguing against it. 

So it is a problem with the phrase, because that's how it's used. 

I've seen quite a few people take issue with it when applied to Saturday's game.

My problem with 'deserve' in this specific case is because England made conscious decisions that affected their game, so they quite literally deserved not to win, and engineered it themselves.  The substitutions.  The defending of a one-goal lead.  The fact that both of those things combined quite blatantly to result in Russia's late equaliser.  If ever a team who played well didn't deserve to win, that was it.

[Stevo985]

Well I'm not sure I agree.

Wilshere for Rooney was pretty much like for like given where Wilshere played.

Milner didn't come on until the 87th minute.

 

If England had gone ahead with an hour to go and shut up shop then I think there would be a valid argument there.
I do think different substitutions would have helped, but I think this suggestion that England just focused on defending their 1 goal lead is a bit misleading. THey did, but not until the very very end of the game. Which is hardly the stupidest approach in the world.

[Genie]

15 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Well I'm not sure I agree.

Wilshere for Rooney was pretty much like for like given where Wilshere played.

Milner didn't come on until the 87th minute.

 

If England had gone ahead with an hour to go and shut up shop then I think there would be a valid argument there.
I do think different substitutions would have helped, but I think this suggestion that England just focused on defending their 1 goal lead is a bit misleading. THey did, but not until the very very end of the game. Which is hardly the stupidest approach in the world.

I agee Stevo, if we'd have stuck Vardy on and went on to draw it would have looked far more foolish "why stick a striker on when winning when we needed fresh legs to defend the lead".

[Ginko]

Because we had the 'let's score a goal' mentality for most of the game and we dominated possession, so keeping that mentality would have meant having more possession which means they can't score and we might have got a second.

We might have got a second more easily since Russia were forced to come at us when they went a goal down. The same thing happened yesterday with Germany and lo and behold, they scored another goal and won the game comfortably. Now I'm not saying we're as confident or disciplined as Germany but this is the sort of winning mentality we need to adopt if we're ever going to win anything.

The decision, if I were a manager, would come down to which part of my team is stronger and more capable. If my team were weak in midfield but strong defensively then I'd go for Hodgson's 'defend the lead' tactics (until I could improve the midfield that is), but the defence is our weakest position by far. Why put trust in (and pressure on) our weakest element of the team rather than trusting the midfield to do what they'd been doing for the entire game and keep the ball and look for openings?

Edited June 13, 2016 by Ginko

[ml1dch]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

I agee Stevo, if we'd have stuck Vardy on and went on to draw it would have looked far more foolish "why stick a striker on when winning when we needed fresh legs to defend the lead".

After our 3-2 defeat to Leicester there certainly weren't many people praising Sherwood for throwing on a forward to try and stretch the game and get in behind them to kill the game off.

[Stevo985]

But we only went for the "defend the lead" tactic with about 3 minutes to go. We were continuing to play the way we'd been plaything the whole game until Milner came on.

I really don't think it was a crazy decision to try and defend the lead at that point. Didn't pay off, but people are talking as if Hodgson parked the bus all game.

[BOF]

There are loads of positives to take from it though.  They played like a team.  Rooney in the middle looked good, even if it was classic Woy to use an experimental side in a major tournament.  Luckily for him it largely worked.  However it was probably the one game in your group least suited to Harry Kane.  Against 2 ageing centrebacks they would have been terrorised by Sturridge or Rashford's blistering pace.  But now Woy will probably use someone other than Kane next time out (probably Vardy) when Kane makes more sense.

[penguin]

2 hours ago, BOF said:

Absolutely.  They played much better, yes.  In the middle of the park, away from the goal things.  'Problem' is a strong word for it though.  I think if people are trying to say that one team played better football then that's what they should say, rather than saying something that means something else and which doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

This isn't the case though. I'd argue it was one of the more dominant displays in the Euro's so far, we made enough chances to have easily gone into just the HT break 2+ up. Let down by poor finishing and players not being able to stretch that extra couple of cms. I thought maybe I had my red and white specs on watching the game but I've just watched the extended highlights and it's reaffirmed my opinion. 

People aren't saying 'we deserved to win' because we played the more attractive football. They're saying it because we controlled the game, made more chances and restricted them to very little. I was actually very pleasantly surprised with the performance against a Russia side who are a solid outfit, despite people liking to say how poor they are: 5 clean sheets in 10 games in their qualifiers and haven't conceded more than 1 goal in a competitive game since 2008. 2 more performances like that and I very much suspect we pick up 6 points.

[Demitri_C]

I hope we destroy the welsh. They have had a little bit if success lately and they really are trying to talk down on us in my view from recent interviews I have seen.

[KHV]

England will not beat Wales. It will be another draw. 

[VillaChris]

Can see it being like 2010 world cup, England will draw their first two games and then scrape through their final game 1-0. Be enough for 2nd. Who would England play again in that position?

[BOF]

21 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Can see it being like 2010 world cup, England will draw their first two games and then scrape through their final game 1-0. Be enough for 2nd. Who would England play again in that position?

B2 v F2.  So one of Portugal, Austria, Hungary or Iceland.  Odds would be Austria.

[kurtsimonw]

On 6/13/2016 at 09:50, Stevo985 said:

Id' say that's a bit debatable too.

Germany looked good going forward, very good, but they conceded a hell of a lot more chances than England did at the back, their fullbacks especially were quite poor, and if it wasn't for Neuer showing his class and a great clearance from Boateng they could easily have been in the same position as England.

But, again, my point still stands. it wasn't the garbage performance from England that people were claiming it to be.

Exactly. They conceded far more chances than we did, they were playing an equally poor side and their goals were both essentially a result of an incorrect decision. Their lead was a free kick that wasn't a free kick and their second was a result of their wrongly given first goal - as Ukraine wouldn't have been so far up the field.

[PaulC]

19 hours ago, penguin said:

This isn't the case though. I'd argue it was one of the more dominant displays in the Euro's so far, we made enough chances to have easily gone into just the HT break 2+ up. Let down by poor finishing and players not being able to stretch that extra couple of cms. I thought maybe I had my red and white specs on watching the game but I've just watched the extended highlights and it's reaffirmed my opinion. 

People aren't saying 'we deserved to win' because we played the more attractive football. They're saying it because we controlled the game, made more chances and restricted them to very little. I was actually very pleasantly surprised with the performance against a Russia side who are a solid outfit, despite people liking to say how poor they are: 5 clean sheets in 10 games in their qualifiers and haven't conceded more than 1 goal in a competitive game since 2008. 2 more performances like that and I very much suspect we pick up 6 points.

They lost two key midfieders in Denisov and Dzagoev to injury though which made them considerably weaker. I'll judge how good that performance was after the Wales and Slovakia games who I think are better teams.