Mic09 Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 4 minutes ago, villalad21 said: England will never get an easier route to a final They did 3 years ago 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Genie Posted July 12, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 12, 2021 So annoying when people say “he got the other games absolutely spot on but got it wrong in the final”. He didn’t get the other games absolutely spot on, the nonsensical decisions where clear. He got away with against the weaker teams. Theres 2 parts to this tournament for me as an England fan. England got to a final which is great, and a major step forward. However, I think Barry Fry could have done it with our squad and the very favourable draw. I don’t think Southgate deserves much credit for getting England to the final given the fixtures. Some, but not much. He lost to the first decent team he played. The game management in the final was an absolute car crash. 13 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 We got far, but damn am I tired of Gareth. We get through a tournament with possibly the easiest route ever and completely bottle it against a team we could have ran circles around if he bothered to try to coach a bit offensively. Chiellini and Bonucci are brilliant players but they're old and slow. What does Gareth do? Keeps playing his lumbering, slow, drop deep for the ball forward. 3 players on the bench would have made a meal out of Italy's defense yet we keep playing Kane and Sterling for 120 minutes.. Gareth has been carried forward by a golden generation. I'm not too sure if he will even get out of the group stages in Qatar if he doesn't learn how to coach in game.. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_avfc Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 22 minutes ago, villalad21 said: England will never get an easier route to a final I mean this is correct if you ignore the fact that at the last World Cup we had an even easier route to a final that we still couldn’t reach. I would say that I’m not convinced we’ll ever have an easier final to win than that one. 65,000 England fans at Wembley against an Italy team that looked there for the taking in the first half if we’d shown any sort of attacking intent. Just a disappointing way to lose a final and the fact that we bored our way to penalties only to miss 3 out of 5 makes it all the more disappointing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panto_Villan Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 I went into the tournament thinking Southgate was way too defensive, and tactically clueless. But he was playing results football and the results he got did change my mind a bit. First, the good. Obviously, we reached the final and the final was a close game. I think there's probably something to playing defensive football if you want to get consistently good results in tournament football; if you're too attacking then even the weaker sides can be a banana skin. I'm not sure I buy that this is our easiest run ever either - Italy and Germany are tier 1 nations and Denmark / Czechia / Croatia are no mugs. I think some of them looked weaker than they actually are because our defensive tactics neutralised them effectively. I think Southgate also showed that he understands the game and is capable of being a good manager. His man management was excellent throughout the tournament, and while his tactics were unorthodox at times he gave reasonable reasons for them. The way he set up the team last night was very tactically astute - Italy looked shellshocked for the first half hour. He's clearly not a moron, he just favours extremely defensive football. Unfortunately though, if you're playing results football and you lose then people get to start asking questions. What was disappointing last night is that Italy outplayed us. We weren't unlucky. I feel like if we played that game ten times Italy would come out on top in at least nine of them, because we were never in the game once they figured out our system. The lack of subs was mystifying and felt like he was playing for penalties, which we then proceeded to lose (I was certainly hoping it would go to penalties, but only because Italy looked way more likely to score in normal play). It's a strange one. I feel like Southgate has proved quite a few people on here wrong with his results, while also proving right one of the major criticisms against him - that his football comes unstuck against the really top teams. England need to find some way to offer something beyond defensive heroics, and I think that's going to be difficult unless we're willing to bring on a more attacking formation when things aren't going well for us. It's morale sapping for fans (and probably players) to score early and then spend the entire game defending, but because we were only ever likely to score one goal we didn't have a choice. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 I still think what he did to Jack against Denmark was humiliating and completely unnecessary. His obsession with a core of players really hampers the team overall. Its the opposite of what someone like SAF would do. Nobody should be too big or untouchable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 20 minutes ago, Genie said: I still think what he did to Jack against Denmark was humiliating and completely unnecessary. His obsession with a core of players really hampers the team overall. Its the opposite of what someone like SAF would do. Nobody should be too big or untouchable. Isn't the last part of this ('nobody should be too big or untouchable') in conflict with the first part ('what he did to Jack against Denmark was humiliating')? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Just now, HanoiVillan said: Isn't the last part of this ('nobody should be too big or untouchable') in conflict with the first part ('what he did to Jack against Denmark was humiliating')? No, because the obvious sub was Sterling who was exhausted. Sterling is one of the untouchables who can do no wrong so he stays on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted July 12, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted July 12, 2021 All the press, all the commentators, all the drunk public just love him. It's like some weird cult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Just now, Genie said: No, because the obvious sub was Sterling who was exhausted. Sterling is one of the untouchables who can do no wrong so he stays on. He explained afterwards that he wanted Sterling on the pitch as an out ball, and while I don't fully agree with that, he was on a couple of occasions an out ball and got the ball to the other end of the pitch. I don't think the Denmark game is a very good example of a game Sterling should have gone off in, though I would agree he should have gone off last night, especially since he didn't take a penalty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Just now, HanoiVillan said: He explained afterwards that he wanted Sterling on the pitch as an out ball, and while I don't fully agree with that, he was on a couple of occasions an out ball and got the ball to the other end of the pitch. I don't think the Denmark game is a very good example of a game Sterling should have gone off in, though I would agree he should have gone off last night, especially since he didn't take a penalty. I don’t think a tired Sterling was a better option of an out ball over a fresh Grealish personally. Certain not big enough to justify the substitution. Gareth would have known that taking a sub off after only half an hour would embarrass the player immensely. He treated him like some liability that he needed to get off the pitch urgently. These things get glossed over when the results go their way, but eventually come home to roost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Southgate plays it so safe he even wears a condom when masturbating. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 13 minutes ago, Genie said: I don’t think a tired Sterling was a better option of an out ball over a fresh Grealish personally. Certain not big enough to justify the substitution. Gareth would have known that taking a sub off after only half an hour would embarrass the player immensely. He treated him like some liability that he needed to get off the pitch urgently. These things get glossed over when the results go their way, but eventually come home to roost. Agree with you. The perfect out ball would have been Watkins or Bamford (whom he didn't even take). Or DCL coming on to hold the ball up. You can't go into a tournament with just 2 strikers. It isn't rose tinted spectacles to want Grealish to play more minutes especially last night. Free kicks, holding the ball up. Pinning them back. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meregreen Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Too defensive a manager. Our centre forward didn’t have a single touch in Italy’s penalty area, mind boggling that he didn’t change things second half. Even when Jack came on, why didn’t he give him the full 30 minutes of extra time, what’s the point of delaying for 10 minutes. A limited manager who’s luck ran out, and didn’t have the nous to adapt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 25 minutes ago, sidcow said: All the press, all the commentators, all the drunk public just love him. It's like some weird cult. I noticed that on ITV last night they were tippy toeing around his game management, things like “it feels a bit like changes are starting to become overdue” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Silvers Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Haha, beginning to make sense now 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Even Deano would have made more subs. Especially around the 65th minute. Oh and Henderson lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said: Haha, beginning to make sense now Cabbage and the Parsnip. Ultimate recipe for a bland concoction. Edited July 12, 2021 by Sulberto21 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 29 minutes ago, sidcow said: All the press, all the commentators, all the drunk public just love him. It's like some weird cult. A lot of it is just down to plain ignorance I feel. Majority of the people watching England over the past month probably don't follow football that much so all they can see "he got us to our first final in 55 years". They don't really grasp any of the tactical stuff nor do they really appreciate the attacking talent in this England squad that was so shamefully wasted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 27 minutes ago, Genie said: I don’t think a tired Sterling was a better option of an out ball over a fresh Grealish personally. Certain not big enough to justify the substitution. Gareth would have known that taking a sub off after only half an hour would embarrass the player immensely. He treated him like some liability that he needed to get off the pitch urgently. These things get glossed over when the results go their way, but eventually come home to roost. I just don't agree that it's some giant humiliation at the end of the day. He did it again last night, Henderson on and off. After the semi, there were all these breathless 'this is only the third time this has happened - the others were X and Y' comments, and all I could think about was how I couldn't remember either of those instances. It's not something that anybody is going to care about in about 2 weeks from now, it just doesn't matter. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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