Gareth Southgate

[tonyh29]

It will be interesting to see if any clubs make a move for him once he’s officially done with England … nice bloke , good PR man but tactically inept and he’ll suffer the same fate as Gerrard and Lampard at club level imo 

 

[AndyM3000]

2 hours ago, cheltenham_villa said:

I thought tonight showed why he has such a strong record in international tournaments. A draw all but guaranteed group qualification. He resisted the urge to chase the win that would have been nice but ultimately not necessary.

Should have been more aggressive in order to rest Kane next game and also give Phillips, Walker, Grealish & Foden some playing time. Can't do that now.

[penguin]

27 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

It will be interesting to see if any clubs make a move for him once he’s officially done with England … nice bloke , good PR man but tactically inept and he’ll suffer the same fate as Gerrard and Lampard at club level imo 

 

I can see a newly promoted Premier League side, probably a play-off winner, rolling the dice with him when sitting in relegation. Then he'll disappear all together from management and take a higher level role with the FA, or pundit work. 

[villa4europe]

I always thought he'd be a director at the FA but with everything going on I wonder if he'd dabble even higher up the football politics tree... If the English FA would put him forward as a candidate for UEFA or FIFA

[Tom13]

The amount of shite this bloke talks constantly is scary. How does he justify bringing on Rashford right wing then?

[Tom13]

And is his brain really that limited that he thinks Foden can't play centrally?

[OutByEaster?]

53 minutes ago, tinker said:

Think our issue was in the midfield, we lost control of the game there. Mount couldn't get a hold in the game, Rice worked hard and tried to break up play Bellingham huffed and puffed but again like Mount wasnt affective. 

And it's absolutely the Gerrard problem - a good manager came to Villa and started a double pivot.

With two wide men and a striker, you need someone in midfield who can do a bit of everything, someone who can be creative but also defend - then you need to to dominate the ball, control the middle of the park and protect the back four - it's a triangle. For me, the best person for the point of that triangle at the moment is Bellingham - with Rice and one behind him - the options we've got there are really poor in fairness - Henderson who is getting on a bit, Phillips who has played not much football or maybe Dier who doesn't play there anymore - but they're all better options than having the triangle the wrong way up.

Rice, Bellingham, Mount means there isn't enough in the middle to control things, there isn't any room for Bellingham to get forward because Mount is in his way and Mount can't get enough of the ball to effect the game because the other two are having to cover too much ground trying to make up for him to get a foot on it. It ends up a 4-1-1-1-3 or a 4-1-1-4 and it means that the four up front are separated from the rest of the side - it's a formation that relies on the centrebacks to provide creativity.

It was rubbish for Gerrard here and it's rubbish England there.

Drop Mount, play Henderson or Phillips and the shape will suddenly be a lot better.

 

[cheltenham_villa]

42 minutes ago, AndyM3000 said:

Should have been more aggressive in order to rest Kane next game and also give Phillips, Walker, Grealish & Foden some playing time. Can't do that now.

Yes he can, Wales need to win 4 nil, were pretty much guaranteed. 

I think everyone is over reacting. In every tournament you may need to take risks to win a game in my opinion you don't take risks in the group stages, you do it during the knock outs. Look at all the best tournament teams over the years, they probably make the same decisions as Southgate did last night.

I should clarify, I'd love us to be a better team and more attacking, I just don't think last night was the right time for it.

[Tom13]

Not overreacting IMO. Southgate is draining, from the way he approaches games, to the almost lies he tells to justify his selections.

[villa4europe]

43 minutes ago, Tom13 said:

The amount of shite this bloke talks constantly is scary. How does he justify bringing on Rashford right wing then?

Agree

I'll add to it that mount in the middle wasn't working, he wasn't playing well (again) and he'd rather continue with a guy not playing well than try something different

That was what pissed me off when MON talked about subs, he was the same

[avfc1982am]

I don't think anyone has been overreacting in criticisms of Southgate. His managerial deficiencies have been well known for some time. Not only is he ridiculously limited as a manager he's actually compromised. His inability to drop favourites, his inability to spot the same problems that existed in the Euros with team shape etc. He's been allowed to waste some amazing football talent that has a lot more in the locker.

[KentVillan]

3 hours ago, Zatman said:

Southgate wont play TAA he doesn't even want him in the squad as he doesnt trust him. The only reason he called him up was to not get the Liverpool media backlash against him like he did last year when he dropped him

Completely - Southgate has wasted a spot which could have gone to a striker on a sixth right back option who almost certainly won’t feature. Trent and Maddison are just there to keep the media quiet.

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

And? Did we win?

A game that should never have gone to penalties because we had a better team. 
 

Swap the managers in that final and we win. In normal time

This just isn't a good argument IMO. A penalty shootout is more or less down to chance; we didn't lose the penalty shootout due to Southgate, ergo arguing 'we'll never win a tournament with him in charge' because we didn't win a penalty shootout doesn't make sense. You *could* argue 'we'll never come up against an easier final than that Italy at Wembley', or 'the squad is declining in quality so we won't get that far again' or any of a number of other arguments but 'we lost a coin toss so we'll never win a coin toss' doesn't make sense, it's not how coin tosses work. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

the options we've got there are really poor in fairness - Henderson who is getting on a bit, Phillips who has played not much football or maybe Dier who doesn't play there anymore -

This is true, and was widely remarked when the squad was named, but yet I still see people insisting that we've got one of the best squads in the tournament. Maybe it's actually a real problem that we don't have many good options in central midfield. 

10 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Completely - Southgate has wasted a spot which could have gone to a striker on a sixth right back option who almost certainly won’t feature. Trent and Maddison are just there to keep the media quiet.

That's absolutely true IMO, but this is also just the nature of a 26-man squad, of course there are going to be players who don't feature. If he hadn't named 26 the outcry would have been even worse. 

[KentVillan]

34 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

This is true, and was widely remarked when the squad was named, but yet I still see people insisting that we've got one of the best squads in the tournament. Maybe it's actually a real problem that we don't have many good options in central midfield. 

That's absolutely true IMO, but this is also just the nature of a 26-man squad, of course there are going to be players who don't feature. If he hadn't named 26 the outcry would have been even worse. 

That’s not my point - there’s a difference between a backup player who doesn’t feature because there are stronger options ahead of them, and a player who doesn’t feature because they literally aren’t going to be needed in any scenario.

We currently have the situation where Kane looks very tired, and our only like for like backup for him is Wilson, who is injury prone.

Whereas at RB we have Trippier, Walker, White, Trent, and Saka who can all play there (and Dier etc could probably fill in too).

So he’s stacked that position for no reason and left us light in other spots. That’s why I say Trent is just there to keep media happy.

[villa4europe]

We don't have a brilliant squad but we do have a good one

What we have is a weak defence, a weak ish midfield but then some incredible options in attacking midfield

So what does he do? He plays to our weaknesses rather than our strengths, he uses attacking players to shore up the defence

We won't win the world cup 1-0 but there's every danger this attack could win it 4-3 and we just don't have the manager for it

[avfc1982am]

34 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

We don't have a brilliant squad but we do have a good one

What we have is a weak defence, a weak ish midfield but then some incredible options in attacking midfield

So what does he do? He plays to our weaknesses rather than our strengths, he uses attacking players to shore up the defence

We won't win the world cup 1-0 but there's every danger this attack could win it 4-3 and we just don't have the manager for it

I think this is spot on. Southgate's biggest problem has always been bravery. Defensively minded and pragmatic in nature he's a not lose manager, instead of a lets win manager. 

He's got a good enough squad to challenge for the WC but he could have had a much better one if he wasn't such a nepotist and tactically limited.  

[Nicho]

Yes the performance was terrible in isolation which could be forgiven but we play this way too often. Its negative, lacking flair and I think most importantly flexibility to change when needed.

Henderson and Rashford were ridiculous substituions. If he thought a midfielder was required surely Gallagher to match the energy of the USA midfield. Clearly screaming out for Foden. Kane dropping deep as per under Southgate but we dont have enough striking options to mix it up tactically, Kane will always play and I like Wilson but surely having Tammy as a different style option makes sense. 

Im not calling Gallagher and White saviours of this team but he will at some point be questioned about subs again and will trot out about using his experienced competition players ect ect bla bla so why not bring both on when we were 6-2 against Iran to give some exposure. 

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, Tom13 said:

The amount of shite this bloke talks constantly is scary. How does he justify bringing on Rashford right wing then?

In fairness he trained Grealish to play the Southgate way

[penguin]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

And it's absolutely the Gerrard problem - a good manager came to Villa and started a double pivot.

With two wide men and a striker, you need someone in midfield who can do a bit of everything, someone who can be creative but also defend - then you need to to dominate the ball, control the middle of the park and protect the back four - it's a triangle. For me, the best person for the point of that triangle at the moment is Bellingham - with Rice and one behind him - the options we've got there are really poor in fairness - Henderson who is getting on a bit, Phillips who has played not much football or maybe Dier who doesn't play there anymore - but they're all better options than having the triangle the wrong way up.

Rice, Bellingham, Mount means there isn't enough in the middle to control things, there isn't any room for Bellingham to get forward because Mount is in his way and Mount can't get enough of the ball to effect the game because the other two are having to cover too much ground trying to make up for him to get a foot on it. It ends up a 4-1-1-1-3 or a 4-1-1-4 and it means that the four up front are separated from the rest of the side - it's a formation that relies on the centrebacks to provide creativity.

It was rubbish for Gerrard here and it's rubbish England there.

Drop Mount, play Henderson or Phillips and the shape will suddenly be a lot better.

 

Take one less right back and Ward-Prowse is a good option also.