Jareth Posted July 12, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted July 12, 2021 Southgate - he won the argument but lost the final. Italy were just better at grinding it out, they were not a better team. But it is a results business and we will need to think long and hard about where we want to be - I get the feeling Southgate has served his time and should leave with his head held high. I mean, we need a manager who also knows how to use attacking creative talent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 32 minutes ago, Genie said: I’m not the worlds biggest Declan Rice fan but he was having the game of his life, why was he taken off? He was out on his feet to be fair. Put in a Herculean effort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyrusr Posted July 12, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted July 12, 2021 Having now slept on it, I think this is my thoughts: Positives Early goal showing the benefits of playing 3/5 at the back - both trippier and shaw taking very early advantage of Italy taking more than a minute to settle. Good picking for both players and showed some real strength. There does seem to be a really good team spirit (mostly). I’ve not ever seen that sort of unity within the squad. There are some fantastic England players and Southgate has to take some credit in that development, particularly given he was u21s manager before. I do think that has helped with the team spirit as set out above. Negatives Once we scored, we failed to build on it and instead we ended up playing deeper and deeper. Southgate failed to change it up when it was clear we were the 2nd best team on the pitch. It was very clear that the subs made a huge impact for Italy and England were getting very tired. Mount should have come off 20/30 minutes before and Sterling failed to do anything of real note. If he was knackered, why keep paying him? Stats are not anything but you are not going to win football games with 34% possession, 1 shot on target and your main striker never getting a touch in the penalty box until the penalty shoot out. Yes he did some nice touches as a midfielder, but he is your striker, you need him in the damn box and the whole damn country knows he is one of the most lethal players in the box. It is sadly very clear that Southgate has his favourites and they play come what may. Pickford/Maguire/Stones/Walker/Rice/Phillips/Mount/Sterling/Kane will always play when fit and to be fair when they are good, they are great players (as all bar Mount have show in this tournament - Pickford did well with the couple of penalty saves along some good saves earlier in the tournament). However, some were woeful at times, Mount did nothing to the extent you forgot he was even playing; I didn’t actually think Stones showed anything more that Mings couldn’t do/could do better. Walker isn’t really a CB; Rice/Phillips don’t both need to play every game, it is good to have them both though just in case. Why on earth do you pick Saka to take 5th penalty? Such a huge expectation on his shoulders that is so undeserved. I could see the logic of Rashford coming on as he has taken a few for Man Utd IIRC (I know Fernandes is the main penalty taker now) but never known Sancho to take them. If Southgate was so intent and on bringing on Rashford/Sancho, it would have made a lot more sense to take off Walker and Sterling and move Saka to RB for 10/15 minutes. Sterling has to be one of the most selfish players out there. He will always try and take on 4/5 players instead of passing and inevitably loses the ball. Sometimes it does pay off, but it is infuriating to watch and how many opportunities are missed because he fails to pass? If anything, he should be the impact sub but for him to play 240 minutes+ to not even take a penalty, why? He doesn’t really trust anyone bar Kane and Sterling to score. With the height of the Italians, why wasn’t Calvert-Lewin playing? Or at the very least getting a striker on the pitch to be in the box would have been damn useful. His squad choice was poor ultimately. What would England have given to have JWP or Watkins in that team to change it up? These are players that can offer something different. JWP is lethal from a set piece; Watkins is a constant threat/pressure. However given above even if they were in the squad, they would never be on the pitch. I think for me, Southgate massively showed his inexperience here. He was utterly out thought and out fought by Mancini and he has failed to come up with plan B. As has been pointed out, this just reeks of the Bruce Play-Off Final, we just got lucky with an early goal. I don’t think Southgate has the ability to do something different, he will stick to his favourites and think he can rely on Sterling/Kane to do something special to win the game. It’s simply not good enough. Will he lose his job over it? Of course not, the FA love him, he’s “making progress” and inoffensive. He’s a dream employee without being too exciting. The only way he will end up leaving now is either he goes on a terrible run in the qualifiers or someone “big enough” is stupid enough to give him a club job (Arsenal I’m looking at you). I suspect though he will stay; we will cruise through the World Cup qualifiers and then as soon as we again meet a team that is half decent we will fall again. What’s the money on the World Cup final being England v Argentina and we have to face Messi/Martinez? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adman Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 16 minutes ago, bobzy said: Entirely predictable violence, racism and penalty shootout loss. EN-GER-LAND. It's an utter embarrassment. Apart from the pens, which was just normal predictable For me, Saka, Sancho, Rashford, Grealish and Sterling probably thought about how dumb they'd look with a Phil Foden hair style and chose the lesser of two evils Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepyvillian Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 5 hours ago, maqroll said: I actually didn't think Italy were the better team on the night. Much better second half, but on rhe whole I think it was pretty even. Just a huge missed opportunity for England to turn the blade after they scored. My standout performer for England in the tournament is Luke Shaw. Hardly put a foot wrong. Lessons learned for all involved, you'd think. Good experience to build on for the World Cup. A more aggressive manager in charge of these players will get England deep into the WC. Who will be that manager? Why wait till he fails again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 @cyrusr England won't make the world cup final with Southgate in charge unless it's the 'weaker' side of the draw again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyrusr Posted July 12, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted July 12, 2021 3 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said: @cyrusr England won't make the world cup final with Southgate in charge unless it's the 'weaker' side of the draw again. True, maybe not necessarily meeting in the final but I reckon it will be Argentina who will be the undoing for England in the next World Cup. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepyvillian Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 (edited) 20 minutes ago, Jareth said: Southgate - he won the argument but lost the final. Italy were just better at grinding it out, they were not a better team. But it is a results business and we will need to think long and hard about where we want to be - I get the feeling Southgate has served his time and should leave with his head held high. I mean, we need a manager who also knows how to use attacking creative talent. They were a better team on the night and that's what matters. How many times have we seen Villa do the same thing, go ahead and then concede possession to the opposition who just force you deeper and deeper until the inevitable occurs ? The stats were embarrassing when you consider the attacking talent at our disposal. There was a reason why the F.A took their time in giving the job full time to Southgate, I think they had doubts about his ability has a coach per se. And on the evidence of last night's performance they were right to be doubtful. It's alright being a lovely man to all and sundry, but one thing that doesn't guarantee, success. Edited July 12, 2021 by sheepyvillian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sulberto21 Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 6 minutes ago, cyrusr said: True, maybe not necessarily meeting in the final but I reckon it will be Argentina who will be the undoing for England in the next World Cup. I don't think Argentina are that good to be fair. With the obvious exception of the keeper and the next player to sign for Villa if he takes a massive pay cut. Lol. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacketspuds Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Good to see Saville’s have come out and said that they are investigating the racist tweets by one of their soon to be former employees. Still think a 6-month prison sentence would not be a bad thing. Make an example of the vile, moronic prick. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 1 minute ago, jacketspuds said: Good to see Saville’s have come out and said that they are investigating the racist tweets by one of their soon to be former employees. Still think a 6-month prison sentence would not be a bad thing. Make an example of the vile, moronic prick. I think a public shaming for people that send vile messages should be part of the punishment. Put their name and picture around the local town to show they are racist / homophobic / scum. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 2 hours ago, Tommo_b said: I disagree, I don’t think he got every decision right at all, he got the results which let’s be fair, any of us here couldve probably also got. I actually think he got 65% of decisions completely wrong. I don't think that's 'fair' at all! Not only do I not think the random Joes of VillaTalk would have successfully managed the national side out of nowhere, but we literally have decades of evidence that the professional managers appointed by England do not achieve results like this. Would Sam Allardyce have been able to get the same results? Roy Hodgson? Fabio Capello? Steve McLaren? And then once we acknowledge that no they probably wouldn't, because when they were in charge they didn't, we need to say that actually maybe it's really quite a difficult job and that getting to a final is nothing to sniff at. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straggler Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Southgate is a defender and he picked a defenders team. This England team is designed to stop the opposition from being able to hurt us. He always admits as much before the game, talking of the tactical problems that the opposition present and that he felt he had to nullify them. The problem is that in looking to make us completely safe we are not asking very many questions of our opponents. If you come up against a better team they will work you out or you get a low scoring draw as we did against Italy. Actually I can't be arsed with the tactical stuff, I'm most upset that I don't really enjoy watching England play football. I'm happy when we win, I wanted us to win last night, but I do want us to be more exciting. I'd love to look at the team sheet and be thrilled with the prospect. I'd love for there to be an attacking plan B that we had practiced before the tournament. We have seen some wonderful attacking international teams over the years that have been really succesful. France, Spain, Brazil have all thrilled us and won tournaments, we have players that can head us in that direction, but we used Greece 2004 as our template. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyrusr Posted July 12, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted July 12, 2021 5 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said: I don't think Argentina are that good to be fair. With the obvious exception of the keeper and the next player to sign for Villa if he takes a massive pay cut. Lol. I suspect Messi would play for us for free if it meant he could play with Martinez Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacketspuds Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 This was one of our best opportunities to win a major tournament. For us it was a tournament played pretty much at home, but the manager wasted the array of attacking talent available to him by picking 3 very similar CM’s in his squad. Rice and Phillips did well to break up play in the midfield, but we had nobody that could boss the game like Italy did in that 2nd half. When Henderson came on he looked pissed and was rightly subbed. The crazy thing is that Grealish has been England’s best player prior to the Euro’s, yet barely gets a look in at the tournament itself. Even when Foden was fit he wasn’t played much either because we just reverted to the mentality of pace first, composure second. Watkins would have been perfect in that match last night, putting the Italian defenders under pressure from the front instead of dropping back like Kane did the longer the game went on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperTed Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Sat and watched it in my local. Gaffer who I know well couldn’t accommodate our group in the bar as usual so we were sat in the function room. He asked everyone beforehand to behave and not throw pints everywhere, etc. Partner had a full pint thrown over her after England scored and left at half time to watch at a friends house. Seems that was the least of it looking at some of the scenes yesterday at Wembley! Some lovely videos coming out from The Britannia in Stourbridge this morning too. Honestly, no wonder England fans are so universally despised. Hope everyone was able to enjoy the game (result non withstanding) without the usual displays of clownery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wurzel Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 I don't know who this MP is, but I would expect an MP to be able to understand how stupid this message is. What an absolute tool. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinRichardsonsMoustache Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 Kane looked gased for a lot of the tournament. Some nice touches first half, but I couldn’t help feel that he resorted to using his body to block defenders because he knew his legs wouldn’t go for him. The system meant he was forced to do a lot of the running that Son et al would do for him at Spuds. He didn’t look world class yesterday, nor much of the tournament: a team outside of the Premier League won’t be in for him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted July 12, 2021 Share Posted July 12, 2021 13 minutes ago, SuperTed said: Some lovely videos coming out from The Britannia in Stourbridge this morning too. LOL, that's just down the road from me. What have you seen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted July 12, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted July 12, 2021 6 minutes ago, Wurzel said: I don't know who this MP is, but I would expect an MP to be able to understand how stupid this message is. What an absolute tool. Well as it's come from GB News i would think most of their followers would agree with her? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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