Euro 2020 : Semi finals and final

[John]

I think that puts the Southgate is a tactical genius and his decisions always turn out to be the right ones claims, to bed once and for all. He's rode his luck and it ran out in the final for him and for us. He has said that he chose the penalty takers and that the blame is therefore his and so be it. He decided to do nothing about us dropping too deep and surrendering possession, along with the initiative to the Italians after two minutes. He chose to give two of our penalty takers a few seconds on the field before expecting them to click into gear and hit nerveless penalties. He asked a 19 year old lad to take the vital last penalty. He left Jack on the bench until the last 20 minutes of extra time and didn't pick him or Sterling as one of his penalty takers.

His stock as a manager will never be as high as it currently is, it is downhill from here in my opinion. Hopefully he will get an offer from a club that is too good to refuse soon, because I don't want him to put us all through Groundhog Day next summer.    

[Wurzel]

Can't see any club thinking that Southgate is the answer to their teams problems. 

[bickster]

13 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.

The disgraced Charlie Elphicke's wife, whom the Tories handed their little Fiefdom in Kent to on a plate. Although separated at the time, she supported her husband's appeal against sentencing for sexually assaulting two different females because she thought the courts were "on a mission" and the sentence was harsh.

That's the measure of the woman. Yes, she's vile

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

7 minutes ago, John said:

Hopefully he will get an offer from a club that is too good to refuse soon, because I don't want him to put us all through Groundhog Day next summer.    

He’ll see out his England contract, appear on Skysports a few times, talk about how he has had a few ‘interesting opportunities’ but that none of them were right, and then be appointed manager of the Philippines national team.  

[tomav84]

16 minutes ago, John said:

I think that puts the Southgate is a tactical genius and his decisions always turn out to be the right ones claims, to bed once and for all. He's rode his luck and it ran out in the final for him and for us. He has said that he chose the penalty takers and that the blame is therefore his and so be it. He decided to do nothing about us dropping too deep and surrendering possession, along with the initiative to the Italians after two minutes. He chose to give two of our penalty takers a few seconds on the field before expecting them to click into gear and hit nerveless penalties. He asked a 19 year old lad to take the vital last penalty. He left Jack on the bench until the last 20 minutes of extra time and didn't pick him or Sterling as one of his penalty takers.

His stock as a manager will never be as high as it currently is, it is downhill from here in my opinion. Hopefully he will get an offer from a club that is too good to refuse soon, because I don't want him to put us all through Groundhog Day next summer.    

yep pretty spot on

personally, i'm past caring. watching the greatest talent of a generation being used so sparingly sums up his tactical limitations from an attacking sense.

and that's before we start on the england fanbase...i'm ashamed. many of us have experienced wembley way following villa...it's an iconic road with a wonderful atmosphere on a big day. sharing cans with rival fans etc. but it sounded just horrible last night and frankly i hope we never host a major tournament again, because it shows the fans for what they are. and it's not a minority either. its the reason everyone hates us...nothing to do with brexit etc. we're a hated nation because we're absolute arseholes once we get a can or 2 of lager inside us.

last night the best footballing team won, the best manager won, and the better set of fans won.

[sne]

The aftermath will be interesting to learn what actually happened with the English penalty takers.

Southgate is rightfully taking and getting the blame for subbing on 2 (young) players that late to take penalties. From what I've seen they touched the ball 3 times each before the shootout, must have been h**l for them but still doesn't excuse that Lukaku/Simone Zaza run-up and miss by Rashford. 

But worst of all was of course giving the 5th penalty to 19 y.o Saka. Usually it's the 5th pen the stars want's to take so they can be heroes, but apparently not last night. Maybe it's a result of the mindset of Southgate and of the squad Southgate has nurtured? Surely some more senior players where in contention to take penalties but for whatever reason it was Saka that stepped up, and buckled under the pressure.

 

[Genie]

Sancho and Saka were unlucky to a degree. Hit the target and you’ve got a chance. If the keeper goes the other way then you’re a hero.

WTF Rashford was playing at I don’t know. Stupid run up and then missed the target. That’s unforgivable for an experienced player. 

[villa4europe]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Sancho and Saka were unlucky to a degree. Hit the target and you’ve got a chance. If the keeper goes the other way then you’re a hero.

WTF Rashford was playing at I don’t know. Stupid run up and then missed the target. That’s unforgivable for an experienced player. 

I think the opposite 

Rashford has sold the keeper, waited for him to move to his left and then confidently put the ball to his right... I think it's over confidence that's done him, he'd done the hard bit and then **** up just rolling the ball in to the net

Sancho and saka were both poor penalties, height, power, distance from the keeper, they're text book bad penalties 

Surprisingly so was belottis and he hit a great one vs Spain 

[Tommo_b]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

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.

 

Again completely disagree, what England manager in the history of England football teams ever have such a pool of talent to pick from, that doesn’t even include the players that didn’t make the squad.

Those managers you mentioned are a class above Southgate with proven track records, so yes I absolutely believe they would’ve also got us to the finals, easily. 

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, Tommo_b said:

Again completely disagree, what England manager in the history of England football teams ever have such a pool of talent to pick from, that doesn’t even include the players that didn’t make the squad.

Those managers you mentioned are a class above Southgate with proven track records, so yes I absolutely believe they would’ve also got us to the finals, easily. 

I'm sorry, but that's an absolutely laughable thing to say.

[Tommo_b]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm sorry, but that's an absolutely laughable thing to say.

Your opinion which I happen to think is wrong, oh well. 

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Rashford has sold the keeper

I’m not sure you can tell if he sold the keeper, or if the keeper just picked a side. Usually the direction a keeper will dive is pre-agreed and written down on a bottle or piece of paper.
If you can’t hit the target from 12 yards then there’s no hope anyway.

[Tommo_b]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm sorry, but that's an absolutely laughable thing to say.

Let’s put it this way… we lose Dean Smith and you’re saying out of Southgate, Hodgson, Capello, McLaren and Allardyce, you’d choose Southgate.

You must be on the wind up!

Edited July 12, 2021 by Tommo_b

[HanoiVillan]

The quality of England's squad is being majorly overplayed on this forum to be honest. In central midfield - the key area in international football - we have two guys who have played a combined 0 minutes of Champions League football. The other two central midfielders in the squad have varying amounts of CL experience, but one is ageing and unfit, and the other is pretty callow. At CB we have two good players, though worth remembering one was seen as a laughing stock at the start of the past season; there's basically no depth at the position. And for all the talk of England's fantastic options in attacking midfield positions, Sterling had a poor season, Grealish and Saka have no CL experience and Foden's experience in the competition is pretty limited.

The Germany team that everybody seems keen to dismiss as basically rubbish started three players from the Champions League winners plus a bunch of players from one of the most dominant teams in the history of German football; they had more top club experience *and* more international experience.

This idea that England's squad was so good that literally anyone off the street could have rocked up and won the tournament in their dressing gowns is absurd.

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Let’s put it this way… we lose Dean Smith and you’re saying out of Southgate, Hodgson, Capello, McLaren and Allardyce, you’d choose Southgate.

You must be on the wind up!

No, I'm not saying that, because international football and club football are not the same thing. (Though I wouldn't want Villa to appoint any of Hodgson, Capello, McLaren or Allardyce either)

[briny_ear]

7 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Let’s put it this way… we lose Dean Smith and you’re saying out of Southgate, Hodgson, Capello, McLaren and Allardyce, you’d choose Southgate.

You must be on the wind up!

Now you’ve given me something new to have nightmares about! Southgate to Villa? Ugh!

[tom_avfc]

12 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I think the opposite 

Rashford has sold the keeper, waited for him to move to his left and then confidently put the ball to his right... I think it's over confidence that's done him, he'd done the hard bit and then **** up just rolling the ball in to the net

Sancho and saka were both poor penalties, height, power, distance from the keeper, they're text book bad penalties 

Surprisingly so was belottis and he hit a great one vs Spain 

Yeah this is how I saw it too. It looks worse because he’s missed the target but at least there’s some technique to the penalty and if he’s just rolled the ball in rather than dragged it slightly it’s a great penalty. The fact that he’d scored 15/17 penalties before last night suggests he’s a pretty good penalty taker.

The Saka and Sancho ones are just dreadful penalties. If the keeper goes the right way he’s saving them every single time.

Was surprised to see Sancho coming on to take a penalty to be honest as he’s never struck me as a player with a great ball striking technique. Would have thought there were better options even on that bench last night than him.

Saka is another player who you just thought was going to miss as soon as he stepped up. Just seemed a really odd couple of choices to me.

[villa4europe]

Hard to tell isn't it

The maguire one for example, you cant save that, no keeper in the world gets near it

 

[tomav84]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The quality of England's squad is being majorly overplayed on this forum to be honest. In central midfield - the key area in international football - we have two guys who have played a combined 0 minutes of Champions League football. The other two central midfielders in the squad have varying amounts of CL experience, but one is ageing and unfit, and the other is pretty callow. At CB we have two good players, though worth remembering one was seen as a laughing stock at the start of the past season; there's basically no depth at the position. And for all the talk of England's fantastic options in attacking midfield positions, Sterling had a poor season, Grealish and Saka have no CL experience and Foden's experience in the competition is pretty limited.

The Germany team that everybody seems keen to dismiss as basically rubbish started three players from the Champions League winners plus a bunch of players from one of the most dominant teams in the history of German football; they had more top club experience *and* more international experience.

This idea that England's squad was so good that literally anyone off the street could have rocked up and won the tournament in their dressing gowns is absurd.

i don't think many genuinely think that anyone off the street could've won the tournament...obviously that's absurd.

I agree on CM being our weakest area...not sure we have a better CM than phillips. would JWP have been able to get the ball to the forward players more frequently? not sure

but your argument that around players lacking CL football is a strange one...and frankly means absolutely nothing IMO. you don't think Jack is CL quality? the fact he hasn't played CL football is totally irrelevant.

 

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

but your argument that around players lacking CL football is a strange one...and frankly means absolutely nothing IMO. you don't think Jack is CL quality? the fact he hasn't played CL football is totally irrelevant.

It's not a matter of 'does he have the ability to play in it' but 'does he have experience of playing football at that level'. Put it this way - when Jack first went to an England camp, he did an interview afterwards where he was talking about how much higher the standard of other players in training was, and then he had to check himself because he clearly realised it was coming off as a bit insulting to his Villa team mates. But the point is you benefit from the experience of training with better players - and in the same way, you benefit from the experience of playing in bigger matches against tougher opponents. Part of the reason that the same few teams finish in the European places year after year is that the experience of long runs of continent-level football makes them better players.

If Rice moves to Chelsea and plays in the CL, he'll be a better player after doing so than he is now. Part of that will be better training, better teammates, and better facilities, but part of it will also be the experience of playing football at a higher level. I don't see why that would be a controversial thing to say.