Euro 2020 : Semi finals and final

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Mancini was better at it than Southgate (Mancini proved to me that he's a really good manager in this tournament!)

He is a better manager full stop. He's won more stuff, is more experienced, has an amazing record with Italy and has many personal similarities with Southgate, in terms of "nice guy", humble, intelligent, generous and all that kind of stuff.

[Chindie]

I quite like the removing of the 'losers medal'. It's a medal of failure, why if you want to be the best would you accept having a badge of shame? You haven't won anything.

[maqroll]

5 hours ago, Follyfoot said:

Southgate would change the players in a game of table football into a defensive unit. We have a wealth of talent going forward, **** him off and get someone like Deano in. Obviously not Deano But somebody with his mindset

Hate to say it, but Smith will be on the shortlist if Southgate goes. 

[Phil Silvers]

Just now, maqroll said:

Hate to say it, but Smith will be on the shortlist if Southgate goes. 

He will be favourite, won't happen though, just a gut feeling but I think it could be one of the players from the next gen like Lampard Gerrard etc

[PussEKatt]

15 hours ago, Chindie said:

I quite like the removing of the 'losers medal'. It's a medal of failure, why if you want to be the best would you accept having a badge of shame? You haven't won anything.

IMHO I cant see anything wrong with a losers medal.Obviously you would want a winners medal but when you think about it,Both teams,and both sets of players experianced the same game.Its just that one team scored more goals.

I personally would love to have a losers medal at Wembly.It means I played in a final in front of all those people,experianced the atmosphere.The only problem is that I lost.Everything else is the same as the winners.  

[The_Steve]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

I think we agree. The difference is that Italy's 'squad' players actually played. Our squad players got zero to no time. We barely used our subs. If I was Everton's manager I'd be pretty pissed that you've taken my main man and let him sit on the bench for 1 month, rather than letting him prepare for next season. Our rotation has been silly.

More so with the absurdity of keeping the players you had in the original 26 for the friendlies and use them. 

[villa4europe]

42 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

IMHO I cant see anything wrong with a losers medal.Obviously you would want a winners medal but when you think about it,Both teams,and both sets of players experianced the same game.Its just that one team scored more goals.

I personally would love to have a losers medal at Wembly.It means I played in a final in front of all those people,experianced the atmosphere.The only problem is that I lost.Everything else is the same as the winners.  

They'll keep them no doubt and after time know that's still an achievement 

But I wouldn't want to walk round with it on my neck... 

[Herman22]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

I quite like the removing of the 'losers medal'. It's a medal of failure, why if you want to be the best would you accept having a badge of shame? You haven't won anything.

I think if a kid did it at a underage tournament you would have a word with him. You don't see athletes at the Olympics taking off silver or bronze medals. 

How the players feel is up to themselves, but you should conduct yourself with some class and humility. Leave the medals on, clap the opposition and learn from this setback. 

[Stevo985]

I’m so disappointed with last night. And quite angry. 

Southgate deserves a huge amount of credit for our performances in the knockout stages. The Germany game was superb and the Ukraine game a demolition. 

But he deserves criticism for last night. He managed the game appallingly. Defended a one goal lead even after they’d equalised. No changes despite Mount being totally ineffective all night. And apparently he decided the penalty takers which clearly backfired. 
 

We were really poor. It’s an absolute bottle job to be honest and it’s very hard to take

[sne]

 

[John]

4 hours ago, tomav84 said:

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.

I see where you are coming from, but I don't think that what you say about England fans applies to quite as many as you suggest. Yes, some fans did let themselves down last night and probably do more often than not, when they are not attending England matches as well, but the vast majority didn't. In a crowd of almost 60,000 home fans, it only takes a couple from each thousand to misbehave (2 or 3 would give us 120 - 180 idiots). They get a lot more publicity than the thousands that behave well do, because the headline "58,000 England fans react reasonably well to cup final defeat" don't sell newspapers or get clicks. Had Italy lost on penalties, they are known for having their fair share of nutters as well (although being unable to travel from Italy probably kept large numbers of them at home), so I wouldn't have been over confident that 100% of their home based supporters would have been sweetness and light, after the final whistle last night. In most large gatherings there is the odd unsavoury individual, I don't see it as being only an England football thing myself.  

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, Phil Silvers said:

He will be favourite, won't happen though, just a gut feeling but I think it could be one of the players from the next gen like Lampard Gerrard etc

From British candidates think Brendan Rodgers would be best pick. Wins stuff and has modern way of playing.

If you could convince Guardiola when he leaves Man. City you get him without a doubt.

Might not always work but would be fun to watch as he'd have balls to do stuff like Grealish playing as deep lying playmaker (as he's done with De Bruyne at City) and Trent Alex Arnold also pushed into midfield as we've seen with how he's used Cancelo and Zinvchenko at times.

[villa4europe]

its got jose written all over it

the best thing being they'll wait until his decline has reached it rock bottom before throwing £10m a year at him

[Stevo985]

Swap the managers last night and we win that game 3-0

[Genie]

8 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

its got jose written all over it

the best thing being they'll wait until his decline has reached it rock bottom before throwing £10m a year at him

I’d love to see Jose have a bash at it with this squad.

 

[Wainy316]

I think Steven Gerrard would be considered.

[Chindie]

I wouldn't say I'm angry about the loss last night, I'm surprisingly unmoved by it, but I'm still at a loss how Southgate didn't see that after 35 minutes they started to dominate, and then he didn't do anything about it. We hadn't got an out ball, Kane never got near box, he brought on Saka (which I get) but then he proceeded to have an absolute mare, and Mount did absolutely nothing all match, and did nothing about it.

We will never have a better chance to win a tournament. We got an easy draw, the rest of the tournament gave us an even easier ride, we played most of the tournament at home, the difficult sides we played all had their issues hampering them, and then we rock up to a final against a very good but not incredible Italy team and serve up that rubbish. And lose on pens.

[Zatman]

Its a pointless debate as I dont think Southgate will go anywhere. This position suits all parties. He could manage England until 2030 if he wanted to

[lapal_fan]

It's really strange trying to break it down, see where it went wrong because the answers are all very obvious.

I mean, undoubtedly we've got a great array of attacking talent - should we have utilised that more throughout the tournament?  Absolutely YES! It would have been more entertaining to say the least.

But when you come up with reasons x, y and z to slander the team, WE STILL GOT TO THE FINAL AND ONLY LOST ON PENS - so REALLY, we didn't get a lot wrong... even if we did.. which we definitely did! 

Mount shouldn't have started, Saka played pretty woefully when he came on, Kane (like Mount) was pretty much invisible etc etc etc, the game management was poor - but the Italians played very well (got a very scrappy equaliser it must be said!) so the margins of error are all over the place, but tiny.

It's a game of "what if's", "how come's" and "if only".  

So many questionable parts to the game; subs, choices, systems, ref calls, the hot dog guy... It's just all of the small, tiny things built up to a rather frustrating experience. 

If it was me?  After half time I'd have taken a defender off, gone 4-5-1 and bought Jack on (if I didn't start him..) to receive the ball and keep possession, which we struggled with so badly in the second half.  We couldn't string two passes together, our defenders hit aimless balls out of play, the Italian defenders had us figured out to hit it long down the flanks and nullified us.  If you get Jack on and use his ability to receive the ball and advance without losing it, or just pick up free kicks - you've changed the game because the Italians are 1-0 don't want to keep breaking up the play, that opens up space and we can actually get Kane in the box, without him having to keep dropping into midfield, rendering us with 11 men behind the ball.

I think we should have made more bold decisions. 

Imagine being Italy at 1-0 us taking a defender off and putting Jack on.  That's 10 yards your team have lost and the game becomes more spread as they have to take risks at the back to commit men forward.. That's space Kane and especially Sterling can take advantage of.  That's proper counter attacking and it's Gareth's biggest mistake I think.  And if not Jack, then Foden. 

We gave Italy FAR too much respect and we paid the ultimate price for it.

Honestly, if Dean Smith is the gaffer, we win that game.   

But I enjoyed the ride, it was awesome to see England in a final and if it doesn't happen again, then at least I saw it once.

But my word, what a missed opportunity (is how I feel right now). 

[lapal_fan]

12 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Its a pointless debate as I dont think Southgate will go anywhere. This position suits all parties. He could manage England until 2030 if he wanted to

He's absolutely un-sackable atm because we were a penalty kick away from winning.  

We just have to hope he learns from this and is less conservative, but he'll think "I came this close with this system.. it's obviously working.."

Fingers crossed!