Lord Willard Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 2 minutes ago, Junxs said: Im still baffled how a man with a career highlight of getting Middlesbrough relegated and failing to bring them up again landed the England job. When we had weaker squads we had top managers and when we have strong squad we have a weak manager. You see Italy being managed by Mancini, then you look to England's manager and his achievements of managing Middlesbrough to relegation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 (edited) 24 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said: The England managers remit is to win games. That’s it. Yesterday the England team won, and never looked like losing. Job done. Professional and efficient, though not spectacular. I think Southgate missed a trick by not taking Watkins, as Ollie is fantastic at hassling the backline with his endless energy, not to mention he does also score goals. I also don’t particularly rate Calvert-Lewin as highly as others do, I think he’s quite one dimensional in that he’s good in the air. But with just the one game played, Southgate got it right. Tougher tests to come. I disagree I'm afraid. Yes, we need to win, but we also need to build momentum by playing our best players and those players need to gain an understanding on the pitch so that when we face the better teams in the latter stages, we've given ourselves the best chance to win. We should be able to beat Croatia with the players that didn't even make the final 26 man squad, that's how much depth we have. Beating them and only having 2 shots on target is not an achievement. It's literally the least i'd expect. We have Kyle Walker playing ahead of Reece James. We have a right back playing left back. We are playing two defensive midfielders when there is only a need to play one and our best player is on the bench. Like we do with every tournament, we're going to roll out the same old cliche's... 'Best to get the bad game out of the way first', 'You can only beat what is put in front of you', '3 points is all that matters', 'We'll grow into the tournament'. It's all nonsense. We'll come up against a decent side at some point and we'll be knocked out. At the last World Cup, we played three tough matches. Belgium twice and Croatia and we lost all three and people are sat there scratching their head asking the question, 'well how on earth did that happen, we beat Panama 6-0?'. We're going nowhere with Southgate. When is the last time we outplayed a good team? F*** me, we finished third in our Nations League group for christ sake behind Belgium and Denmark. Apologies if I'm not more optimistic but we're wasting an opportunity to win a big tournament with this failed man in charge. Edited June 14, 2021 by Delphinho123 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thug Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 16 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said: The England managers remit is to win games. That’s it. Yesterday the England team won, and never looked like losing. Job done. Professional and efficient, though not spectacular. I think Southgate missed a trick by not taking Watkins, as Ollie is fantastic at hassling the backline with his endless energy, not to mention he does also score goals. I also don’t particularly rate Calvert-Lewin as highly as others do, I think he’s quite one dimensional in that he’s good in the air. But with just the one game played, Southgate got it right. Tougher tests to come. So, so, so wrong. The remit is to win tournaments. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Delphinho123 Posted June 14, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 14, 2021 I think Villa fans are in this horribly unique position whereby we know we have a real chance of winning the tournament if we play Grealish. Other fans and pundits are calling for him to play, I get that, but they don't really know. Not like we know. If I'm honest, it's really affecting my passion for the tournament. In a weird way, I wish it was happening to another clubs player. Like, if it was Harry Kane missing out, it wouldn't bother me as much? That make sense? I'm probably being a bit childish, but I'm struggling to fully immerse myself into matches when I know our best player isn't on the pitch. I find myself getting angry! 10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenjiOgiwara Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 23 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said: The England managers remit is to win games. That’s it. Yesterday the England team won, and never looked like losing. Job done. Professional and efficient, though not spectacular. I think Southgate missed a trick by not taking Watkins, as Ollie is fantastic at hassling the backline with his endless energy, not to mention he does also score goals. I also don’t particularly rate Calvert-Lewin as highly as others do, I think he’s quite one dimensional in that he’s good in the air. But with just the one game played, Southgate got it right. Tougher tests to come. Yep definitely. But you do that by picking your best performing players. Or in form players. Tactics is obviously a thing, but you have enough players to pick from whatever tactic you choose. Looking at your tactic against Croatia for instance, Watkins would have made way more sense than Kane ever did. But Southgate does what Southgate does. I also don't think Southgate got it right. I think you looked pretty fortunate to win that match. It had draw all over it. You hardly created and it took a deflected shot to get a 1 goal win. I think with the attacking talent in that England squad and what some even call the Golden Generation, I think is pretty weak. Croatia isn't what they once were either. They are an aging squad with some of the biggest names IIRC. I'd say anyone thinking Southgate got it right because you scraped a 1-0 win is papering some pretty big managerial cracks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxfordVillan Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 8 minutes ago, Thug said: So, so, so wrong. The remit is to win tournaments. Well, yes. But I don’t think it takes too much of a stretch of the imagination to conclude that if you win your games you win tournaments! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenjiOgiwara Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 10 minutes ago, Thug said: So, so, so wrong. The remit is to win tournaments. Is there a grammatical nuance I'm not getting here? Don't you win tournaments by winning games? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thug Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 4 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said: Well, yes. But I don’t think it takes too much of a stretch of the imagination to conclude that if you win your games you win tournaments! Ah, but no. winning 9 games and losing 1 actually gives you a 90% success rate under your definition. winning 9 games and losing the final gives a 0% success rate under my definition. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a m ole Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 It’s the Bruce Paradox - huffing and puffing your way to wins to do well enough to survive is not the same as building a foundation for a tournament win. The chances of coming unstuck are higher when you play to nick a win than going out and being the dominant side, especially when you’re the better team. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxfordVillan Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 17 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said: I disagree I'm afraid. Yes, we need to win, but we also need to build momentum by playing our best players and those players need to gain an understanding on the pitch so that when we face the better teams in the latter stages, we've given ourselves the best chance to win. We should be able to beat Croatia with the players that didn't even make the final 26 man squad, that's how much depth we have. Beating them and only having 2 shots on target is not an achievement. It's literally the least i'd expect. We have Kyle Walker playing ahead of Reece James. We have a right back playing left back. We are playing two defensive midfielders when there is only a need to play one and our best player is on the bench. Like we do with every tournament, we're going to roll out the same old cliche's... 'Best to get the bad game out of the way first', 'You can only beat what is put in front of you', '3 points is all that matters', 'We'll grow into the tournament'. It's all nonsense. We'll come up against a decent side at some point and we'll be knocked out. At the last World Cup, we played three tough matches. Belgium twice and Croatia and we lost all three and people are sat there scratching their head asking the question, 'well how on earth did that happen, we beat Panama 6-0?'. We're going nowhere with Southgate. When is the last time we outplayed a good team? F*** me, we finished third in our Nations League group for christ sake behind Belgium and Denmark. Apologies if I'm not more optimistic but we're wasting an opportunity to win a big tournament with this failed man in charge. You disagree that the England manager has to win games? That’d be odd. I’ve no special feeling for Southgate but his selection yesterday was vindicated by the result. That really is all that matters in tournament football. As I said, Southgate will be judged on the tournament in its entirety, with bigger challenges laying ahead. But let’s wait to see if Southgate gets it right over the next few games, it’s not a good look when a set of fans seemingly turn on England because they think a Villa player should be getting selected every game. If England go out early and drearily then Southgate will get buckets poured on him, but give the England team a chance ffs! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenfly Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 35 minutes ago, Junxs said: Im still baffled how a man with a career highlight of getting Middlesbrough relegated and failing to bring them up again landed the England job. When we had weaker squads we had top managers and when we have strong squad we have a weak manager. As far as I can gather, the reason he's England manager is because he was the England U21 manager for ages. So in their minds, he "knows this generation of players better" than anyone else. By this logic, expect to see him replaced by Aidy Boothroyd in about 10 years time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thug Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 (edited) 15 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said: Is there a grammatical nuance I'm not getting here? Don't you win tournaments by winning games? Yes. He said that the remit was to win games. That is all. You can win a tournament by drawing two games, winning the rest. You haven’t met your remit because you didn’t win your games… …BUT you won a tournament. Had he said ‘winning ALL the games’ then THAT would win you a tournament - but that’s still not the remit. The remit is to win the tournament. Edited June 14, 2021 by Thug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 8 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said: You disagree that the England manager has to win games? That’d be odd. I’ve no special feeling for Southgate but his selection yesterday was vindicated by the result. That really is all that matters in tournament football. As I said, Southgate will be judged on the tournament in its entirety, with bigger challenges laying ahead. But let’s wait to see if Southgate gets it right over the next few games, it’s not a good look when a set of fans seemingly turn on England because they think a Villa player should be getting selected every game. If England go out early and drearily then Southgate will get buckets poured on him, but give the England team a chance ffs! It really wasn't and we'll suffer later in the tournament because of this selection. We should be able to beat Croatia by playing a third XI. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxfordVillan Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 1 minute ago, Delphinho123 said: It really wasn't and we'll suffer later in the tournament because of this selection. We should be able to beat Croatia by playing a third XI. The way I look at it is that Croatia barely had an attempt at goal, literally nothing. No sustained pressure, no part of the game that they remotely looked like being able to beat that England team yesterday. That’s a decent opening game, I’ll be looking to see a building momentum in the next two games. But in tournament football you give yourself a better platform by making sure you win your opening game. Anything less and you’re under pressure going into your next game. Let’s wait and see what England do in the next two games before writing them off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post useless Posted June 14, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted June 14, 2021 England won't be winning any tournament if they continue to play the way they did yesterday, reminds me of when people used to defend Bruce after we'd won a game or two, but it was obvious that that style wouldn't get us challenging for top two. Play Grealish and the team will play better, the other attackers in the team will play better, and England will win more comfortably, and go into the next game with more confidence and momentum. Also forget that Grealish is a Villa player, that's not the reason he should be starting for England and is England's best and most creative player, with the exception of Kane when he's on form, bias has nothing to do with it, if Grealish played for someone else it would still be overwhelmingly true. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 2 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said: The way I look at it is that Croatia barely had an attempt at goal, literally nothing. No sustained pressure, no part of the game that they remotely looked like being able to beat that England team yesterday. That’s a decent opening game, I’ll be looking to see a building momentum in the next two games. But in tournament football you give yourself a better platform by making sure you win your opening game. Anything less and you’re under pressure going into your next game. Let’s wait and see what England do in the next two games before writing them off Fair point. One thing I would say is, if Croatia didn't have any sustained pressure or remotely looked able to beat us, we probably should have had more than 2 shots on target... Hopefully we smash Scotland and play well. That's what I really want to see. I want us to beat a decent team and make it look easy. I have no confidence at present that we'll get past a Belgium or a Spain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 it was a solid opening game. we have never won the opening game before. We didn't open up against the group wooden spoon, croatia are a decent side. We now have three points. It was also **** hot - if you think this was a slow game, Qatar is going to be a bruising tournament for your eyes. It was efficient, I hope we improve and expand on this now, and do give the likes of jack game time, but this assault on southgate for only winning 1-0 and not well enough is absurdly disproportionate. Stop living in a mythical world of british exceptionalism where we deserve to win every game 5-0. If we don't improve, then fine go nuts and go run around with your pitckforks, but, not even being able to enjoy a win because it wasn't good enough or feature your favourite player is just cult-like insanity. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 If we beat Scotland and secure qualification I think Grealish will start against the Czech Republic (along with other unfancied players), completely dominate them, and then get dropped for the knockout games. If it wasn't for media and fan pressure I doubt Grealish would even be in the England squad. Southgate clearly has it in for him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thug Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 5 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said: The way I look at it is that Croatia barely had an attempt at goal, literally nothing. No sustained pressure, no part of the game that they remotely looked like being able to beat that England team yesterday. That’s a decent opening game, I’ll be looking to see a building momentum in the next two games. But in tournament football you give yourself a better platform by making sure you win your opening game. Anything less and you’re under pressure going into your next game. Let’s wait and see what England do in the next two games before writing them off You’re 100% right in all what you’ve said there. The point being made (and I’m sure you probably know this) is that the team could be stronger. A win against Croatia is an excellent result. The guy who started instead of Jack is the guy who scored the goal, and is a pretty damn good player himself. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisvilla4 Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 We won. 3 points. Grealish will get his chance. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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