The RJW63 Official Jack Grealish Appreciation Thread

[R.Bear]

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I’ll take that as a no

No, you’ll take it as I **** said it, I don’t deal with hypotheticals. I don’t know, neither do you. It’s a pointless question.

[HanoiVillan]

58 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

There's very very few difficult games in International football.

England would have beaten them if they'd played more positively.

In my opinion of course.

I'm not suggesting that England couldn't have beaten Italy, that it was somehow impossible, but at the same time I'm not having this 'there were no other teams apart from France and Spain' line. You can't talk about the actual winners of the tournament, who looked the best side from the first game to the last, as if they were just a hopeless barrier we should have smitten aside. 

[Stevo985]

17 minutes ago, R.Bear said:

No, you’ll take it as I **** said it, I don’t deal with hypotheticals. I don’t know, neither do you. It’s a pointless question.

I’m sure if the answer was yes you would deal in the hypotheticals. 
 

I don’t hate Southgate. I think he’s done a good job. But I think a better manager would have won the euros with our squad. Which was the point I was trying to make. An England managed by Mancini would have beaten an Italy managed by Southgate. 
 

So whilst I think he’s doing a good job, I think we are currently blessed with the best generation of players, certainly attacking wise, we’ve maybe ever had. 
 

However I think Southgate’s limitations will mean we won’t win anything with them. When we really should. 
 

It’s quite similar to how Belgium have been over the past decade or so

[HanoiVillan]

33 minutes ago, R.Bear said:

I don’t deal with hypotheticals. If Kane had buried that chance at 1-0 against Croatia then England would have made the final.

If Rashford had put his penalty a foot right then England would be European Champions.

This is just obviously right. History and sport are contingent; the final finished level, and then there were penalties. Any number of things could have gone slightly differently in the shootout and the outcome would have been different. 

I don't think it's particularly obvious whether Mancini or Southgate are 'better' or not. Clearly Mancini got slightly more decisions right on the night last summer; on the other hand England are going to the World Cup and Italy aren't. Would I trade our presence at this World Cup for having won a tournament last summer? Of course, absolutely. But you have to weigh up both if you're going to compare the managers. 

Dragging this back to Jack Grealish, Southgate's reasons not to pick him in the first place were annoying, because he didn't say 'I don't want to because I don't think he's ready'. Honesty would have been less annoying. But picking him before he was confident Jack was ready wouldn't have been right either. Villa fans obviously don't want to hear that playing Champions League games and training with City players - even as a bit-part player - is considered more valuable than tearing up the league as the main man in a midtable side, but that's too **** bad, because that's what everyone in the England set-up thinks, so. 

[foreveryoung]

31 minutes ago, R.Bear said:

No, you’ll take it as I **** said it, I don’t deal with hypotheticals. I don’t know, neither do you. It’s a pointless question.

I just get frustrated that this team is so much better than Southgate allows. I can't even recall a game where we look convincing,  or in control of a game, Southgate has just no bottle to let this team play.

As for your comment not allowing attacking play, when you have Kane, Foden, Grealish, Bellingham, Saka, Sterling, to name a few up front. you shouldn't be scared to go for goals, instead of setting up defensively 95% of the time. It's just highlights his attitude of being a bottler.

[Tomaszk]

49 minutes ago, R.Bear said:

England had been dogshit for years with some embarrassing and humiliating tournament exists. Southgate comes in, makes the team likeable, something that seemed impossible in years gone by, gets the team 20 minutes from a World Cup final and a penalty shootout away from a European Championship. Something that even the most optimistic England fan wouldn’t have even dreamed of before he came in.

Yet some bitter Villa fans don’t like it because he didn’t play Jack Grealish enough. Something they wouldn’t have given a shit about had he played for anyone else. Hilarious.

This sure is hilarious. What's upset you?

Do you think we played well at the Euros? Yes, the one where we got to a penalty shootout to win it.

How has he made the team likeable? What's he done the personalities of the squad?

I can't help you if you think his constant contradictory comments make sense. He ties himself in knots all the time. England are wasting their chances to win something because they want a manager who won't be caught cheating on his wife than one who can manage a football team.

[foreveryoung]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

This is just obviously right. History and sport are contingent; the final finished level, and then there were penalties. Any number of things could have gone slightly differently in the shootout and the outcome would have been different. 

I don't think it's particularly obvious whether Mancini or Southgate are 'better' or not. Clearly Mancini got slightly more decisions right on the night last summer; on the other hand England are going to the World Cup and Italy aren't. Would I trade our presence at this World Cup for having won a tournament last summer? Of course, absolutely. But you have to weigh up both if you're going to compare the managers. 

Dragging this back to Jack Grealish, Southgate's reasons not to pick him in the first place were annoying, because he didn't say 'I don't want to because I don't think he's ready'. Honesty would have been less annoying. But picking him before he was confident Jack was ready wouldn't have been right either. Villa fans obviously don't want to hear that playing Champions League games and training with City players - even as a bit-part player - is considered more valuable than tearing up the league as the main man in a midtable side, but that's too **** bad, because that's what everyone in the England set-up thinks, so. 

If your comparing, Mancini to Southgate, there is only 1 outcome. If you think Southgate is anywhere near Mancini, no disrespect, but you need to sit out this one. I very much doubt Southgate could win the Premier League even with that man City team.

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

If your comparing, Mancini to Southgate, there is only 1 outcome. If you think Southgate is anywhere near Mancini, no disrespect, but you need to sit out this one. I very much doubt Southgate could win the Premier League even with that man City team.

Well, I thank you for not being disrespectful, but I'm afraid I'm going to decline your offer to 'sit out this one'. 

[foreveryoung]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Well, I thank you for not being disrespectful, but I'm afraid I'm going to decline your offer to 'sit out this one'. 

Then you need to understand Southgate is know where near the manager/coach Mancini is. 

 

[Tomaszk]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

 I don't think it's particularly obvious whether Mancini or Southgate are 'better' or not.

I can help you here. Mancini is better. Four league titles and six domestic cups. Southgate got Middlesbrough relegated and didn't want to manage anyone ever again when he left.

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Villa fans obviously don't want to hear that playing Champions League games and training with City players - even as a bit-part player - is considered more valuable than tearing up the league as the main man in a midtable side, but that's too **** bad, because that's what everyone in the England set-up thinks, so. 

Don't say you're going to pick a squad on form if you have no plans to. He can phrase it however he likes.

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Then you need to understand Southgate is know where near the manager/coach Mancini is. 

 

I might just as well retort - given your previous reply - that you 'need to understand' that international football and club football have key differences, and that in comparing their current roles, what Mancini did at Man City is almost completely irrelevant. 

But there's no point starting with conclusions and demanding the other person accepts them, that doesn't work. It would be more persuasive if you gave reasons to support the claim. 

Edited May 29, 2022 by HanoiVillan

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, R.Bear said:

No it isnt. Otherwise a national manager would just pick whichever Tom, Dick or Harry is having a purple patch for their club. This in the past has failed miserably and resulted in caps for Francis Jeffers, Michael Ricketts, Kevin Davies, Jay Bothroyd, David Nugent etc etc.

People were calling for Kane to be dropped before he came good at Euro 2020 and going back a little bit, Alan Shearer hadnt scored for England in 12 games before Euro 96.

You pick the team you think will give you the best chance of winning the game you're about to play, its just that simple. It could be a different the game after, even if you win 4-0.

I agree to a certain extent, but nevertheless if someone is playing pretty poorly and barely getting game time, they're hardly the type of player that will give you the best chance of winning a game. 

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, jim said:

Most successful England manager since Sir Alf, what’s not to like?

 

With the standard of players he's had at his disposal he should be unquestionably the most successful England manager of all time.  But unfortunately he's just a numpty being carried by an incredibly talented set of players. 

Edited May 29, 2022 by sidcow

[foreveryoung]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

I might just as well retort - given your previous reply - that you 'need to understand' that international football and club football have key differences, and that in comparing their current roles, what Mancini did at Man City is almost completely irrelevant. 

But there's point starting with conclusions and demanding the other person accepts them, that doesn't work. It would be more persuasive if you gave reasons to support the claim. 

Experience for a start.

Mancini being not so boring, an having a bit of bottle to actually play football.

 

[Zatman]

26 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I agree to a certain extent, but nevertheless if someone is playing pretty poorly and barely getting game time, they're hardly the type of player that will give you the best chance of winning a game. 

I wonder if the new United manager dumped Maguire to Brighton or Crydtal Palace or god no us. One of them nothing non Big 6 teams would he be as loyal

[HanoiVillan]

43 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I agree to a certain extent, but nevertheless if someone is playing pretty poorly and barely getting game time, they're hardly the type of player that will give you the best chance of winning a game. 

It's worth considering why we do things the way we currently do. Because it wasn't always like this; as R.Bear's list shows, we actually used to pick on form much more, especially during the Hodgson years, and if you look at the list of players with just one cap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_England_international_footballers_with_one_cap), you will see a real density of these between 2010 and 2017. 

The key point is that international management isn't like club management, and the key reasons why are that international managers have on the one hand a much wider pool of players and no budget restrictions, but on the other hand have very little time with players to work on tactical aspects of the game. However, despite this lack of time, time for players to work together and develop an understanding is really *useful* and *productive*. As we can see from eg Kane and Son, players that like each other, work well together, and develop an understanding can become a highly potent weapon. As we know from business, if something (like time together) is both *useful* and *scarce* then definitionally it is also *valuable*, which means you don't want to waste it. Players who earned just one or two caps are the waste product, in this system. 

So, how do you avoid this? Well, firstly, some of this developmental time is outsourced, and this is why eg Southgate is happier to pick Grealish now (when he trains all week with several other England players, including both Foden and Sterling) than before, when the only player he trained with was Mings. Unfortunately, from an England perspective, they would prefer all the best English players to be at as few clubs as possible (all playing Champions League games). The second way is you can treat caps not as a reward for form players, but as an investment, which means you don't give away cheap caps to people who you don't think are good enough, and it means you don't drop players just because they're having a bad few weeks or months. 

People don't have to like it, but that's the logic, and if you want a different logic you have to show why it's better than this. 

Edited May 29, 2022 by HanoiVillan

[foreveryoung]

15 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

It's worth considering why we do things the way we currently do. Because it wasn't always like this; as R.Bear's list shows, we actually used to pick on form much more, especially during the Hodgson years, and if you look at the list of players with just one cap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_England_international_footballers_with_one_cap), you will see a real density of these between 2010 and 2017. 

The key point is that international management isn't like club management, and the key reasons why are that international managers have on the one hand a much wider pool of players and no budget restrictions, but on the other hand have very little time with players to work on tactical aspects of the game. However, despite this lack of time, time for players to work together and develop an understanding is really *useful* and *productive*. As we can see from eg Kane and Son, players that like each other, work well together, and develop an understanding can become a highly potent weapon. As we know from business, if something (like time together) is both *useful* and *scarce* then definitionally it is also *valuable*, which means you don't want to waste it. Players who earned just one or two caps are the waste product, in this system. 

So, how do you avoid this? Well, firstly, some of this developmental time is outsourced, and this is why eg Southgate is happier to pick Grealish now (when he trains all week with several other England players, including both Foden and Sterling) than before, when the only player he trained with was Mings. Unfortunately, from an England perspective, they would prefer all the best English players to be at as few clubs as possible (all playing Champions League games). The second way is you can treat caps not as a reward for form players, but as an investment, which means you don't give away cheap caps to people who you don't think are good enough, and it means you don't drop players just because they're having a bad few weeks or months. 

People don't have to like it, but that's the logic, and if you want a different logic you have to show why it's better than this. 

No one is really arguing this.

People are debating why he has one of the best England teams ever assembled, but still wants to play boring defensive football, especially, as arguably he has one the best forward lines in international football.

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, foreveryoung said:

No one is really arguing this.

People are debating why he has one of the best England teams ever assembled, but still wants to play boring defensive football, especially, as arguably he has one the best forward lines in international football.

I don't think the first part here is right, someone only on the previous page was demanding that he 'pick players on form' (which obviously meant, in context, Premier League form).

I do understand that *your* objection is more to do with the style of play, and that's fair enough, but just speaking personally I'd rather win than play exciting football, especially when we're talking about the national team.

[Rds1983]

The easiest way to see if Southgate is doing a good job for England is to see if fans of Scotland, Wales or Ireland want him to stay in the job and every single one I know says he should stay. 

[Mic09]

19 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

 I'd rather win than play exciting football, especially when we're talking about the national team.

Unfortunately you got neither.