England

[hakka]

1 hour ago, ohmelads said:

 

It's like he is saying "I can't work with this type of player, no matter what he does. Sorry, he can't work with my system". It's his job to build the best team with the pool of talent we have. There's no chance he'll admit he's wrong now and call him up to the world cup for his 2nd cap. 

 

Going by Southgate's past quotes and how he's set the team up in tournaments with two defensive midfielders, I think he believes that the best way to win tournaments is to shithouse your way through it. Be hard to beat and hope you can nick a goal or win the shootout. To some extent, Italy did just that in Euro 2020, scraping through games against the better sides and winning the semis and final on penalties. Spain absolutely dominated them in the semis, but went out on pens. It was an Italy side that failed to quality for the world cup before it, and the world cup after it, but somehow they found a way through the three big games they had in Euro 2020. I feel Southgate sees that as the template for England. I hope he's right, but I'm not sure if Italy set out to do it that way. They played very good football in the group stage, and adapted when they needed to. We seem to set up negatively from the outset.

 

 

 

 

The defensive shithouse method is fine when it's 0 - 0, but as soon as you go behind it's useless. If a team sits back a goal up then being defensive won't help. Feel like we have a major problem once behind as chasing it grinds against how we are setup.

[Geogaddi]

Can’t believe the amount of people that get worked up by the nations league mind, it’s like getting wound up if we lose to someone in a pre season friendly .

[St. Maximin]

1 hour ago, Geogaddi said:

Can’t believe the amount of people that get worked up by the nations league mind, it’s like getting wound up if we lose to someone in a pre season friendly .

It really isn’t at all. 

[Ben]

Maguire is England's first choice.

[Ben]

4 hours ago, David Edgar said:

 

He's head and shoulders above Southgate in managerial ability.  

 

Would make for the perfect England manager.

Quiet you fools

[astraguy]

Awful appointment and one of the sole reasons i haven't given a shit about England since,like us after sir bobby

[David Edgar]

Wonder who selected him.  Ashworth? 

[astraguy]

13 minutes ago, David Edgar said:

Wonder who selected him.  Ashworth? 

 Martin Glenn 

[Ben]

 

Winter is after Southgate, he's fucked. He also mentioned later that Tomori is better than Maguire 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by Ben

[manorpark]

7 hours ago, St. Maximin said:

It really isn’t at all. 

 

This 'Nations League' thing is less relevant than a friendly match. This competition (if that's what it is) is a complete waste of everyones time.

 

It will disappear soon, I hope, and the sooner the better. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Personally I prefer it to friendlies, they were really terrible. Gives us something to play for, even if it’s not very serious. 

[St. Maximin]

2 hours ago, manorpark said:

 

This 'Nations League' thing is less relevant than a friendly match. This competition (if that's what it is) is a complete waste of everyones time.

 

It will disappear soon, I hope, and the sooner the better. 

Hmmm I’ve seen them described as ‘glorified friendlies’, which I kind of get, but how are they less relevant than friendlies? 
 

Besides, the argument that us caring about these defeats is similar to us caring about a preseason defeat is simply not true. Even if you leave aside the fact these are still competitive to some extent, there’s a World Cup coming up and now’s a time to get the team prepared. It’s a short tournament with minimal opportunities to lose games, so I can’t see the comparison between these matches and club preseason. 

[number37]

No one took the World Cup seriously for the first few editions. FIFA had to beg countries to take part. 

 

In international competition you need fixtures that matter because winning a cap as a player should be important. I appreciate football fans get tired of comparisons to other sports but in cricket and rugby you don't have "friendlies" you have Tests, which matter. A lot. These sports make use of representative sides like England A or England B where you can call up a player to give international experience without the pressure and prestige of a full international. They used to have these in football (Chris Sutton doesn't say hello) so maybe they should bring them back for those who get sick of England v Germany or England v Italy and much prefer matches against Guam or Trinidad and Tobago. 

[Kanji]

The way Tomori has been playing at Milan he’s probably the most in form CB England have - strong, pacy and tactically sound. 

[Kanji]

Pope

James - Tomori - Stones - Trips

Rice - Bellingham 

Maddison 

Saka - Foden (as wingers)

Kane

[AJ9]

I don’t necessarily think the issue is with the players he picks or the formation, but the idea that exciting teams don’t win tournaments. I reckon the whole setup is geared around trying to control the ball and win the key ‘moments’ and to be fair it kind of has worked thus far. However, it basically looks to me like the players aren’t really showing the motivation to play this style of football any more. I think the cycle is at an end and his influence on the team is waning. Maybe they will turn it on in the WC but I don’t hold out any hope, and we will be back to where we have been for all my life, a second tier international football team that occasionally mixes it with the truly elite teams, but ultimately aren’t good enough.

[JumpersForGoalposts]

Anyone else expecting Southgate to stay on after the WC? He's absolutely dogshit, but that hasn't led the FA to sack him previously. 

 

He's had two hyper-spawny tournaments already, and even if England are embarrassed this time around, I could see him staying on. Partially because the FA love him, and partially because any decent manager wouldn't touch that job with a bargepole.

 

 

Edited September 25, 2022 by JumpersForGoalposts

[Optimistic Nut]

Aye, he fluked 2 of England's 5 best ever major tournaments. Could call once a fluke but not twice like.

[JumpersForGoalposts]

3 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

Aye, he fluked 2 of England's 5 best ever major tournaments. Could call once a fluke but not twice like.

I'm going to go bold and say that you either didn't watch them, or have been seduced by his waistcoat. 

[Optimistic Nut]

Nah I didn't watch a second. You're right, we should have went out in the last 16 in both.

[astraguy]

Don't give a fuck,i doubt England will see a talent like this we had in my lifetime Fergie ruined our goat 

[St. Maximin]

As far as the draws are concerned though, he was lucky surely? 
 

I know stats don’t lie and I also don’t want to compare his managerial ability to Steve Bruce, but surely we think his comfortable mid table finishes (in my view on paper high for our squad) didn’t paint a full picture?

 

Southgate’s victories in big tournaments are beating okay Colombia (on penalties, albeit a great moment for English football) and Sweden sides in 2018 and Germany, Ukraine and Denmark (on paper the hardest two of which were at Wembley) in ‘2020’. Hardly extraordinary achievements and failure to win any of those would have been seen as a major disappointment. 

[Optimistic Nut]

We've had easy draws in the past and better squads in the past and only outdone Southgate once.

[AJ9]

54 minutes ago, JumpersForGoalposts said:

I'm going to go bold and say that you either didn't watch them, or have been seduced by his waistcoat. 

Come on man. It’s not really fair on him to say he spawned his way to a semi and a final due to the route they had. I have nephews who are old enough to have been born when we had easy routes and were dumped out regardless. We were a couple of penalties away from winning the euros. We didn’t, but that’s the closest we’ve ever been in my 36 years of living. He didn’t pick the teams we played against and others have played worse and failed massively. Criticise him all you like for his boring, turgid, soulless football, but his record so far is great, and compares much more favourably to other more high profile England managers (Sven, Keegan, Capello, McClaren…at the time)

[AJ9]

And of course the mad thing is that the teams we beat are always shit in hindsight, but I don’t remember anyone really saying Columbia, Denmark and Germany would be easy fixtures at the time.