Group D (Croatia, Czech Republic, England, Scotland)

[joeyt]

A one man centre midfield 

[Cronky]

I can remember Kane being very poor at the last Euros. I wonder if anxiety gets the better of him in tournament football. His footwork looked very laboured and that might be down to nerves. 

[Fantail Breeze]

It’ll be even worse when Maguire comes back and Mings gets dropped, who has arguably been our best player so far.

[Skeletor]

If there's one thing that drives me absolutely mad it's the whole 10 defensive players with one player there to create a big of magic. Pardew and Bruce love this game plan and it's fucking torture to watch. When you have players like Grealish, Sancho and Sterling you should be grabbing Scotland by the throat and squeezing the life out of them with quick attacking play. The acceptance of this negative no fun, no excitement, no hope way of playing football over the years makes me so angry. It's absolutely a British disease.

[Fantail Breeze]

6 minutes ago, Skeletor said:

If there's one thing that drives me absolutely mad it's the whole 10 defensive players with one player there to create a big of magic. Pardew and Bruce love this game plan and it's fucking torture to watch. When you have players like Grealish, Sancho and Sterling you should be grabbing Scotland by the throat and squeezing the life out of them with quick attacking play. The acceptance of this negative no fun, no excitement, no hope way of playing football over the years makes me so angry. It's absolutely a British disease.

 

The worst part is we don’t even look remotely stable defensively. If Scotland had a real striker, they’d have won last night.

 

We should be playing to our strengths and being defensive is absolutely not one of them. But managers like Southgate see it too much of a weakness and try to over compensate that leaves us with this dire football.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Fantail Breeze

[ponsaelius]

13 minutes ago, Fantail Breeze said:

It’ll be even worse when Maguire comes back and Mings gets dropped, who has arguably been our best player so far.

 

Perhaps. But this team would really benefit from Maguire taking the ball up the pitch out of defence. 

[Guest neesy111]

Thought it was very apparent how bad the CM was last night, no ball carrying players.

[NEEJ]

2 hours ago, midds said:

Just me who thought Souness was pissed last night? 

He was running high on adrenaline or something. I thought he was going to shoulder-barge Keane at one point pre-game. He looked like he was absolutely buzzing.

[Disco]

Tbf to the Wembley crowd they are the worst home crowd in European football so it’s no surprise they were bewing, thought the cheering everytime Grealish was on the screen was pretty shit too as well as getting easily outsung in ththe second half when the players probably needed a bit of vocal backing. 

[SEMTEX]

1 hour ago, ponsaelius said:

 

Perhaps. But this team would really benefit from Maguire taking the ball up the pitch out of defence. 

They’ve also been challenged by a toothless Croatia team and fuckin Scotland so far. And we didn’t exactly look rock solid… We should play our best players. 
 

Counter point: I don’t like Tyrone Mings so even if he turns into Cannavaro I want him dropped. 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by SEMTEX

[Guest HTT II]

Why don’t you like him? Seems a top fella and he’s actually not too bad a player IMO.

[TheInfiniteOdyssey]

Don't see any issue in the crowd making their displeasure known to the players and staff. 

 

They were utterly hopeless and didn't seem motivated to exert themselves on the game whatsoever.

 

Observers may highlight the booing as illustrative of an 'English arrogance / entitlement' on behalf of the fanbase. From my perspective, that was actually demonstrated by the players and management last night, they turned up expecting a far easier game.

[SEMTEX]

8 minutes ago, HTT II said:

Why don’t you like him? Seems a top fella and he’s actually not too bad a player IMO.

 

I have watched him play like twice and he was shit both times, and his frowny face annoys me.

 

It's not the most logical, evidence-based opinion, but I fancied holding a baseless grudge on this one and I'm sticking with it.

[SEMTEX]

7 minutes ago, TheInfiniteOdyssey said:

Don't see any issue in the crowd making their displeasure known to the players and staff. 

 

They were utterly hopeless and didn't seem motivated to exert themselves on the game whatsoever.

 

Observers may highlight the booing as illustrative of an 'English arrogance / entitlement' on behalf of the fanbase. From my perspective, that was actually demonstrated by the players and management last night, they turned up expecting a far easier game.

 

I don't really care too much about post-match bewzzz, but mid-match groans just because we're not going blood n piss n thunder actively harms our chances of winning. We needed to take control of the game and all the crowd wanted was for us to dipsy doodle through their entire team. We kept the ball for a minute or too and there were so many groans that John fucking Stones tried to take on their entire midfield. It did not work.

 

I understand sideways passing is frustrating, but you want to encourage the players to play confidently, and these groany cunts achieve the polar opposite.

[Armchair Pundit]

7 minutes ago, TheInfiniteOdyssey said:

Don't see any issue in the crowd making their displeasure known to the players and staff. 

 

They were utterly hopeless and didn't seem motivated to exert themselves on the game whatsoever.

 

Observers may highlight the booing as illustrative of an 'English arrogance / entitlement' on behalf of the fanbase. From my perspective, that was actually demonstrated by the players and management last night, they turned up expecting a far easier game.

 

That was kind of my ponderings on the whole thing last night, though I then started to wonder how the fans of the big teams would react. Those teams who actually go out to win aggressively and do in fact win tournaments instead of being overly cautious all the time and just happy to take part.

[Guest HTT II]

2 minutes ago, SEMTEX said:

 

I have watched him play like twice and he was shit both times, and his frowny face annoys me.

 

It's not the most logical, evidence-based opinion, but I fancied holding a baseless grudge on this one and I'm sticking with it.

He’s a decent no nonsense sense of CB, not great by any stretch of the imagination, but decent enough and he comes across well as a person, that and his career path, I’m all for it tbh.

[TheInfiniteOdyssey]

2 minutes ago, SEMTEX said:

 

I don't really care too much about post-match bewzzz, but mid-match groans just because we're not going blood n piss n thunder actively harms our chances of winning. We needed to take control of the game and all the crowd wanted was for us to dipsy doodle through their entire team. We kept the ball for a minute or too and there were so many groans that John fucking Stones tried to take on their entire midfield. It did not work.

 

I understand sideways passing is frustrating, but you want to encourage the players to play confidently, and these groany cunts achieve the polar opposite.

I see what you're saying, but moment-to-moment during that game, we were so flat and laborious both in attack and defense and that was present from the first minute. So, it's not surprising whatsoever that the crowd eventually lost patience and the blame for that primarily resides with the management's approach to the game.

 

Mings' interview afterwards also suggested the players just weren't really that motivated and if that's an issue facing Scotland for the first time in how many years in a major competition at Wembley, then that's very strange and suggests complacency in the set-up. 

 

[Interpolic]

No idea about the players but there was endless arrogance from English pundits and fans in the build up to the game. Baffles me why anyone will loudly boast they're going to stuff an underdog before a game - if it happens then you're not exactly Nostradamus, if it doesn't then you look stupid and arrogant. And it motivates the opposition, if anything. 

[Guest neesy111]

1 minute ago, Interpolic said:

No idea about the players but there was endless arrogance from English pundits and fans in the build up to the game. Baffles me why anyone will loudly boast they're going to stuff an underdog before a game - if it happens then you're not exactly Nostradamus, if it doesn't then you look stupid and arrogant. And it motivates the opposition, if anything. 

 

Out of friends who I was watching with, most thought it would be a close game.

[Kimbo]

Some think that Mings has purposely stamped on a couple of heads. Zlatan and a Reading player.

[Interpolic]

Just now, neesy111 said:

 

Out of friends who I was watching with, most thought it would be a close game.

 

Yeah fair enough, I wasn't sure enough to predict that really as it really depends on the first 20 minutes or so in games like this. But you had meathead little Englanders and the likes of Rio Ferdinand on telly saying it was going to be a walkover and I can imagine if the Scots were exposed to that kind of patter it would have helped them and not us. 

[Jaqen]

You can forgive a bad performance, most teams will have one that go on to do well. The worrying sign is how conservative the manager has our players set up. Fullbacks are clearly under instruction to not get forward much and with two defensive midfielders it's severely limiting us. We have one of the strongest squads and with 5 substitutes there's a lot of scope to change things in a game but I have no confidence in Gareth's ability to do so. 

[HaydnNUFC]

Playing both Rice and Phillips reeked of being terrified of losing the game. Scotland did play well but they're the 3rd lowest ranked team in the competition, we're at our home stadium, we should've went for their throats. The amount of sideways and backwards passes was reminiscent of some performances of pure Bruceball; knocking it around the back 4 and holding midfielders and not going anywhere because the gap between the front 4 and the rear 6 was enormous. 

 

We should've went with just Phillips holding, Grealish and Mount in front with Sancho, Foden and Kane (if he was fully fit, if not throw DCL up top). That way we can get more numbers in the box against a low block and still have players back in the case of a counter attack. But Southgate will never do that. Just like Hodgson, he's an absolute bottler who'll play the most protective football he can so it feels like we can control a game for 90 minutes where in actual fact we'll create absolute fuck all. And with the attacking players that we have, that is unforgiveable. 

[TheAlien]

1 hour ago, HTT II said:

Why don’t you like him? Seems a top fella and he’s actually not too bad a player IMO.

Top fella  god you are clueless he’s a utter wanker man. Scum. Lucky not to be in jail stamping on players faces on purpose and going to a black supremacist march. Top fella  fuck off man he’s lucky to be a free man for starters 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by TheAlien

[TheAlien]

16 hours ago, Yorkie said:

I don't know what the fuck you're on about @gdm and stop editing your posts   I'm not denying for a moment that England were shite. Of course they were, they were crap. Doesn't mean Scotland didn't set out to kick them off the park

Fancy banning someone for disagreeing with taking a knee you pretentious bellend

 

fancy it turning out England been awful when they have a useless moron like Southgate in charge who’d have thought it?! Imagine hero worshiping a wanker like Southgate ffs  you want to get a grip. He’s a yes man clueless clown who is too busy involved in non football matters. England are overhyped overrated egomaniacs with a awful manager and awful central midfield options. Mcginn a and Gilmour are better than rice and Phillips ffs and Robertson and tierney walk in England’s team too 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by TheAlien