England v France (Quarter Final)

Bit of a useless stat. A team could be one or two rankings below us and a very good team.

 

And I'd like to say a big **** you to you, shallow ****.

 

Christ almighty it was a joke!

 

The German manager only joined in May 2021,even you can concur that's scant time to afford a manager before jibbing him ? Mancini took the reins in 2018 and he's already won a major International tournament while managing Italy. In contrast Southgate has been the England manager for just short of 7 years come the turn of the year and won what exactly ? The difference is Hansi Flick and Mancini have been serial winners throughout their managerial careers and will already be scribbling away designing a blueprint to lift the Euros.

 

Well lets break down how he utilized that group of fairly young players shall we

He was browbeaten by the media into playing Foden after the weak and inept performance that allowed the USA to dominate possession for practically the entirety of the game ,Trent was left kicking his heels on the bench for most of the tournament while Griezmann delivered the kind of cross to win the game that Trent does arguably better than any young player in Europe.

Grealish was only used in the last 2 mins of injury time when England were crying out for someone to drive into the box and make something happen. Maddison finished the tournament as an unused sub when he could have provided a similar creativity to Griezmann ,the best dead ball specialist England have and someone intelligent enough with his use of the ball to link up the play in behind the forwards and he's left wondering why he got on the f*cking plane ?

Saka causing all sorts of problems for the french defence with his directness ,yet he's removed when his movement was integral to England's attack with 10 mins to go. Bellingham had way too much onus placed upon him and was always the next game away from having a mare ,such expectation on so young a set of shoulders ,extremely talented with outrageous energy but that first half against France he was woeful.

Another point is the media building up MBappe to the extent Walker was said to have nullified his threat which he may have done and yet you could count the times Walker got past the halfway line himself on one hand ,so in turn France and Deschamps successfully nullified his threat ,likewise Shaw with Dembele, another England threat negated as he was afforded little room to expose that French flank or whip the kind of crosses he excels at in behind the defence.

 

Maybe I missed the punchline?

 

Amazing. So we manage to keep the best player in the world anonymous and you use it as a criticism for nullifying the attacking threat of Walker.

None of what you said answers my question about who you would have dropped from the squad and picked instead. You said that Southgate picked "the same tired old squad". The only person I would have taken that didn't go was Chris Smalling.
(Although the biased part of me keeps saying Ward-Prowse would have buried that freekick Rashford took at the end).

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

 

I'd forgot all about Smalling. He's doing g alright in Serie A then?

 

Done very well at Roma. Main issue with Smalling is as you know his ability on the ball. Undoubtedly far more suited to a back 4 though than Coady.

 

I miss Smalling's crazy facial expressions looked like cartoon character about to be ran over by truck.

 

You mistaking him for Phil Jones?

 

Saka point aside (although perhaps he was injured), this all seems very pernickety.

We absolutely were not crying out for Trent or Maddison in this tournament. The latter is a moot point as he was injured for most of the group stage and we have better options. Trent against Mbappe would have been interesting. I mean, probably suicidal but interesting.

On the topic of Maddison -- he's a flavour of the month pick that I'm starting to get a little tired of (see Grealish 2021). We can all argue he should have got game time before the World Cup, but he didn't and throwing him on ahead of other players would basically have amounted to a Hail Mary.

At the end of the day, we lost to a more seasoned, more experienced side where in the areas that count. Even then, we were a whisker away from taking it to Extra time. Perhaps Gareth isn't the 'winner' we need, but he did little objectively wrong in terms of personnel and tactics in this WC.

 

Yeah cheers not sure how I got them so mixed up.

 

Been dwelling on this for a few days, so my thoughts are:

• We were the better team, but France scored twice from open play and we didn't score one. It's fine margins and considering I thought we had the better of the ball, scoring from open play would have likely won it.
• The referee was an absolute disgrace, to the extent I'm convinced it'll come out he was corrupt in the years to come. Their first goal should never have stood in a million years, Griezmann took out our players 3 times on the break before a yellow. Saka was basically assaulted all game with no consequence.
• Southgate has no idea how to use subs. Exactly as with the Euro final, he sat and watched the other team get on top for an extended period before making changes. A top manager would have made subs when we were bossing it at 1-1 and seized the initiative. He has laid some great foundations but his role with England has finished.
• I wouldn't have wanted anyone other than Kane to take that pen. But if he was ever going to do that, it was always going to be for England. We are constant Shakesperian tragedy- I've never seen him do it before, likely never will again.

I'm confident this team will win a tournament at some point, they need to keep their head up and go again.

 

Usually gets them right but he missed one v Frankfurt in the Champions League this season that wasn't too dissimilar. Interestingly he scored his first penalty in that game too and then missed the second.

7:34 in the video

 

Looks like it's down to technique then? Usually results in him smashing it in the corner but the flip side is that when it goes wrong, he's hitting the ball up so he just skies it. Hope he wins some trophies in his career because if not that penalty will be in his mind forever...

 

I suppose only he'll know the thought process but I guess taking two in a game is harder. It's interesting that one for Spurs and the France game were both misses in games he's taken two penalties.

He's usually so reliable but maybe on the second penalty his thought process is go to his preferred side. Downside of that is keepers also know which side he favours so I think he's tried going high to make sure the keeper can't save it. It'll certainly haunt him but at the end of the day there's still no guarantee England win the quarters, semi or final even if he scores.

Obviously quite a big deal when it's an England World Cup game but if he wins nothing in his career then really it's the semi finals and finals that should haunt him rather than this penalty miss. Three finals with Spurs and one for England - he's had the opportunity to win things at Spurs. That's excluding the multiple semi final defeats along the way too.

 

Nations League League B ?

You lost, get over it (© johnnyt).


edit: Before someone thinks I was serious. No I wasn't.
Of course you'll win a tournament at some point.
Ideally 2066 for the 100th anniversary of 1966. Then I'll be 6ft under and don't have to hear "It's coming home...finally" /i

 

We disagree fella and it seems 'unequivocally so'. I guess I will always be at a loss to share the belief England fans hold in Southgate in the wake of yet another chapter added to a veritable catalogue of failure and it seems that until his tenure ceases and we can continue this debate with perhaps more clarity and not hanging off the 'what if 'scenario 'which in truth we are both guilty of ' if the part of your post I've highlighted is your genuine assessment of England's encounter with France ?