[Archived] European Championship France 2016

[Gav]

Ray Parlour has the worst haircut on TV, he's trying to look like a 25yrs old footballer when he's a 40yr old has been.

[Norbert Rassragr]

I've missed that one. It must be pretty amazing to beat Dennis Wise.

[K-Hod]

Id say if you compare England to the teams doing well - Germany, Wales, Iceland, Italy - the main thing that stands out is a lack of a balance and a lack of a clear system

There is an argument to start picking players more on whether they fit in the team well, rather than simply being the best on offer.

For example start playing the likes of Townsend because he offers genuine width, Noble as he an engine and bite. Fair enough they might not have the quality of others but you can drill them into a system. And then drop players who are hard to fit in the system and unbalance the team eg. Rooney, Sterling, Lallana, Sturridge. We have so many narrow players who want to play in the area just behind the striker. We cant fit them all in the system.

You could go for an England team like

--------------Forster

Walker---Smalling---Stones---Rose

Townsend---Dier---Noble---????

---------Caroll---Vardy

No left winger (why do we not produce them?) means you would have to go for an imperfect option like Sterling or Lallana. Caroll is mainly in for a different style of striker but you could have Kane in there.

Then once the team and system is picked we have to stick with it. Its very difficult for the manager to stabalise though because if any player has a good or bad season (eg. Townsend and Vardy last year) the press are all over the manager demanding change.

Bottom line for me is we lack quality in key areas, but clearly we can do more with what we have. Something isnt working.

Ps. Wales were FANTASTIC!! I really hope they or Iceland win it.

Are you forgetting Townsend is left footed? ;-)

[Mike E]

Rooney was always going to play in midfield, you could argue he shouldn't have gone, but not be replaced by Carroll or Defoe who frankly is nowhere near England class anymore and probably never was.

Sturidge was excellent for me, no problem with him going.

Good shout on Noble, he must have been close to being on the plane.

On Defoe in particular, did you watch much of him last season? He was everything someone like Sturridge should be.

I thought it was about picking on form? Certainly Defoe was in form ahead of Sturridge. Carroll would've been the big man option we were lacking.

Opinions, eh?

[DE.]

Although Roy did make some mistakes in selecting the squad (WIlshere, Sterling and Sturridge don't get in there on form, neither does Rooney or Joe Hart), it was the system that killed us. A 4-3-3 with only one proper winger who is so out of form it's embarrassing. I just don't understand what Hodgson was thinking.

People can say we "dominated" matches but the reality is that whilst we had a lot of possession and blasted a lot of shots wide and over from long distance, we never really looked like a threat. The first half against Russia (probably the worst team in the tournament) was great, but we never played like that again. Despite being in a formation suited for wide play, we continued to go inside time after time and got nowhere. As bad as the players performed, they must have been wondering what the hell Roy was trying to achieve with such a contradictory style of play. Our only real threats ended up being set pieces, which were almost always spectacularly wasted by Harry Kane who was on dead ball duty for reasons nobody can discern.

[Silas]

I could enjoy Wales success a bit if it wasn't for Robbie Savage

Loved him when he played here but he's the worst of the worst when it comes to commentators and pundits

I feel you, he's beginning to get right on my nerves which is a shame since have always warmed to him in the past.

Him slagging off England on 5Live at about 10.15pm last night really @#/? me off. I mean, your team has just performed brilliantly and got further in a tournament than ever in it's history and it's took less than half an hour to start talking about a totally different country. Why not just celebrate your own country's achievements instead of obsessing about England. Very poor form.

But.................. I will give him his due for being honest about the big calls in the later stages of that game. On commentary he admitted that Belgium should have had a free kick by the box (and possible sending off?), along with a penalty, and that all within a few minutes before Wales go and score the 3rd. Fair play to him on that. Massive slices of luck for Wales there. I'm so sick of commentators being bias and pretending things haven't gone for them on the pitch, and I very much include English commentators in that bracket.

Crazy that the ref let both of those incidents go, but I suppose like we have been saying about our team for years, you make your own luck sometimes, and Wales have certainly done that over the last few weeks. Good luck to them. I see no reason to fear Portugal in a semi, and Wales in a final is just mental. What a year of football it's been.

[jim mk2]

There's no secret to the success of Wales and Iceland - they have both have a tremendous work ethic and team spirit that makes up for any deficiencies of the players at an individual level. The good feeling in the dressing room is all down to the managers.

All talk of "systems" and tactical formations that led to England's downfall are irrelevant when confronted with the above.

Like England, Belgium are over-rated with over-rated players so Wales's win was no surprise. I hope they beat Portugal but they will miss Ramsey terribly - a better player than Bale in my view.

[Mike E]

There's no secret to the success of Wales and Iceland - they have both have a tremendous work ethic and team spirit that makes up for any deficiencies of the players at an individual level. The good feeling in the dressing room is all down to the managers.

All talk of "systems" and tactical formations that led to England's downfall are irrelevant when confronted with the above.

Like England, Belgium are over-rated with over-rated players so Wales's win was no surprise. I hope they beat Portugal but they will miss Ramsey terribly - a better player than Bale in my view.

It's a culmination of 3 of Brian Clough's philosophies:

1. It's not about tactics, it's about 11 talented players.

2. If you work hard, you have a chance of playing well. If you play well, you might enjoy yourself.

3. If you get the ball, give it to someone who can play (of course, giving the same advice to every player, keeping individuals humble but believing in the team).

[DE.]

I would say motivation, team spirit, confidence, work ethic and overall desire make up a good part of international football (not so much domestically, Leicester are a total one off) but tactics are the extra 10% that get struggling teams over the line. I imagine if we'd used the same formation as we did during qualifiers we would have finished top of our group and likely beaten Northern Ireland. Where we go from there, who knows, but we had none of the above so I suppose Jim's right, it is pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

[Gav]

On Defoe in particular, did you watch much of him last season? He was everything someone like Sturridge should be.

I thought it was about picking on form? Certainly Defoe was in form ahead of Sturridge. Carroll would've been the big man option we were lacking.

Opinions, eh?

I saw quite a bit of the Premiership football last season and Sturridge missed large parts of it due to injury, but when he did return he was scoring for fun, as was Defoe, but i don't think he was up against Sturridge, he was probably up against Vardy who is a very similar player to Defoe and Vardy had to go of course.

As for Carroll, should be nowhere near the England setup until he can prove his fitness.

[K-Hod]

Carroll played pretty much every game in a run until the end of the season and had proved his fitness way more than Wilshere had. Not sure how else he COULD prove his fitness really.

[Gav]

Carroll played pretty much every game in a run until the end of the season and had proved his fitness way more than Wilshere had. Not sure how else he COULD prove his fitness really.

Someone said he's played 50 games since 2013, with an abundance of striking options it would have been mad to take Carroll.

[Audax]

I feel you, he's beginning to get right on my nerves which is a shame since have always warmed to him in the past.

Him slagging off England on 5Live at about 10.15pm last night really @#/? me off. I mean, your team has just performed brilliantly and got further in a tournament than ever in it's history and it's took less than half an hour to start talking about a totally different country. Why not just celebrate your own country's achievements instead of obsessing about England. Very poor form.

But.................. I will give him his due for being honest about the big calls in the later stages of that game. On commentary he admitted that Belgium should have had a free kick by the box (and possible sending off?), along with a penalty, and that all within a few minutes before Wales go and score the 3rd. Fair play to him on that. Massive slices of luck for Wales there. I'm so sick of commentators being bias and pretending things haven't gone for them on the pitch, and I very much include English commentators in that bracket.

Crazy that the ref let both of those incidents go, but I suppose like we have been saying about our team for years, you make your own luck sometimes, and Wales have certainly done that over the last few weeks. Good luck to them. I see no reason to fear Portugal in a semi, and Wales in a final is just mental. What a year of football it's been.

This has been one of the more memorable international matches that I've watched, maybe period and I rewatched a lot of it. But as emboldened above, that one incident was not called. It is puzzling but I know the referee did not want to decide the match, that was weak officiating. Maybe it would have been a free kick and not a penalty, I'd have to rewatch it but the Wales player could have been sent off.

That's the way the game is though.

[Amo]

Ramsey will be a big miss for Wales, but they're not a team of individuals. Like Norbert, though, I do have this sinking feeling that Portugal will finally show-up for the tournament.

[DE.]

What baffles me regarding England is why we abandoned what worked so well in the first half against Russia. Walker and Rose were bombing down the wings and getting balls into the area, which was causing Russia all sorts of problems and stretching their defence.

Now, admittedly, their defenders were slow and positionally poor, but why did we refuse to play that way for the rest of the tournament? Instead we would get it out wide, then pass it right back inside, where inevitably we'd either get crowded out or balloon a shot over from way out. We were so deliberate in doing so that it must have been a specific instruction from Hodgson, but why did we never try to change it? Roy must have seen it wasn't working. I appreciate we had a talent in Dele Alli through the middle, but it wasn't really going for him and we had strikers in Kane and Vardy who can get onto the end of crosses. The only time we really attempted to get the ball in the box was at set pieces, and the majority of the time Harry Kane was wasting those.

In a way, that winner against Wales might have been the death knell for our tournament hopes. In Roy's mind it may have vindicated such an approach, even though the goal was largely a triumph of luck and persistence as opposed to being a result of correct tactical instructions. We became so one dimensional that it was easy for teams to defend and counter attack against us, the Icelandic defenders admitted as much after the match. I can't believe that a manager with as much experience as Hodgson either couldn't see or didn't feel it necessary to rectify what was a glaring problem.

[philipl]

Fabulous win for Wales keeping the Union Jack flying high.

[ABBEY]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/coleen-rooney-giggles-wayne-topples-8329290

good to see england captain happy after exit .GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[Silas]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/coleen-rooney-giggles-wayne-topples-8329290

good to see england captain happy after exit .GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Please....... man goes on holiday with his wife after 11 month sports season. Yeah, what a total dick!

And while we're at it, what a pathetic, snide dig by the ragtop - "He might have a lot less hair, but the England captain still managed to let it down..."

WTF?!

They wouldn't write a line like that about Gail Porter so I see no need to be saying it about Wayne Rooney.

[Gav]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/coleen-rooney-giggles-wayne-topples-8329290

good to see england captain happy after exit .GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Lad deserves a holiday Abbey.

He's come a long way since calling the England fans a disgrace for travelling thousands of miles, spending thousands of pounds and booing the side off in South Africa after the draw against Algeria...

[Audax]

What baffles me regarding England is why we abandoned what worked so well in the first half against Russia. Walker and Rose were bombing down the wings and getting balls into the area, which was causing Russia all sorts of problems and stretching their defence.

Now, admittedly, their defenders were slow and positionally poor, but why did we refuse to play that way for the rest of the tournament? Instead we would get it out wide, then pass it right back inside, where inevitably we'd either get crowded out or balloon a shot over from way out. We were so deliberate in doing so that it must have been a specific instruction from Hodgson, but why did we never try to change it? Roy must have seen it wasn't working. I appreciate we had a talent in Dele Alli through the middle, but it wasn't really going for him and we had strikers in Kane and Vardy who can get onto the end of crosses. The only time we really attempted to get the ball in the box was at set pieces, and the majority of the time Harry Kane was wasting those.

In a way, that winner against Wales might have been the death knell for our tournament hopes. In Roy's mind it may have vindicated such an approach, even though the goal was largely a triumph of luck and persistence as opposed to being a result of correct tactical instructions. We became so one dimensional that it was easy for teams to defend and counter attack against us, the Icelandic defenders admitted as much after the match. I can't believe that a manager with as much experience as Hodgson either couldn't see or didn't feel it necessary to rectify what was a glaring problem.

It certainly is baffling like a recipe for disaster and no one should know that better than the manager.

------

As for pressure from the media for Italy or England, both have substantial amounts.

Per, the movement of youth players, agents must be similar as well per mentioned in this thread except even at that, Italy's football system, leagues has faced heavy scandal with match fixing.

Bale comes off as just one of the team players, if I may say, just as another one of the players. Great attitude they have.

[A cup of beans]

Mix of nerves and excitement.

Was out to watch it with friends, but took myself off and watching it in solitude.

[Norbert Rassragr]

Just realised I have a team in the final. I backed Portugal at 16/1 each way before it started, and Wales at 22/1 after the Norn Iron match. If Italy and France win I'll have all the teams. Makes me sound like Chaddy in the manager markets, but I'll win my outlay back whoever wins.

Wales vs. Iceland in the final is 50/1 on Betway if you were wondering.

[Audax]

Big Sam's name being mentioned; one can check it out themselves. A number of stories, that'd be great if he were selected.

Germany with overwhelming ball possession still; we will see if they can get anything more.

[DE.]

Big Sam's name being mentioned; one can check it out themselves. A number of stories, that'd be great if he were selected.

I can only imagine Gav's reaction if that happens!

Would be harsh on Sunderland, finally have a manager to bring them some stability then lose him to the England job.

[chaddyrovers]

Big Sam's name being mentioned; one can check it out themselves. A number of stories, that'd be great if he were selected.

Germany with overwhelming ball possession still; we will see if they can get anything more.

I think that Gill has spoken to Sir Alex Ferguson about who to appoint and he will recommend Sam Allardyce.

if Allardyce does get the England job then who do Sunderland appoint next