The England Team - all the news, views…

[Upside Down]

17 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Because he’s an FA blazer to his bones.

You’d imagine the ‘ethics committee’ or whatever would give him a job for life if they could.

Guaranteed he'll have some bullshit representative job lined up there in the future.

It's almost like the F.A don't want to win anything. It's very bizarre.

[roverandout]

6 hours ago, Hasta said:

No we weren’t shite in the Nations League before the World Cup. We got 10 points compared to three lately, including that 0-4 humbling off Hungary at home.

QF for me and out at the first proper test we have.

 

 

Yes we were we got humped off Hungary in June 2022

[ABBEY]

3 hours ago, Upside Down said:

I can't for the life of me understand why Gareth Southgate is the manager of the English national team.

If he's the best England have then it's time to just call it a daya I'm afraid.

Because he's a brown nosed woke yes man.

[roverandout]

Should have been dumped after the world cup 

[joey_big_nose]

I think Southgates a decent manager.  Over performed with average squads in the past.

That said whats going to kill us at this tournament is our defence. It really looks very makeshift. Think any of the big teams (France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal) will really fancy their chances.

That we had a gap at centreback has been known for a while and we have done little about it. And a horrendous run of injuries at left back has left us very weak there.

[joey_big_nose]

18 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

And we will be packed full of attacking quality but with as poor/unfit a defence as ours is, we will always be vulnerable v top teams.

Yeah looking at how the squad has shaken out I would say everyone needs to moderate their expectations a bit... Semis would be a good performance imo. QFs par.

Its frustrating as with a top CB to partner Stones and fit left back I think we could have genuinely expected to win. But you look at the defence compared to the other top teams and we will need something extraordinary to get to the final.

[roverandout]

3 minutes ago, joey_big_nose said:

Yeah looking at how the squad has shaken out I would say everyone needs to moderate their expectations a bit... Semis would be a good performance imo. QFs par.

Its frustrating as with a top CB to partner Stones and fit left back I think we could have genuinely expected to win. But you look at the defence compared to the other top teams and we will need something extraordinary to get to the final.

I've said it before ghuei is definitely a very good defender

[roverandout]

There's only France who have more than one top class centreback.  Portugal have dias. Spain don't have any top class defenders.  Italy probably have one. Germany have rudiger. Holland probably have more than one top class defender actually 

[Hasta]

2 hours ago, roverandout said:

Yes we were we got humped off Hungary in June 2022

So we did. I didn’t realise the competitions overlapped.

 

[M_B]

6 hours ago, Upside Down said:

I can't for the life of me understand why Gareth Southgate is the manager of the English national team.

If he's the best England have then it's time to just call it a daya I'm afraid.

He's the best since Alf Ramsay. 

[chaddyrovers]

1 minute ago, M_B said:

He's the best since Alf Ramsay. 

exactly yet people say he is poor manager when Capello and Eriksson did dogshit with good squads with players like Beckham, Rooney, Owen, Lampard and Gerrard

[M_B]

10 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

exactly yet people say he is poor manager when Capello and Eriksson did dogshit with good squads with players like Beckham, Rooney, Owen, Lampard and Gerrard

I wasn't even giving it my personal opinion, I don't know why someone has given me a thumbs down, it's a fact, he's got the best record since Sir Alf. 

God knows what people said about Robson and Enables. 

[Mattyblue]

Time will tell on Southgate. Is getting to the business ends of tournament a sign of a good manager in itself when he has been blessed with a very strong set of players?

If his replacement goes and wins the lot with them then he obviously was kept on far too long. However, if the new bloke does no better/worse than maybe he did have some qualities, certainly he has transformed the vibe in the camp and has created an environment players want to be in, which is very important at international level - the days of Liverpool/Man Utd cliques for example have long gone.

[chaddyrovers]

5 minutes ago, M_B said:

I wasn't even giving it my personal opinion, I don't know why someone has given me a thumbs down, it's a fact, he's got the best record since Sir Alf. 

God knows what people said about Robson and Enables. 

Cos you posted what is true. 

Southgate has got to semi finals in 2018 and final in 2021(Euro 2020). Then knock out by winners in France in 2022. 

Robson and Venables were good England managers

3 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Time will tell on Southgate. Is getting to the business ends of tournament a sign of a good manager in itself when he has been blessed with a very strong set of players?

Well Capello and Eriksson couldn't get that far ever. Southgate has twice. 

3 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

If his replacement goes and wins the lot with them then he obviously was kept on far too long. However, if the new bloke does no better/worse than maybe he did have some qualities, certainly he has transformed the vibe in the camp and has created an environment players want to be in, which is very important at international level - the days of Liverpool/Man Utd cliques for example have long gone.

His replacement if Southgate does leave will be Graham Potter or Eddie Howe

[roversfan99]

2 hours ago, roverandout said:

I've said it before ghuei is definitely a very good defender

Even if you think that, and my personal opinion is as ive said that he is good, certainly not at the elite level.

Do you agree that the current version of Guehi ie having been injured for months and completing only one game on the last day, cannot be seen as a very good defender simply because he isnt fit enough? Our defence on paper might be reasonable, the current one though with such a lack of fitness across the board becomes a huge liability.

2 hours ago, roverandout said:

There's only France who have more than one top class centreback.  Portugal have dias. Spain don't have any top class defenders.  Italy probably have one. Germany have rudiger. Holland probably have more than one top class defender actually 

Id say Holland have the best set of defenders in the tournament. Van Dijk, De Ligt, Ake and Van De Ven.

Germany also have Tah who has been key for Leverkusen in doing an unbeaten domestic double.

15 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Cos you posted what is true. 

Southgate has got to semi finals in 2018 and final in 2021(Euro 2020). Then knock out by winners in France in 2022. 

Robson and Venables were good England managers

Well Capello and Eriksson couldn't get that far ever. Southgate has twice. 

His replacement if Southgate does leave will be Graham Potter or Eddie Howe

International football isnt obviously like club football where you cant be lucky with fixtures because you play everyone twice.

You look at Eriksson for example, I don't doubt that he underachieved with a better all round team than we have now, but he went out to Brazil and then Portugal twice on penalties, all in quarter finals. Big nations.

With Southgate, the knock out games he has won have been against Colombia, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Denmark and Senegal. Only Germany there are opponents that would come close to being on par and at the time they were not the strongest, prior to a current uprising of younger talent. When he faced Croatia, Italy and France he came up short. He can navigate knockout games against weaker teams which does warrant credit but he cant set up against the big teams.

You also seem to pigeon hole managers into being English or foreign which is unfair. The failures of Eriksson and Capello dont reflect on foreign managers as a whole.

[chaddyrovers]

12 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

nternational football isnt obviously like club football where you cant be lucky with fixtures because you play everyone twice.

You look at Eriksson for example, I don't doubt that he underachieved with a better all round team than we have now, but he went out to Brazil and then Portugal twice on penalties, all in quarter finals. Big nations.

We are BIG NATION also. Don't forget that!

Rest is just excuses for me from yourself

12 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

With Southgate, the knock out games he has won have been against Colombia, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Denmark and Senegal. Only Germany there are opponents that would come close to being on par and at the time they were not the strongest, prior to a current uprising of younger talent When he faced Croatia, Italy and France he came up short. He can navigate knockout games against weaker teams which does warrant credit but he cant set up against the big teams.

We played Croatia in semi finals, Italy in the final at Wembley and France in Quarter Finals. Can any England manager since Venables and Robson beat those apart Southgate. 

 

12 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

You also seem to pigeon hole managers into being English or foreign which is unfair. The failures of Eriksson and Capello dont reflect on foreign managers as a whole.

Them being non English wasn't in the my thoughts at all, cos McClaren and Hodgson failed for me also. 

[Mattyblue]

Capello was terrible, completely not cutout for international football. Has he done better than Sven? I’d say so. But in reality he’s managed to win a game more in tournaments than Sven managed.

Like I said time will tell with what the next manager does with such a talented crop.

[roverandout]

51 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Even if you think that, and my personal opinion is as ive said that he is good, certainly not at the elite level.

Do you agree that the current version of Guehi ie having been injured for months and completing only one game on the last day, cannot be seen as a very good defender simply because he isnt fit enough? Our defence on paper might be reasonable, the current one though with such a lack of fitness across the board becomes a huge liability.

Id say Holland have the best set of defenders in the tournament. Van Dijk, De Ligt, Ake and Van De Ven.

Germany also have Tah who has been key for Leverkusen in doing an unbeaten domestic double.

International football isnt obviously like club football where you cant be lucky with fixtures because you play everyone twice.

You look at Eriksson for example, I don't doubt that he underachieved with a better all round team than we have now, but he went out to Brazil and then Portugal twice on penalties, all in quarter finals. Big nations.

With Southgate, the knock out games he has won have been against Colombia, Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Denmark and Senegal. Only Germany there are opponents that would come close to being on par and at the time they were not the strongest, prior to a current uprising of younger talent. When he faced Croatia, Italy and France he came up short. He can navigate knockout games against weaker teams which does warrant credit but he cant set up against the big teams.

You also seem to pigeon hole managers into being English or foreign which is unfair. The failures of Eriksson and Capello dont reflect on foreign managers as a whole.

I agree our defence is a huge concern 

[roverandout]

Every team has weak areas. Holland are packed with quality in defence but lack in midfield and definitely up front.  France rely heavily on mbappe.  Spain lack top quality defenders and a top striker but wide areas and midfield is very strong.  England lack defensively but have quality midfielders and strong out wide and have a top class forward.  Portugal are strong in defence and have good midfielders but lack a top quality forward unless Ronaldo turns up. Germany are strong in most areas but lack a top class striker. Fulkrug has fitness issues.  So there are no major favourites.  That's why it's possible we could win it.  The days of a perfect national team France 20 odd years ago Spain 08-12. The days of figos Zidanes del piero etc are long gone. 

[Ianrally]

23 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Just because he’s all we’ve got it doesn’t make him a top player.  Ray Wilson, Terry Cooper, Kenny Sansom, Ashley Cole  - they were really top left backs. Shaw doesn’t even come close to any of those.

Two ex Rovers and England left backs to add to that list, Graham Le Saux and Sir Keith Newton, who Alf Ramsey described as the best left back in the World.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

10 minutes ago, Ianrally said:

Two ex Rovers and England left backs to add to that list, Graham Le Saux and Sir Keith Newton, who Alf Ramsey described as the best left back in the World.

Of course, but Sir Keith featured mainly as a right back for England. But shock horror in today’s game, he could actually play left back equally well. When I see the like of Trippier looking like a fish riding a bike when he plays left back I wonder what they do all day in training. 

[Hasta]

Southgate could have cemented his England legacy at 1-0 up against Italy at Wembley in the Euros. Home advantage and IMO a better team and yet we slowly became more conservative. 
 

To me he is in the same bracket as Venables, Hoddle, Sven as in he’s given us good tournaments but fallen short. We’ve put inferior Nations to the sword in group games, but there’s no real standout result in a major tournament under GS where you think we’ve put down a marker ( as pleasing as it was, Germany 2001 were not fancied and were in a bit of a transition phase). 
 

And that’s a common problem with England. There’s a few games around the end of the 90s we won that were against fancied nations (Netherlands and Spain (Penalties) in 96), Germany (2000), Argentina (2002), but since then I can’t recall winning a game at a major tournament against a team we weren’t obviously favourite to beat either in the group stage or in the knockout. And thats the same under Southgate. For want of a better word, it’s ‘lucky’ he got matched against Ukraine and Denmark in tournaments to get to a final whereby Sven and co came up against very good Brazil, Argentina, Portugal and Germany teams.
 

For me, for Southgate to be regarded ‘better’ that the others, he would need a headline result in a major tournament against a very fancied team, and he hasn’t done that. 

Edited June 9 by Hasta

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

2 hours ago, M_B said:

I wasn't even giving it my personal opinion, I don't know why someone has given me a thumbs down, it's a fact, he's got the best record since Sir Alf. 

God knows what people said about Robson and Enables. 

They weren’t playing against Treasure Island and Transylvania back in the day.

[rigger]

3 hours ago, Ianrally said:

Two ex Rovers and England left backs to add to that list, Graham Le Saux and Sir Keith Newton, who Alf Ramsey described as the best left back in the World.

I seem to remember Keith Newton at right-back, with Billy Wilson at left-back, but that might be my memory playing tricks on me.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

2 hours ago, rigger said:

I seem to remember Keith Newton at right-back, with Billy Wilson at left-back, but that might be my memory playing tricks on me.

No you’re right. Having said that Billy played quite a few games at right back when Keith was missing/injured.