The England Team - all the news, views…

[K-Hod]

10 minutes ago, Forever Blue said:

In nearly 100 years of tournament football we’ve got to 3 major tournaments finals. Gareth has got us to 2 of those. 
 

These are the facts. 
 

 

 

 

The facts are also that we’ve won none of the tournaments Southgate has managed.

[K-Hod]

3 minutes ago, Forever Blue said:

Foden was played in his favoured No10 position and was shite, as he normally is when playing for England. 

A lot of this rests on the manager too. Why can Guardiola get more from him than Southgate? Spoiler alert;

Guardiola is a proper manager.

[DE.]

1 minute ago, Giant said:

Why can’t people just accept that our players aren’t as good as we think? The 1966 team had 3 world class players in it, Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton. No England team since has had a world class player in it, plenty of very good ones, but none of the calibre of those three. They are why we won the WC, and the absence of players like them is why we haven’t won anything since.

Tbf I don't think that's the sole reason. Italy have often not had the best individual talent in their teams, but found a way to win tournaments. Greece certainly weren't the most talented team in 2004, nor were Portugal in 2016. In Euro 2020 I'd argue we were up there with any of the teams in that tournament, in terms of talent, but we didn't win that one either. 

Talent plays a part, usually a big part, but being able to transition a group of players into an international tournament from a club setting is a huge part of being successful as well. I don't think Gareth has done badly at all in this regard when it comes to building a team spirit and togetherness, he just lacks on the tactical front and his methods and style of play is likely very different from what the likes of Pep, Arteta, Ancelotti and the like are drilling into these players on a weekly basis at club level. It has to play some part in why our performances look so disjointed. I actually think the talent and natural ability of many of our players is why we're able to push through in spite of that.

1 minute ago, M_B said:

It's a fair point, does it work is the question I suppose. 

We have a tournament every 2 years, my point was that if reaching finals isn't enough, then we'd have a manager biannually unless we actually win one. 

If and when Southgate leaves, he leaves an incredibly high bar. 

I think the ambition always has to be to win the tournament - in recent years especially we've shown we're more than capable of getting to the latter stages, so we should always consider ourselves in with a chance of winning a major tournament. Maybe it doesn't work out as well under a different manager, but personally I'm ready for a change to see what could happen. I'm not as engrossed in the national team as others are, and I'll admit I mainly just want to actually enjoy watching England play. If we also win a tournament then that's great, too. In terms of purely looking at results and ends justifying the means, I tend to focus more on that at club level with Rovers. 

[Forever Blue]

Just now, K-Hod said:

A lot of this rests on the manager too. Why can Guardiola get more from him than Southgate? Spoiler alert;

Guardiola is a proper manager.

Only if you think club football and international football are in any way comparable. 

[Forever Blue]

4 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Both he and Bellingham had spells in the tournament from the left hand side.

If Foden is not perfoming anywhere near the levels for his country that he manages for his club, a lot of responsibility lies on the manager. Either he plays in a way that allows him to replicate that form or he stops trying to cram too many big names in and drops him to give us better balance.

International football and club football are incomparable. Foden wasn’t flat track bullying the likes Burnley at the Etihad with a far superior team around him like he does most weeks.   He was playing against better players and looked like a lost little boy out of his depth. 

 

 

[Darrenbot]

There's one way of finding out if Southgate is stifling some players at international level.

[roversfan99]

3 minutes ago, Forever Blue said:

International football and club football are incomparable. Foden wasn’t flat track bullying the likes Burnley at the Etihad with a far superior team around him like he does most weeks.   He was playing against better players and looked like a lost little boy out of his depth. 

 

 

He wasnt just a flat track bully for City. The sides we have faced in the tournament arent superior to what he faces week in week out.

As I said though, the answer is certainly not shoehorning players in due to status. If he cant get him playing in a way that he replicates his club form, then dont start him.

[Displaced Rover]

8 minutes ago, DE. said:

 I'm not as engrossed in the national team as others are, and I'll admit I mainly just want to actually enjoy watching England play. If we also win a tournament then that's great, too. In terms of purely looking at results and ends justifying the means, I tend to focus more on that at club level with Rovers. 

Similar. If I was using the Gareth Bale “scale” it would be Rovers. Golf. England. In that order for me.

I obviously want England to win but I’m not really particularly upset they’ve lost this evening. Doesn’t bother me. 

I do feel this allows me to be a bit more objective than others who see to live and breathe England…

People can argue Southgate has done better than recent managers (which is factually correct I accept). However, that is through a mixture of chronic underachievement in the 00s, coupled with an incredibly easy run of draws over the last few tournaments. Southgate has proven time and time again he cannot get over the line in big games when it really matters. It’s time to move on and give a decent crop of players a run at the WC.

[47er]

Probably time to reflect on what we did achieve rather than what we didn't. We were very lucky with our half of the draw, for a start. I doubt we would have gone past Germany or France in the other half.

Spain were the stand-out side in the competition from Day 1, fearless attacking football from them.

But 32 sides started out in this tournament and 30 didn't make the final.

I'm not sure we played the best 11 players in England but I'm equally not sure that someone else would have made the difference.

I would like to see what Klopp can do, I am genuinely excited with the depth of emerging talent in English football and we move on....Looking forward to seeing Adam in an England shirt soon, I'm sure this experience will have been very beneficial for him.

 

[roverandout]

54 minutes ago, Giant said:

Why can’t people just accept that our players aren’t as good as we think? The 1966 team had 3 world class players in it, Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton. No England team since has had a world class player in it, plenty of very good ones, but none of the calibre of those three. They are why we won the WC, and the absence of players like them is why we haven’t won anything since.

That's completely untrue.  We've got a group of top players but a manager who can't get the best out of them 

[roverandout]

On top of that Spain aren't blessed with top player in every position.  They just have a system and know their jobs. 

[roversfan99]

1 minute ago, roverandout said:

That's completely untrue.  We've got a group of top players but a manager who can't get the best out of them 

He was the best manager in our history yesterday.

[DE.]

32 minutes ago, Displaced Rover said:

Similar. If I was using the Gareth Bale “scale” it would be Rovers. Golf. England. In that order for me.

I obviously want England to win but I’m not really particularly upset they’ve lost this evening. Doesn’t bother me. 
I do feel this allows me to be a bit more objective than others who see to live and breathe England…

People can argue Southgate has done better than recent managers (which is factually correct I accept). However, that is through a mixture of chronic underachievement in the 00s, coupled with an incredibly easy run of draws over the last few tournaments. Southgate has proven time and time again he cannot get over the line in big games when it really matters. It’s time to move on and give a decent crop of players a run at the WC.

I'm somewhat the same way - it would have been nice to see England finally win a major tournament, but I'm not devastated that we lost either. Spain deserved to win the match and the tournament, and I'm okay with that.

In terms of national team underachievement, I'd place that mainly between the 2007 - 2016 period. 

Euro 2000 was a disaster, granted. WC 2002 we went out to an incredible Brazil team who won the tournament. Euro 2004 we went out to a very good Portuguese team who made the final, and were genuinely unlucky to have our best player in Rooney go off injured before the first half had even ended. Similar BS in WC 2006 against Portugal when Beckham got injured just after the break and Rooney got himself sent off after 62 mins. So whilst we didn't progress as far as we would have wanted in these tournaments, we were playing good teams and had some bad luck. Portugal were also never able to beat us in normal or extra time, and both times had to rely on our achilles heel in penalties to squeak past. 

From 2007 though, oh boy. Didn't even qualify for Euro 2008. Abysmal showing in WC 2010. Taught a lesson by Italy in the Euro 2012 quarters (yes it went to penalties, but they had 20 attempts on target to our 4). Failed to even get out of the group in WC 2014. Knocked out in the Euro 2016 round of 16 by Iceland ffs. 

So yeah, we'd experienced essentially a decade of international failure and embarrassment before Southgate took over. Fair play to him for steadying the ship and getting people to believe in the national team again. He's done that very well, but to be clear has also been paid very well to do so. £5m per annum must be up there in terms of international wage brackets. I believe it's about £4m a year more than the Spanish head coach and according to this, he's actually the highest paid manager in the tournament. By some distance if those figures are accurate. 

Nonetheless, he walked into a difficult situation and improved things. No doubt. Time waits for no person though and from what I've seen in this tournament, final or not, things haven't been looking quite right and I'd want to roll the dice and see if we can get the team performing with more energy, creativity and just look like they're having fun out there. 

Also worth noting Southgate's own words from that article:

"If we don’t win, I probably won’t be here any more,” he told Bild. “So maybe it is the last chance. I think around half the national coaches leave after a tournament — that’s the nature of international football.

“I’ve been here almost eight years now and we’ve come close. You can’t constantly put yourself in front of the public and say, ‘A little more please’, as at some point people lose faith. If we want to be a great team and I want to be a top coach, you must deliver in big moments.”

Edited July 14 by DE.

[roverandout]

1 minute ago, roversfan99 said:

He was the best manager in our history yesterday.

I think he's done an incredible job. I said earlier that I was contradicting myself.  But his record in finals or semi final he's come up short 

[bluebruce]

1 hour ago, M_B said:

Only to those that doubt it. 

Why would those doubting it, overrule those that don't doubt it? 

And vice versa. Saying it's beyond doubt, or words to that effect, implies nobody can doubt it. Well they do. It would have been more accurate to say 'I have no doubt he's the greatest'

[Upside Down]

5 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

He was the best manager in our history yesterday.

I had to swerve this thread for a bit.

Between Southgate being the best English manager of all time and grown adults militantly refusing to understand basic life concepts like luck, it was getting really really ridiculous.

Hopefully we'll get back to planet earth now.

I said Southgate wasn't good enough and I was proven right.

[damo100]

4 hours ago, Upside Down said:

I had to swerve this thread for a bit.

Between Southgate being the best English manager of all time and grown adults militantly refusing to understand basic life concepts like luck, it was getting really really ridiculous.

Hopefully we'll get back to planet earth now.

I said Southgate wasn't good enough and I was proven right.

Good post, it was always obvious  

[Herbie6590]

6 hours ago, K-Hod said:

A lot of this rests on the manager too. Why can Guardiola get more from him than Southgate? Spoiler alert;

Guardiola is a proper manager.

He can also play him alongside better players than Southgate can…

[ABBEY]

7 hours ago, Forever Blue said:

In nearly 100 years of tournament football we’ve got to 3 major tournaments finals. Gareth has got us to 2 of those. 
 

These are the facts. 
 

 

 

 

and won fuck all ..facts

[RTM08]

I saw someone saying Gareth was better than Sven because he got to finals. Sven lost to a generational Brazil team, was robbed in 2004 by a refereeing decision and admittedly was poor in 2006.

But Gareth loses every one of those games too. He is tactically inept but manages to scrape past poor teams through moments of brilliance and luck.

[M_B]

7 hours ago, Upside Down said:

I had to swerve this thread for a bit.

Between Southgate being the best English manager of all time and grown adults militantly refusing to understand basic life concepts like luck, it was getting really really ridiculous.

Hopefully we'll get back to planet earth now.

I said Southgate wasn't good enough and I was proven right.

The top and bottom of it is, that it's a lot easier for grown adults to put it down to luck, rather than accept he's done a whole lot better than they ever thought he would. 

Edited July 15 by M_B

[Claytons Left Boot]

There is one statistic that, as far as I am aware, is never shown either during or after games. It’s a stat that can be split into two :-

Short goal kicks taken - x %    Long goal kicks taken - y %

Spain are masters of having the confidence and technical ability to play the ball out from the back. They take virtually every goal kick short. Most of the other continental sides do as well, even the smaller and less gifted nations like Slovenia, Slovakia and the rest. The above stat is effectively a measure of each team’s ability to play this way.

Once the opening exchanges were out the way, Spain played a high press and when we were taking our goal kicks short, there was little margin for error and we inevitable lost possession before we’d got too far. The longer the game went on, the more we reverted to Pickford having to boot the ball upfield. I can see the logic in that; it’s better to lose the ball deep into their half rather than on the edge of our own box. But the reality of long goal kicks is that it’s a way to hand over possession. 

In general play, Spain were comfortable on the ball, passed it around well and ended up with 65% possession. They probed and looked for openings and had the better of all the other stats such as shots, shots on goal and corners. We had spells in the game where we were good and put them under pressure but they were few and far between. As in previous games, we were much better when Cole came on because he takes the game to the opposition and puts them on the back foot but it wasn’t enough.

I hate this modern way of playing football or should I call it Pep-ball? I started watching professional football in the mid 60s and I’m the wrong generation. Football was changing then from 2-3-5 to 4-2-4, 4-3-3 and 4-4-2. It’s now become even more complex with all the additional formations, zonal marking and players having to be comfortable in a number of positions. It’s become like a game of chess with, at times, players having to beat their man whilst running towards their own goal rather than the one they’re trying to score in.

Nevertheless, that’s the way the game has gone. The continental way of playing has morphed, over the years, into Pep-ball. We’ve been playing catch-up for ever and a day and we’re still not there yet. Until we can match the technical ability of teams like Spain, Germany, France and Italy, the wait for another tournament win will continue.
 

[jim mk2]

7 hours ago, roverandout said:

I think he's done an incredible job. I said earlier that I was contradicting myself.  But his record in finals or semi final he's come up short 

You mean he’s won nothing ….,  in contrast to Sir Alf

[jim mk2]

5 minutes ago, Claytons Left Boot said:

There is one statistic that, as far as I am aware, is never shown either during or after games. It’s a stat that can be split into two :-

Short goal kicks taken - x %    Long goal kicks taken - y %

Spain are masters of having the confidence and technical ability to play the ball out from the back. They take virtually every goal kick short. Most of the other continental sides do as well, even the smaller and less gifted nations like Slovenia, Slovakia and the rest. The above stat is effectively a measure of each team’s ability to play this way.

Once the opening exchanges were out the way, Spain played a high press and when we were taking our goal kicks short, there was little margin for error and we inevitable lost possession before we’d got too far. The longer the game went on, the more we reverted to Pickford having to boot the ball upfield. I can see the logic in that; it’s better to lose the ball deep into their half rather than on the edge of our own box. But the reality of long goal kicks is that it’s a way to hand over possession. 

In general play, Spain were comfortable on the ball, passed it around well and ended up with 65% possession. They probed and looked for openings and had the better of all the other stats such as shots, shots on goal and corners. We had spells in the game where we were good and put them under pressure but they were few and far between. As in previous games, we were much better when Cole came on because he takes the game to the opposition and puts them on the back foot but it wasn’t enough.

I hate this modern way of playing football or should I call it Pep-ball? I started watching professional football in the mid 60s and I’m the wrong generation. Football was changing then from 2-3-5 to 4-2-4, 4-3-3 and 4-4-2. It’s now become even more complex with all the additional formations, zonal marking and players having to be comfortable in a number of positions. It’s become like a game of chess with, at times, players having to beat their man whilst running towards their own goal rather than the one they’re trying to score in.

Nevertheless, that’s the way the game has gone. The continental way of playing has morphed, over the years, into Pep-ball. We’ve been playing catch-up for ever and a day and we’re still not there yet. Until we can match the technical ability of teams like Spain, Germany, France and Italy, the wait for another tournament win will continue.
 

Yet Spain played with 2 wingers - a very old fashioned way of playing and something you don’t see often these days. They also play at a higher pace than us. By biggest criticism of England this tournament is that we were too slow and laboured and  therefore were easy to defend against. 

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

Southgate had a better side this tournament compared to other major European nations, than most of his predecessors and we looked no better than normal.

We got to the final due to a fortuitous draw and as soon as we came into contact with a good team, we were comfortably beaten. 

Southgate failed to fully utilise the squad and mostly stuck with players who looked fatigued and not at their best. He was relying on our best players to produce moments of magic which was only ever going to take us so far. 

Gareth has made us harder to beat and took us deeper into tournaments than we’ve been used to, but given the talent available to him and our repeated inability to beat better teams, there is plenty of room for improvement.

Time for change.