Stiff Little Wingers
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 25 Aug 2010
- Messages
- 2,297
I think this needs to be viewed as a 5 year cycle with Southgate. I’ve been impressed by him and for the first time in many years I actually like the team and even the Rags have contributed to that. I think GS is brave to try to play possession football and work through the field but clearly it’s going to take some time and the team needs to fine tune their mentality.I'd say better than expected but lost to the first decent team. ;-)
At least the squad can get better, which you couldn't really say about them after a couple of recent World Cups.
First half was good today. The game was there for us then but we missed the chances and lacked the midfield passing to create more. Second half their tactical changes worked really well and we were not able to react- if you want to play possession based you have to be brave enough to keep the ball and also get it back quicker, because our midfield limitations were shown up the game often became attack v defence and I have to say I thought Stones and Walker were excellent.
However with that amount of probing and switching of angles chances will come and so they did for the Croatians.
John was culpable for the goal- the danger instinct which I thought he had really improved during this tournament deserted him. It will always be something of s balance with him but if he takes the commanding England form into this season he will be a
colossal player.
Interesting to see Mandzukic did very little all game yet twice appeared in the 6 yard box and almost had 2. That’s one of the areas we lack in that we don’t create those types of chances often enough.
And for Southgated system to work we need a couple of good instinctive passers in the midfield but don’t know where they are.