Yeah, Rashford did everything right, right up until he kicked the ball. Which I know is the main bit of it. But you could see why he was taking it. Even seasoned penalty pro Jorginho missed his, so anyone can fuck it up.
I will sign your petition.
It doesn’t go hand in hand does it. We don’t have to have a manager to replace him in order to know he needs replacing. We could also say any name in football worldwide. They’d have had as much experience or success as Southgate before he was appointed so what’s the difference?
Well yeah, but it was saved because it was a shit penalty. From someone who is normally reliable.
Yep. I get some of the criticism of Southgate such as not changing things a bit earlier when Italy were on top, perhaps being a little too defensive in the tournament, not giving certain players enough game time, etc, but what I won't have is this notion that he "parked the bus" in the 2nd half because Italy came back into it and had us on the ropes. It always makes me laugh when people assume that a team that does well in the first half of a game and takes the lead, only for the other team to come back into it in the second half, means that the former deliberately stopped playing the way they were playing. No - that's football and the other team are actually entitled to play well themselves at some point in the game. There are passages of play where one team is dominant and then the other team come back into it. And if that latter team happens to be a very good team with a very good manager - like Italy - then they have a better chance of forcing you onto the back foot and getting back into the game. Italy pushing us back in the second half doesn't equate to us parking the bus, and if it is then that means Mancini parked the bus in the first half hour when England were causing them all sorts of problems. But he didn't - it just so happened that England started off better and Italy were struggling to get a foothold until later in the half. The second half was, in effect, a reversal of roles.
The difference is that you're talking about replacing a manager who has just got to a final and got to a semi-final last time, who clearly has a great relationship with the players. It reminds me of Spurs getting rid of Poch because they think he's the reason they aren't winning stuff, only to find that the proven manager they bring in to replace him is actually much shitter. It's a level of entitlement that England fans have no right to have given our history.
Not entitlement however not winning tournaments isn’t success is it. World Cup we probably overachieved however we literally played nobody. Played Belgium twice and lost both times then lost to Croatia.
We were totally dominant against Croatia as well. The Czech game was a bit closer but we deserved the win in that one too, and created plenty in the Denmark game. The only game we rode our luck in was the Scotland game, but England were deserved winners of all our knockout games, and as good as Italy are, they can count themselves fortunate to get past Spain in the semis. Few teams play well in every single game on the way to a final, and I can't think of any other teams who deserved to be in the final more than England and Italy.
Agree with that up to a point but in the second half when it became clear that an Italy goal was only a matter of time, I would have liked to see our manager react and do something even if it didn’t work. As it was, he just sat on his hands until they scored then appeared to double down on the “what we have we hold” strategy by making negative substitutions.
Sergio got more shit for his miss against Chelsea. At least Sergio had his fantastic career in the bank. Rashford thinks he untouchable. The rag deserves every bit of shit which imo will not materialise as it will be swept under the rag carpet
There is zero evidence that Southgate "forced" players in taking a penalty. He confirmed he knew the first 5 before full time based on the penalty taking in training and when penalties arrived he probably asked that 5 if they were up for it and all 5 would of said yes. So no need to change the line up
