Italy v England | Euro 2020 Final

[elbearos]

Had Italy kept the ball at the end, I the two England subs would have been standing there like lemons.
And to bring on two subs just before a corner is madness

 

[Tommy_Catons_Perm]

There seem to be three different methods of deciding the penalty takers according to Bluemoon.

1. Southgate should have asked the players if they wanted to take a pen.
2. Southgate should have chosen the players and TOLD them to take penalties.
3. The player themselves should have decided, regardless of what Southgate thought, and just grabbed a ball and taken a pen.

Bluemoon should have had a poll at the end of extra time to decide. Southgate should then have looked at the results of the poll and done as he was advised.

And England would now be European Champions.

 

[hilts]

Not sure why so many are getting worked up over the pens there is no way to get around the fact its high pressure and even the best can miss. We don't have 5 players like a shearer or yaya who are the exception.

Whoever the 5 were the result could have been the same. The concern is how bad the actual quality of play was in the games themselves.

 

[The blue phantom]

It’s clear Southgate tells them the order to take the Pens, he got it wrong and it’s clear Grealish and Sterling both nodded on that clip both said yes and then they were told the order in which to take them.

Evidence is right there, Let's hope the blues calling him out have the bollocks to apologise.

 

[hilts]

There seem to be three different methods of deciding the penalty takers according to Bluemoon.

1. Southgate should have asked the players if they wanted to take a pen.
2. Southgate should have chosen the players and TOLD them to take penalties.
3. The player themselves should have decided, regardless of what Southgate thought, and just grabbed a ball and taken a pen.

Bluemoon should have had a poll at the end of extra time to decide. Southgate should then have looked at the results of the poll and done as he was advised.

And England would now be European Champions.

Asking players at the time is the sane option in fairness.

 

[give it to gordon]

I said it last night and the more I think about it the pissed of I get ( and I dont really follow England )

But with the two Italians centre halfs on yellow cards for about 60 minutes. Why didnt Southgate go at them ?

Grealish left wing, Sancho right right, Sterling central forward all with instructions to run at the centre halfs. But them under pressure to commit fouls.

But no Southgate stuck with Kane who played straight into the Italians hands.

At no point throughout this tournament did Southgate go for it. It was boring football, and when teams put England under pressure hoofball would return. Yet in some games England kept the ball well.

 

[tornandfrayed]

He's not that bad - this was in a cup final at Wembley

Scored less than half of what he has took. Missed two at Wolves, dinked one horribly I think over the bar too. I reckon he’s missed his last 3 or 4 easily on the spin. He’s just not very good or consistently good at them. Don’t have to leap to his defence.

I don't really care if he takes penalties for England or not. However it's clear he does have it in him to take a good penalty in a pressure situation.

 

[kaz7]

I said it last night and the more I think about it the pissed of I get ( and I dont really follow England )

But with the two Italians centre halfs on yellow cards for about 60 minutes. Why did Southgate go at them ?

Grealish left wing, Sancho right right, Sterling central forward all with instructions to run at the centre halfs. But them under pressure to commit fouls.

But no Southgate stuck with Kane who played straight into the Italians hands.

At no point throughout this tournament did Southgate go for it. It was boring football, and when teams but England under pressure hoofball would return. Yet in some games England kept the ball well.

I got it in the neck for saying he is too scared to use creative plays , weeks ago ,he is a boring , safe fa man

 

[BringBackSwales]

Been at work all dayso just catching up, was hearing on the radio on the drive in that probably hundreds, and maybe thousands, of ticketless fans got into the game, and in a lot of cases made it thoroughly unpleasant for families etc with shite behaviour. It made me think, when the rag scrotes broke into their own stadium and behaved like cunts but weren’t condemned for it by the media, I wonder how much that influenced the same behaviour last night?

 

[Stopfordia]

The 11 England players on the pitch at the end of extra time:

Pickford
Stones
Maguire
Shaw
Phillips
Rashford
Sterling
Saka
Sancho
Grealish
Kane

Out of that lot, who screams 'definite penalty taker/scorer'? Kane is one, obviously, and I would say Rashford as well - he's taken them at club level and he scored a penalty in one of the pre-tournament friendlies. After that, you're struggling a bit - Sancho has scored a few for Dortmund but isn't their regular penalty taker, Grealish doesn't take pens for Villa, Sterling has a poor record at club level. So basically you're relying on confidence and what they've shown in training. The mistake was probably having Saka as the final taker - if he and Rashford had swapped places it might have worked out better. I seem to remember reading somewhere that you want your best penalty takers either first, so you get off to a good start, or last, in case you need to score to win - probably why Italy had Jorginho as the final taker. Italy also had three players (Berardi, Bellotti, Jorginho) who were regular penalty takers and scorers for their clubs, which gave them an advantage - and yes I know Pickford saved two of those players' penalties!

I suspect Southgate is saying that he picked the penalty takers because if he'd said something like 'I asked them who wanted to take a penalty and Saka put himself forward' he'd have been slaughtered for throwing a young player under the bus. I'm sure he wouldn't have picked somebody who didn't feel confident taking a penalty - maybe Saka overestimated his own abilities. Let's face it, plenty of players, both experienced and inexperienced, have done this.

Finally, the constant droning on about Southgate being awful and negative is getting really boring - perhaps people could start suggesting potential replacements (and no, 'I dunno, someone else' will not cut it). Although since nobody ever seems to suggest who might do a better job, it looks like the standard 'I want the manager gone - I don't really care who replaces him as long as he goes' sort of rant. Which is okay up to a point, but it's an odd sort of complaint when said manager has just done what no England manager - whether good, bad or indifferent - has done for 55 years and got to a final. If we'd been turfed out at the group stages for the last two international tournaments I could understand this, but on the back of a final and semi-final, after years of underachieving? Tough crowd...

 

[give it to gordon]

I got it in the neck for saying he is too scared to use creative plays , weeks ago ,he is a boring , safe fa man

Agree I dont understand why the press/media arent calling him out. He has had two tournaments in which England have had an easy route.

Everyone can see Southgate is clueless and out of his depth, apart from the British press/media and fa lol

I honestly dont think southgate knows how to use Foden and Grealish. Why was mount left wing to start yesterday. I struggled to see what Mount brought to the team. Yet when he did pick Foden he had to play right wing, when at City he's on the left keeping Sterling out ! . Than last night out of no where Mount is left wing Sterling right wing why didn't he do that for Foden ?.

 

[The Black Shed]

Kane didn't have a single touch in the opposition penalty area for the entire game (apparently) and that was our problem in a nutshell, zero creativity. Yeah we scored early with a flowing move that sliced open the Italians. Great, but that was it, they were rocked and England just couldn't replicate it. Mount was ineffective and should have been pulled at h/t. Rice was playing his best game and Bluehammer will testify that he may as well been wearing claret and blue last night, cos that's how he plays normally. But he got subbed. Grealish not played from the start and with effectively eight defensive players at the start the game was only going to pan out the way it did. Saka has never taken a penalty before and subbing on Rashford and Sancho as basically American football kickers, with seconds left to get up to speed was frankly ridiculous. That may be England's only chance at a final for many more years, so why not fucking go for it?

 

[kaz7]

Agree I dont understand why the press/media arent calling him out. He has had two tournaments in which England have had an easy route.

Everyone can see Southgate is clueless and out of his depth, apart from the British press/media and fa lol

I honestly dont think southgate knows how to use Foden and Grealish. Why was mount left wing to start yesterday. I struggled to see what Mount brought to the team. Yet when he did pick Foden he had to play right wing, when at City he's on the left keeping Sterling out ! . Than last night out of no where Mount is left wing Sterling right wing why didn't he do that for Foden ?.

He reckons he is pep , putting people in places they shouldnt be , i think he is really over estimated , fair enough they got to the final but i am not sure how much was actually down to him

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

So he was City's 5th choice pen taker - he may have been Southgate's 6th or 7th or 8th choice

Yeah, if the pens had stalled at 5-5 then one of the others was in line to miss!

 

[AlgarveBlu]

The poor kid will be forever remembered for that miss and Waistcoat of all people should have known better

To be fair to him though he did spend some time with him explaining how best to commercialise from the miss - only question now is Dominoes or Pizza Hut?

 

[bluethrunthru]

what ever the post mortem the actions of that mob last night - the booing of anthems and knee taking - the racial abuse on line of our own players and those from Italy has probably put paid to us hosting and international tournament any time soon.....

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Unless he scored and we went on to win.

Thing is, I don't get why this is about Saka v Sterling, there were 5 other players on the pitch who didn't take one.

I've just posted that the pens could have got to 11-11 and everyone would have had a go. Would they start again or let the backroom staff come on? Mancini to score 'n Southgate to launch it into Wembers car park.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Don’t think he did, top binned one at Watford which was great. He’s also tried to dink one and fluffed it, missed one at wolves, got the chance to retake and missed it again. His record is poor and will be why Southgate wouldn’t have had him in the top 5.

just checked and says he scored one so you’re right. His penalties since then have been poor and maybe the reason behind not being included

I think we have at MCFC the longest line of failed pen takers.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Just wanted to mention Jordan Pickford's performance in the shoot out. Thought he was excellent and credit to, to the England goalkeeping coach Martyn Margetson.....

Pickford's actually a good shot stopper (except when he chooses to scoop the ball back from just over his bar in order to put it into his net). The problem isn't there. The problem, which was glaringly obvious last night, and has been intermittently throughout the tournament, is that his distribution is brainless. It's true that we've been spoilt by having one of the most cultured midfielders in the PL in nets for the past few seasons.
Anyway, Pickford's the best we've got.

 

[lazerblue]

Had Italy kept the ball at the end, I the two England subs would have been standing there like lemons.
And to bring on two subs just before a corner is madness

it's bad enough bringing one sub on while defending a corner unless it's a 6' 5" center half but to bring two on was schoolboy stuff, i said to my lad at the time i thought he'd lost the plot