Italy v England | Euro 2020 Final

[Marvin]

I thought this was a good move putting Raheem there as i thought he could really test Emerson with his pace, but it didn't really happen. Overall i thought Emerson wasn't tested enough and he had a decent game.

As for Mount, i just don't see what he brings and he didn't have any influence on the game. I thought Grealish, Rashford or Sancho should've been brought on early in the 2nd half when Italy started to take control.

I thought England would win the final because I couldn't see how Italy's aging defenders were going to deal with Sterling but Southgate stuck to his guns and played 2 wings backs, and 2 defensive midfielders and as a result England were defensively solid but couldn't retain possession. You can't criticise any forwards.

Southgate's tactics are effective but limited. Watching Italy v England was like watching Manchester City play Crystal Palace or some other bus parker. The irony is that England for the first time in ages do have talented midfielders in Mount, FOden and Grealish. Any 1 or 2 could and should have started and maybe one of Grealish or Rice. If City played such a system we wouldn't have it. England fans tolerated it because it worked but it's the most defensive set-up I have ever seen from an English coach.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

I thought this was a good move putting Raheem there as i thought he could really test Emerson with his pace, but it didn't really happen. Overall i thought Emerson wasn't tested enough and he had a decent game.

As for Mount, i just don't see what he brings and he didn't have any influence on the game. I thought Grealish, Rashford or Sancho should've been brought on early in the 2nd half when Italy started to take control.

Mount was running a lot but adding little in value. He wasn’t involved in the only time we played 3 (5) at the back but then we experiment with him in and Sterling in a position he’s not started in all tournament.

We were very poor, and with playing a disconnected 8 - 3 ratio, once Mancini found it out we were up against it. It was obvious that we needed to change it up, it just didn’t come.

 

[MarsLlama]

Thought Mount was useless and Saka also offered too little.

If Mount is playing in midfield for his work rate then that's a bit better, but he spent half the game on the left, where Grealish would have been perfect.

There is one (relevant) thing connecting the three who missed penalties and it's nothing to do with race. All three got no goals or assists at this tournament. Ideally you want your takers to be guys who've had great tournaments and will be high on confidence. For example, Maguire and Kane smashed theirs in. I know it's all guesswork but I can picture Rice and Phillips just hammering in penalties.

I don't want to jump on the Rashford hate bandwagon but he should have known better than to stare down the 'keeper for ages and take a long run up. Mind games against someone as good as Donnarumma are just as likely to put off the taker as they are the 'keeper. Really wish he hadn't done that.

If Grealish is truthfully saying that he wanted to take one and Southgate decided to give it to Sancho, Saka and Rashford before him, that's an awful decision.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

He looked enormous last night compared to pickford inthe shootout.probably scared the life out of the england players

Indeed he did. Pickford's saves were actually technically better than Donnarumma, because he had more work to do and couldn't rely on size and intimidating aura.

Pickford's ratio for penalty saves is a little better than 1 in 5. Hopefully he takes this experience and builds on it.

 

[MarsLlama]

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

Yeah because that's how it works.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

If Mount is playing in midfield for his work rate then that's a bit better, but he spent half the game on the left, where Grealish would have been perfect.

Was Grealish ever fit enough to start?

I'm convinced he wasn't, as he never played more than 30 mins in each game.

 

[MarsLlama]

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

I'm as big a fan of Raheem Sterling as you're likely to find, but bloody hell he is awful at penalties. The video clearly shows he agreed to take one last night, but I would not have blamed him one bit if he'd said no because to put yourself forward for something knowing you're likely going to fuck it up is just dumb.

 

[MarsLlama]

Was Grealish ever fit enough to start?

I'm convinced he wasn't, as he never played more than 30 mins in each game.

I don't think we have any good reason to think that wasn't just because Southgate doesn't rate him. He started vs Czech Republic and was good.

 

[Ribble73]

But enough with the compliments, we must also have some flaws mate.

Anyway about yesterday's game; going by your comments, one thing Englishmen seem to not have grasped yet is that there's no such thing as a team "deserving" to win. If we'd lost on penalties to you guys we wouldn't have deserved to win just because we had more chances, possession or attacking football. You win if you score more goals than the opponent, simple as. We know that very well. There's no consolation prize for "chances not scored". Obviously if you have more of the ball it's more likely that you'll manage to put it in the net, but if you have no striker (us all tournament with Immobile being invisible and an utter disgrace) it surely complicates things. I can tell you yesterday was a very frustrating watch for you and us both, albeit for different reasons. As a side note, it was clear to everyone that you had the best squad of the two.

I'm obviously over the moon for the boys (Chiello in particular) and for Mancio though, and I'm also happy that Chiesa managed to shine and show his character during these games. It's actually funny how quickly I've warmed up to Mancini ever since he's become the NT coach, despite him being a former Inter manager. He's both reserved and very intense.

Regarding Southgate's decisions during the match; just like everyone else I found it odd when he sent on Sancho and Rashford for penalties at the last minute, because young wing-strikers would never be my choice, especially with no game-time in their legs. Apart from that, from an outsider's perspective he's always seemed quite classy and nice throughout the Euros, but he seems still somewhat shaky on game-management decisions. He doesn't look like a very assertive figure. The fact is that he has a squad that's packed full of young talented players and to manage that you have to be very sure of yourself and have very clear roles, hierarchy and gameplan in mind, otherwise it's always going to turn into shaky, "wing it during the match" type of decisions. But that's just my two cents and tbf I know very little about Southgate or the English squad's internal dynamics. Let's say that he fits your team because he's not old; he's eager and somewhat inexperienced so he can grow together with the team, but that didn't necessarily make him the best choice for immediate success of course.

Cheers for your input and Congratulations to undoubtedly the best team in the Tournament -who actually won it this time for once. Your point is undoubtedly true in that our MCFC Robbie Manc schooled Southgate -but Italian players are far more tactically savvy than our boys and so it proved.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Sterling has taken 9 penalties throughout his career and scored 4.
Not very good is it.....

Indeed.

 

[levets]

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 ?.

This is the only dissenter …

JEFF POWELL: At the final hurdle, Gareth Southgate got it wrong

JEFF POWELL: Champions don't take the field with the aim of avoiding defeat. And you win nothing with kids. Gareth Southgate got it wrong from start to finish on Sunday.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Zinchilla]

He did really well Southgate. Nevertheless, but for a lack of ambition, a willingness to take a risk, the creativity to make the best use of the talent on the pitch and the nouse to adapt as the situation unfolded - England could well have succeeded last night.

Not sure England have the talent - yet - which the media think they have & not sure Southgate yet knows how to play Foden and Grealish. Most championship winning teams have a top class, intelligent deeper central midfielder conducting the tempo, breaking things up - Jorginho, Kante, busquets, schweinstieger, Pirlo, Gilberto Silva, deschamps. England don’t have that player yet. In time it might be Rice or Bellingham (he’s only 17);)

 

[Pingu the Penguin]

Not sure England have the talent - yet - which the media think they have & not sure Southgate yet knows how to play Foden and Grealish. Most championship winning teams have a top class, intelligent deeper central midfielder conducting the tempo, breaking things up - Jorginho, Kante, busquets, schweinstieger, Pirlo, Gilberto Silva, deschamps. England don’t have that player yet. In time it might be Rice or Bellingham (he’s only 17);)

I think you’re right on grealish and foden. Instinctively he wants to prioritise defensive solidness and he has in hi head that they will spread the ball around, cede possession, and threaten that. Does he not watch Phil for city?

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

I think you’re right on grealish and foden. Instinctively he wants to prioritise defensive solidness and he has in hi head that they will spread the ball around, cede possession, and threaten that. Does he not watch Phil for city?

The game plan also includes winning as many free kicks as possible so they can lump it in the box for Maguire. It leads to all the players looking for free kicks as often as possible. That stifles what they do as they are being told to go down at every touch.

 

[Ribble73]

I'm as big a fan of Raheem Sterling as you're likely to find, but bloody hell he is awful at penalties. The video clearly shows he agreed to take one last night, but I would not have blamed him one bit if he'd said no because to put yourself forward for something knowing you're likely going to fuck it up is

Southgate has proved himself managing a Tournament -which is his big selling point -but is hopeless when it comes to actually winning a big game. When have we beat a heavyweight under him??

 

[Zinchilla]

The game plan also includes winning as many free kicks as possible so they can lump it in the box for Maguire. It leads to all the players looking for free kicks as often as possible. That stifles what they do as they are being told to go down at every touch.

Yep, and the general hoofing it up front from the 30th minute on. Question is does Southgate have low expectations of his central midfielders and therefore sets up the team to simply try and neutralise the opposition - aping Austria when they played Italy - or is Sunday his default setting? Time will tell & the away games against Hungary and Poland in September will be telling.

 

[Bill Walker]

Mainly decent in the PL and a couple of standout games, but nowhere near a regular game changer and often has a tendency to either go missing or run around a lot and produce very little. Very telling that Lampard had no real praise for him last night.

He gave the ball away several times the worst was when Raheem Sterling attempted to do a 1 2 with him, his return pass to Sterling was pathetic and easily picked up by an Italian player allowing them to attack once again.

The whole game management by Gareth Boregate was terrible, everyone could see that Italy we're going to equalise and the the plonker did nothing about it ...all that fucking attacking talent on the bench and the thick idiot does nothing.
Then he gets a kid to take the deciding penalty instead of a seasoned pro like Kyle Walker or Luke Shaw who had already scored a blinder of a volley.

The whole thing was an absolute balls up. Southgate had every advantage to win this thing under the sun home games home support it even fucking rained for him.

I definitely will not be watching the world cup if Southgate is still the manager, 7 defensive players every game is complete bollocks.
I assume he will still be manager, no way the FA will sack him as he is their clueless yes man.

 

[Bill Walker]

Anyone with a twitter account, report this racist ****.



'Ngubu' is a derogatory term used online to describe black players.

His whole account is full of white supremacy. 17 thousand fucking followers, 1.5k likes on that tweet. What the fuck is wrong with the world?

Why do you go on Twitter the place is full of idiots and racists.
What's the point ?

 

[BlueMoonz1977]

Well not a bad tournament, but as many have said the draw opened up for us and made the final.

That said, we started excellently and i thought at the time we would steam roll a panicked Italian team in that 1st half

But we allowed the Italians back in and after half time Bobby showed the gulf in managerial class by changing it, and Italy dominated.

Southgate is way to conservative and prioritised defence over flair/attack to much for me. We have till November to get the balance right, but i fear southgate will stick to his safety first way of playing - hopefully he can prove me wrong

One thing is for sure next year at the World Cup, it is going to hot/humid so we best start to control the ball and games a lot more instead of chasing it

 

[I'm With Stupid]

You can only play what’s in front of you. The pattern with Southgate is when playing a good team England don’t win. Top manager

I posted that list in response to someone who posted a list of the shit teams Southgate has beaten, just to show that even the best international manager has the same list of wins against poor countries and then 2 or 3 big wins.

I think it's slightly revisionist to say that Southgate doesn't beat big teams. It's the classic thing of if we lose against a big team, it's another failure against a big team, but if we beat one (Germany or Croatia, for example), then we're lucky to have faced them when they were shit. But it's always the case that most of the big teams aren't as good as they were at their peak. Every tournament you'll get maybe 2 or 3 genuinely top teams, a few dark horses, and a bunch of big nations who are underperforming by historical standards. If we wanted to twist it for Italy like we have to England, we could say that they only beat the worst Spain squad in decades (and made a meal of it), and an aging Belgium team full of injuries. It's bollocks, of course, but so is downplaying beating Germany (comfortable), Croatia (finalists 3 years ago) and Denmark (who some were tipping to win the thing).

Of course the main argument is that if England and Southgate are so shit, why were Italy and Mancini unable to beat us in 120 minutes? Maybe it's that we're not quite as shit as people like to make out.