England wasting one of the most talented squads ever assembled on Southgate

[Bruno37]

Copy what Klopp does?
Rashford a quality player?

Against Australia at Wembley, Southgate played TAA as a RB who inverted/roamed into midfield - copying what Klopp was doing with TAA. It didn't work, Southgate was just copy and pasting - even against Australia - it was embarrassing watching - Phillips and Henderson starting at home in a friendly, the because Southgate need TAA in the side he wants to copy Klopp and try play TAA as an inverted RB....

Rashford - he has been awful every time I watched him. He scored a goal against Italy I think in the last International round up, so he's not let Southgate down. There is something mentally cooked in him though, he's letting his career piss down the drain.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Nothing will ever match that!

You’d better not check how many matches we’re on! ;-)

I think drawing in Northern Macedonia to complete this magnificent feat sums it up really. Decent but not great.

We’ll be fine before we go out to Portugal in the Quarter Finals on Penalties.

 

[Phil1]

Copy what Klopp does?
Rashford a quality player?

My spider senses tell me that the Bruno in his username might be in homage to a certain goofy **** who plays in Trafford..

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

My spider senses tell me that the Bruno in his username might be in homage to a certain goofy **** who plays in Trafford..

He’s trying to hide it behind suggesting he’s a Newcastle fan and they have a Bruno too, if you know what I mean, Harry.

Shame he’s got his squad number wrong though.

 

[Phil1]

He’s trying to hide it behind suggesting he’s a Newcastle fan and they have a Bruno too, if you know what I mean, Harry.

Shame he’s got his squad number wrong though.

My spider senses are sometimes dulled after sinking 3 bottles of red wine to help me get through that fucking shite so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.. hic! :-)

 

[Barcon]

Copy what Klopp does?
Rashford a quality player?

I think he's taking the piss out of southgate for playing arnold in midfield like klopper does.
As for the rashford comment. I think he might be high.

 

[Crooked_rain]

Arnold should be nowhere near the England midfield.

He's been shoehorned into teams in midfield because he's a shite right back but he's a poor midfield too. He has no sense of positioning, no real ability to control a game. He's good a nice right foot if he has all the time and space to use it, otherwise he's pretty useless and contributes nothing.

A good experienced midfield would completely destroy us in midfield if Arnold plays. I can only hope Southgate doesn't start him in major games.


As for Rashford, he needed dropping from the squad completely. If he gets himself in good form and gets back in on merit then no problem, but he should be nowhere near the squad right now. He offers nothing for either his club or country as it stands.


Maguire shouldn't play. Not only is he a liability, he is way too slow at distribung the ball and getting things moving. He's a liability too though, he nearly put the team in real danger a few times by passing it to their players and leaving the defence exposed. Do that when you're facing someone a quality player in a big game and he's going to punish you. He does it too often.

 

[Bruno37]

There is no way that Southgate is going to play a 4 then two 8's as a midfield.

Southgate is still trying to get Boro out of the Championship.

 

[hilts]

Happen to think Steve Holland is the brainchild behind this England team. He was the influence for Southgate to play 3 at the back in 2018WC - with Walker at RCB. Wonder where he got that idea from - Conte/Chelsea/Azplicueta....

If you have spent time with Jose Rafa and Conte you are going to be one boring pragmatic fucker.
Add in a boring bearded waistcoat wearing dullard wanker who was a centre half for Middlesbrough and holy dull shit Batman springs to mind.

 

[Crooked_rain]

There is no way that Southgate is going to play a 4 then two 8's as a midfield.

Southgate is still trying to get Boro out of the Championship.

Which they probably wouldn't have ended up in had they not employed him. He took over a decent team that qualified for Europe the 2 previous seasons, including a UEFA Cup final months before he got the job had been an established premier league team for 10 years.

He sent them spiralling down to the 2nd tier.

Incredible that he manages England when that's his club CV.

 

[Crooked_rain]

If you have spent time with Jose Rafa and Conte you are going to be one boring pragmatic fucker.
Add in a boring bearded waistcoat wearing dullard wanker who was a centre half for Middlesbrough and holy dull shit Batman springs to mind.

But there's always a misconception that Mourinho always had boring teams, which isn't the case at all.

he actually had some very good teams that scored a lot of goals but he still knew how to set up a team to be pragmatic and defend well while having the firepower to actually becomes successful. That's why he was good.

The problem is lesser managers only take part of that approach and thinking being pragmatic brings success but often not the case because you still have to go and beat teams too. That's where Southgate and Holland fell short in the world cup semi and the euro final and lost winning positions.

A successful manager like Mourinho would have succeeded from a winning position in at least one of those games. Even if he was pragmatic, he still has a room full of trophies because managers like that also know how to put teams to bed.

 

[Blue Til Death]

Yet again Southgate didn’t have the courage to take his waistcoat off against an international minnow, he’s a complete joke and is the epitome of how statistics can show something nobody else (apart from Bluehammer) can see…
He’s out of his depth and he’s completely nullifying the best squad of players England have produced in a generation…!!

 

[supercity88]

But there's always a misconception that Mourinho always had boring teams, which isn't the case at all.

he actually had some very good teams that scored a lot of goals but he still knew how to set up a team to be pragmatic and defend well while having the firepower to actually becomes successful. That's why he was good.

The problem is lesser managers only take part of that approach and thinking being pragmatic brings success but often not the case because you still have to go and beat teams too. That's where Southgate and Holland fell short in the world cup semi and the euro final and lost winning positions.

A successful manager like Mourinho would have succeeded from a winning position in at least one of those games. Even if he was pragmatic, he still has a room full of trophies because managers like that also know how to put teams to bed.

100%. Mourinho at Porto, Chelsea and Inter was tactically brilliant. His team goes 1-0 up in the Euros final they win the game. We were under the cosh for a long time, but Southgate was afraid to change things. Their equaliser was coming for a long time and because we were playing 5 at the back, we were penned in with no out ball. Rice and Phillips couldn't get a foot on the ball or give any control. Kane wants the ball to feet, which was easy for Italy to deal with. Same for Mount. And Sterling was then the only real threat in behind. It clearly needed a change to stop them camping in our half. We needed more pace on to ensure that if they did commit players forward we could counter.

The WC semi against Croatia could have gone either way, he definitely was too slow to make changes again but we had chances in that game to get the job done and a bit like in the last WC against France sometimes it just doesn't happen - it's fine margins in tournament football and it's easy to say he should have done this or that. It's the fact he doesn't seem to learn from mistakes that is frustrating. TAA not dominating midfield against Malta should have put that plan in the bin.

I do think there's mitigation for some of his decisions though. I think most of us would like to see Stones playing the hybrid role, Walker covering and then a midfield three of Rice, Bellingham and Foden. But when Maguire is the other CB it's just suicide and we'd be torn to pieces. As much as he could have tried other options, he hasn't had many available. Colwill and Guehi have been good but they lack experience at the top level. Tomori just looks a car crash every time he plays. Dunk was very good and is getting European experience and plays a style of play that would connect well with my suggested formation - but was injured for these two games.

 

[KentBlue]

Southgate isn't a manager in the true sense of the word, at the moment he's the custodian of some English people, some of whom can play football. Sadly he prefers to pick players who can't.
He appears to have an unhealthy obsession with Slabhead, one of the most clumsy and inept players ever to pull on the England shirt. A player so lacking in awareness that I heard he tried a pass last night that went to an opposition player, who then raced into the England penalty area, ball at his feet, and the very same Slabhead that gave the player the ball in the first place crashes into him and almost gives away a penalty.

It is Pythonesque, surreal, and downright bizarre that a man like Southgate is in charge of our national team. But it is bordering on criminality that he is wasting the talents of so many great players at the same time.

 

[TonyColemansbagofapples]

I think he's taking the piss out of southgate for playing arnold in midfield like klopper does.
As for the rashford comment. I think he might be high.

No I’m saying he’s copying Pep not Klopp regarding the inverted full back and there is a question mark after the sentence about rashford implying was he serious about him being a quality player.

 

[hilts]

But there's always a misconception that Mourinho always had boring teams, which isn't the case at all.

he actually had some very good teams that scored a lot of goals but he still knew how to set up a team to be pragmatic and defend well while having the firepower to actually becomes successful. That's why he was good.

The problem is lesser managers only take part of that approach and thinking being pragmatic brings success but often not the case because you still have to go and beat teams too. That's where Southgate and Holland fell short in the world cup semi and the euro final and lost winning positions.

A successful manager like Mourinho would have succeeded from a winning position in at least one of those games. Even if he was pragmatic, he still has a room full of trophies because managers like that also know how to put teams to bed.

Times change Jose didn't. He was a very good coach. In 2023 I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole nor should England play that way. The defence and midfield isn't anywhere near good enough for a start.

 

[Crooked_rain]

100%. Mourinho at Porto, Chelsea and Inter was tactically brilliant. His team goes 1-0 up in the Euros final they win the game. We were under the cosh for a long time, but Southgate was afraid to change things. Their equaliser was coming for a long time and because we were playing 5 at the back, we were penned in with no out ball. Rice and Phillips couldn't get a foot on the ball or give any control. Kane wants the ball to feet, which was easy for Italy to deal with. Same for Mount. And Sterling was then the only real threat in behind. It clearly needed a change to stop them camping in our half. We needed more pace on to ensure that if they did commit players forward we could counter.

The WC semi against Croatia could have gone either way, he definitely was too slow to make changes again but we had chances in that game to get the job done and a bit like in the last WC against France sometimes it just doesn't happen - it's fine margins in tournament football and it's easy to say he should have done this or that. It's the fact he doesn't seem to learn from mistakes that is frustrating. TAA not dominating midfield against Malta should have put that plan in the bin.

I do think there's mitigation for some of his decisions though. I think most of us would like to see Stones playing the hybrid role, Walker covering and then a midfield three of Rice, Bellingham and Foden. But when Maguire is the other CB it's just suicide and we'd be torn to pieces. As much as he could have tried other options, he hasn't had many available. Colwill and Guehi have been good but they lack experience at the top level. Tomori just looks a car crash every time he plays. Dunk was very good and is getting European experience and plays a style of play that would connect well with my suggested formation - but was injured for these two games.

I don't necessarily expect England to play any complicated systems and players in hybrid roles. Plenty of the players might play for teams that don't do that and the short window for international football might not be long enough to get a team well drilled doing it

Its one thing Stones being used to doing it for City and stepping into midfield with Rodri, its another thing doing it with Rice and with Harry Maguire behind you.


So I do think a pragmatic approach in some ways is OK, but more so of just playing your best players in their best positions. With Southgate, sometimes you don't know who will play from one game to the next. If you look at national teams of the past like Spain, they had quite a settled side.

I think anybody with any sense would put Rice as your holding man, Bellingham as an 8 where he can still get forward and Foden as your 10. But Southgate started putting Bellingham as a 10 because he's done a good job with Madrid there for dozen games. But that means you would sacrifice Foden to play Bellingham as a 10, leaving yourself with a much lesser player than both as your 8, i.e Henderson. Just put Bellingham as an 8 because hes still the best player for that position in the England setup, no matter he plays for Madrid..... especially if it means having him as a 10 means you're having to put a much lesser player in the team behind him.

 

[Crooked_rain]

Times change Jose didn't. He was a very good coach. In 2023 I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole nor should England play that way. The defence and midfield isn't anywhere near good enough for a start.

I actually think he would be a good international manager. He still got Roma to the UEFA Cup final last season. He won 2 cups with a shite united team. Got spurs to a final but got sacked a week before.

So he actually knows how to navigate through tournaments, even in recent years.

I don't think his approach to league football and managing a club day in and day out has progressed enough with time, but if you wanted soneome to come in and manage team through a tournament for a few weeks, he would be a great appointment in my opinion.


Southgate was a garbage manager, but even he knows being "pragmatic" can get you close to a finish line in a tournament. Now imagine you had one of the most successful managers of all time that still gets his recent teams to finals and knows how to win tournaments.

Plus Mourinho has had teams that were high scoring when he knows he has the attacking players to do so.

I can't see why he wouldn't be a very good international manager in tournament based football.
.

 

[bondsman]

Yet again Southgate didn’t have the courage to take his waistcoat off against an international minnow, he’s a complete joke and is the epitome of how statistics can show something nobody else (apart from Bluehammer) can see…
He’s out of his depth and he’s completely nullifying the best squad of players England have produced in a generation…!!

Be fair it was just bad timing that he said we want to be the best in the world before drawing with Macedonia, sorry North Macedonia, thanks to an OG

 

[TinFoilHat]

Lovely comment about Rico on Talkshite.

"He could be the Swiss Army knife player for Germany."

Lots of positive reviews about him. Well chuffed.