England v Slovakia - Sun 30th June, 17:00 | Euro 2024 Round of 16

[jimharri]

 

[ted the grass]

Could not understand this either.

He makes subs the worst he will get is he got it wrong.
He doesn't make subs he is clueless.

Surely it's better to be wrong than clueless?

What was Toney doing coming on in the 95th minute? It can't have been for a penalty as surely Kane and Palmer would be ahead of him? It was a clueless sub. It was almost Mike Bassett esque where we needed a goal and he just went "sod it put a striker on" but it was that clueless he left the better striker on the bench!!!! (Watkins)

It's like 2004-2006 again, a team of highly talented individuals playing under a manager who has no clue what to do and get the best out of them because he cannot make the big decisions.

Bellingham should not be in the team at number 10 when you have several players who can play the position better, this is the biggest issue England has. No one can get the ball into him because he is not switched on as a creative player to find space, so it leaves Foden, Kane and Saka all exposed. He's a better Dele Ali, his skill is arriving in the box and scoring which he's very good at but he's taking up all the space of our creative players. James Maddison would have been better than Bellingham in this England team.

Trippier should not be playing left back when Chilwell and Mitchell are at home. It doesn't matter if they may not perceived to be international standard. They are left footed and balance the team.

The whole things a mess and like in previous tournaments, the minute we face a decent side we will be sent home and it will be this Saturday.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then....

 

[Lauz9888]

Trippier should not be playing left back when Chilwell and Mitchell are at home. It doesn't matter if they may not perceived to be international standard. They are left footed and balance the team.

Absolutely this.

The best squad includes at least one match-fit, uninjured, left-footed left-back.

If Chilwell or Mitchell (both imperfect, both pretty good on their day) is the best one of those available, fine - take him. They don't have to be the best player in the world in their position - they have to be the best available, fit English player.

Shaw should have declared himself unavailable for this tournament in the interest of using the summer to regain some fitness for the next season. When he didn't do that, Southgate still shouldn't have selected him - he left out Maguire on the basis of a lingering injury, and Shaw seems to be in worse shape than that.

I'd understand taking a punt on an injured player if he'd had a great season then missed the last few weeks due to the injury but now seemed to be getting back to fitness. Or if he'd been injured for a lot of the season but had started stringing together some good performances towards the end.

But to take the risk on a player, however good he is (and I'm happy to accept that Shaw at his best has been good in the past, especially for England) when he hasn't played for months, has hardly played all season and when he did come back he immediately got injured again - it's madness. Even if his injury is completely resolved now, it's going to take a few matches for him to find any kind of rhythm, and we don't have the luxury of giving him that time, this is knockout football.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Probably do a Greece at this rate, while the media say how this is nice for the country to have after all the problems the UK has had........

It won't change anything or eradicate the financial damages Brexit has given, it won't solve the cost of living problems, it won't repair the damage the Tories have done and it certainly won't bring dead people who died of COVID back to life.

We will get this for like two weeks, then the public will realise we are still in the shit.

We won’t do a Greece because Greece actually had a plan.
The problem with England seems to be that he can’t define how he wants England to play and, if he ever managed to so do, he wouldn’t pick the right players for whatever that system was.

If he wanted to ‘do a Greece’ he’d pick a back 5, Toney, Gordon, Gallagher, with 2 others, defend very deep, hit long balls up to Toney and hope to score a set piece or two, which would be perfectly acceptable, if that was how he’d decided he wanted to play.

He could pick quick forward players and play a counter attack, fast transition style, that goes back to front quickly and often misses out the midfield, who then get forward to support their forwards, like Liverpool do (did).

If, however, you’re picking 6 players from the 2 top teams in the PL who play a progressive passing game, a centre forward who has scored 49 goals playing in a team that plays a progressive passing game along with a player who plays on the left of a diamond in a team that won the Spanish League/CL double, there’s really then only one way to play and it’s not counter attack or ‘like Greece’, unfortunately…..

 

[Crooked_rain]

The individual quality of England's players won that game, and imo it will probably get England all the way to the final, but they won't win it. Put a decent manager in charge of that squad and they would win everything. But Wayne Rooney is probably ear marked as next manager if getting to a final is not enough to keep Southgate but it probably will

Rooney would be an upgrade, that's how bad Southgate is.

Granny shagger said before a call was kicked in the tournament "I'd have Trent nowhere near my midfield". So at least he has slightly more sense than Southgate.

Wouldn't have him anywhere near the England job, just pointing out how clueless even Southgate is in comparison to a shite manager like Rooney.

 

[BlueHammer85]

From your answer above its reasonable to deduce that alot of our disagreement over Southgate is over expectations. My expectations are higher as I know these players can perform better than they have been , I watch several every week doing exactly that under Pep and I realise I am very lucky to do so. I don't want this to sound arrogant but I guessing you don't get to see that at West Ham with the players you have in general or with David Moyes in charge in recent years. Therefore you don't expect Southgate to change tactics midway through a game and get 100% out of the team when it matters most.

You seem content even happy? with him "getting the results " as you say, against lower ranked teams but failing every time we come up against a decent high ranked team which is what happens.

No one remembers who got knocked out in the semis or quarters or even the final, it's the winning that matters!

Southgate to me is just another failure in a long line of England managers, yet he has a pool of incredibly tallented attacking players to pick from he just doesn't know how to get the best from them, that annoys me and many others but not you. Fair enough.

few things to unpick here.

I think i agree on the expectations but at a different angle , I don't expect England to win a tournament - even if we really do have the best players and manager - why? because it's tournament football, anything can happen. Only takes one poor performance and you get knocked out, unlucky hitting woodwork, a red card, bad officiating, few players off there game - so many factors ... as Man City have found out in the Champions League right? winning it once out of 9/10 attempts? when you have one of the best manager and players in the world does that make Pep a bad manager in Europe? i think not, there's loads of other factors and lets not forget rival clubs/countries who are also very good. why do we have a divine right?

As repeated often, so many have different view on which players should be starting and what tactics and subs should be made - how can any manager please ? I'm thinking Saka should be starting left back v Switzerland - other fans would strongly disagree - so if Saka doesn't start should i go mad at Southgate? join in the fun and just vent and moan that he hasn't started the same team that i demand.

Yes, I'm content and happy when England win whether we play great or shit, preferably great but often sides that win tournaments scrape through matches and it's never always pretty.

Your only basis of success is you HAVE to win a tournament, that's it. everything else is failure. that's never sat right with me, there can only be one winner, there's hundreds of teams in Europe, it's unfair to label a manager and the players failures if they don't lift a trophy, its a very tough ask. statistically and overall Southgate will go down as one of England's best ever managers - you may hate that fact but unfortunately it's the truth.

we are in the final 8 once again, other good sides won't make it this far , try just try to be a little positive.

 

[mexico1970]

I'm expecting another dour 90 minutes followed by being knocked out on penalties.

Don't get me wrong I want England to win but they have bored the tits off of everyone so far and you just know what's coming.

Lessons will be learned ehh?!?!"

 

[Blue Maverick]

Wait for the melt down when he changes fuck all bar putting in a different centre half, everyone and I mean everyone can see what is wrong with the starting 11 bar Southgate, either he’s an egotistical idiot or he’s fucking useless as a coach, I’d go for the later. Eze, Toney added speed and oomph when they came on, get a balance in this team and maybe it will happen, but we know he won’t.

 

[shevtheblue]

IF…and it’s the biggest if, these imposters were to win this comp, it would proudly sit along side Greece, as the worst ever performing team to win.
Totally uninspiring, gutless leadership, and this bloke could go down as the nations second only manager to win something!!
And might I add, Greece had nowhere the talent to call on,as the waistcoated wanker has at his disposal

Greece won it on heart, they had players over-performing and some brilliant battling displays. England not only have the easiest route but have scraped their way through it! Every game you think surely he's had enough time to re-think the strategy, but the game begins and you remember he never had one to begin with..

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

If you take away national allegiance and look at how City players are doing in the Euros and the American equivalent, almost all have been putting in good performances, except for those playing under Southgate. Foden has shown more than Bellingham overall but totally wasted on the left wing, especially as Trippier seems unable to pass forward ever. Stones looks lost, and Walker good in parts, but not as consistent. Saka gets in his way so we don’t get those blistering runs we see Walker do for City. It has to be Southgate’s responsibility, I hope we get what we deserve on Saturday, Switzerland are much better to watch than this turgid England rubbish. What is frustrating is that we looked like an exciting attacking side until a year ago, but the last few friendlies have been awful, and also the tournament so far. I hate watching England at the moment