Scotland v England - Tue 12th Sept, 19:45 | Friendly

[ayrshire_blue]

We, as a club and fan base, have been bullied for over 15 years now. It is still ongoing and will continue for many years yet.
I struggle to raise empathy for a guy who greedily took the rag money, and is wanted by Greek police.

Didn't the daft **** cup his ear when he scored against San Marino or something like that? Cringe!

 

[SebastianBlue]

I’ll criticise him when I see England hit a bad patch and can’t see any signs of improvement.

At present I just don’t see that, I also respect him for not cowing to pressure and play certain players that fans demand and if he feels other players deserve to play he will stick to that. That’s the whole purpose of being a manager.

Or we just scrap having a manager and maybe run a public vote on who should play and what formation to go for.

You think he continually picks Henderson and Maguire because he is his own man and they deserve to play?

Or regularly doesn’t start Foden (either on the wing or in midfield) because he doesn’t deserve to play or because Phil “doesn’t play there for his club” (despite that not being true and Southgate playing other players in positions in which they have rarely if ever played for their club)?

 

[ShaunMCFC]

As you said, anyone that manages to actually win a major tournament will instantly be better than Southgate.

And any nation that we consider our rivals to that feat (even though we aren’t actually competition for them under Southgate, so that is a misplaced delusion of grandeur) has winning a major tournament as the ultimate measure of success. And thus they have seen many new managers when that has not occurred.

Only England measures success based on a coefficient based on average age of the squad, overall goal scoring, and win percentage.

I actually think if Southgate goes now he gets credit for the guy who brought unity into the squad. He’s done that, the lads are all best mates now, no rivalry’s allowed with England. Brilliant, well in Gaz, now give it to someone who can set this team up to win something and you get everyone’s best wishes.

 

[TrentGrisham]

Graeme Souness is insufferable.

 

[chesterbells]

Souness telling it as it should be.

 

[BlueHammer85]

I guess it’s all about opinions
But I was listening to talkshite earlier
Yeh I know, but they had 6 calls who all thought Southgate was a negative defensive
Type manager who’s a job for the boys guy
Ragstein and bent both agreed.
Plus the opinion of a lot of England fans
Can they all be wrong?

Yes, they can, the vast majority of football fans are thick in my opinion.

I’ve had a whole season of hearing ‘Moyes is a ****, he’s sleep walking us to relegation’ and all the other usual cliches ‘he’s a dinosaur ’ ‘clueless’ ‘don’t know what he’s doing’

Then we go and lift a European trophy and started the season off brilliantly, thank f*ck our owners didn’t listen to our fans and stuck by him.

Sorry, slightly off tangent, but I’ve long learnt the majority opinion isn’t always the right one when it comes to football.

 

[TinFoilHat]

Waistcoat should listen to Souness.

 

[The Stockport Iniesta]

Souness telling it like it is.

 

[jaiguruKun]

Fair points.

Maguire (usually) is mr reliable for England, nothing special I agree, but he does offer plenty of experience and let’s not forget off the pitch experience- there’s a reason Kane gave his captains band when he got subbed.

Midfield selection, yeh maybe - aside the outrage over Henderson I don’t see what more fans want, Rice and Bellingham is stuff of dreams!

Sitting back in big games is not always down to the manager, that’s the nature of football. Opposition sides need to go for the kill and team protecting lead sits back. Happens is most games between two close top sides.

Most international matches (including at major tournaments) are a lower standard than the PL, and Maguire just holds his own in those games. It's against the higher ranked sides that he sticks out. For all the praise he received at the last WC for his performances in the early rounds he was at fault for France's goal by allowing Giroud to get in front of him. Ukrain'es goal at the weekend was a similar story. It's reached the stage when he's at fault for most opposition goals when on the pitch. That isn't a coincidence hence why he's now 4th/5th choice for the Rags.

He's also very cumbersome in possession and hangs on to the ball too long. He looks anxious whenever the ball is near him.

The team looked calmer and more balanced tonight with Guehi and Dunk at the back.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Is there anyway of proving it to say it’s true or not ?

Southgate has the highest win% for England than any other manager , got us to our first ever Euros finals only to lose on pens and has won as many knockout games between 2018-2023 than England have achieved between 1966-2017

Also we were top scorers last World Cup and youngest squad selected.

really would love to see what the next manager will bring that’s so much better aside from actually winning a major.

How many times do you want to say the exact same shit to me over and over and over? Do you ever take on board my fucking replies to this same shite? It’s fucking tedious having to write it to you every few months.

I’ll copy and paste the same thing I replied to this with last time (which was copy and pasted from another time)…

It was Southgate’s tactics that saw us very nearly go out against Denmark in the Euros semi before even reaching the final, we got through despite Southgate that night. It was Southgate’s tactics (and lack of them after Mancini changed his tactics) that saw us relinquish a 1-0 lead at home against an inferior Italy team in the Euros final and it went to penalties (where he brought on two penalty takers on the final whistle who went up to take the penalties cold).

Similar to the Euros final, in the WC semi against Croatia, we went 1-0 up barely attacked again with any purpose to make it 2-0 all game. In both games we played like relegation fodder trying to hold on to a one goal lead we’d luckily nicked and had no quality to go on from there.

In last year’s WC he chopped and changed the midfield from game-to-game, always with the problem of whichever three were playing, they were too far away from each other considering the lack of pace in those selected and were too easy to dispossess and too easy to play through once we were dispossessed. If a team lacks pace, you have to condense the midfield area but he had us wide open.

We were relegated from a Nations League group that included the worst Germany and Italy teams of all-time, and Hungary.

And what do you mean ‘aside from actually winning a major’? That’s the whole fucking point of it all! We are good enough to do that and we’re not doing it.

We were decent enough tonight against a poor team, yet we were still a decent
Scotland set piece away from it being 2-2 with his insistence on playing Maguire and on thinking ‘that’ll do’ when we’re in the lead seeing the midfield drop off and allow the game to drift in the second half.