25 Jun 2024 21:16:15
So many England players having poor games.
Gallagher was average but I thought Bellingham was showing zero and Rice having another shocking game. Saka looks completely out of touch.
FGS Southgate do something positive. Take Saka off, bring Gordon on and move Foden over to the right. Also, at the moment Palmer would offer a lot more than Bellingham.
25 Jun 2024 22:14:56
Tom, Gallagher is average, Rice and Bellingham are having average games. Saka is overrated generally.
25 Jun 2024 22:42:30
Bellingham’s been worst player for last two games, brilliant player but seems he's above the team, Kane doesn’t move and needs wingers and cut backs, Toney or Watkins needed a chance, too many big names and a weak manger, Gallagher like Trent and Maninoo aren’t the problem really, it’s the lack of movement and energy.
26 Jun 2024 08:59:18
Perhaps the last two games have been conceptual pieces by Southgate to remind us what England games were like before he took over? I've been a staunch defender of what he's achieved, but that was abysmal. Waiting until 88 to bring on Gordon. Mainoo was brilliant, Palmer was brilliant – did more than Foden and Saka combined in that 20 mins. I'd maybe start with Watkins in the next game. Kane looks knackered. I'd go Saka LB (Shaw won't be fit for this tournament, which is the most damning thing you can say, really), midfield of Rice, Mainoo and Bellingham (we need him in the middle of the park), front three of Gordon, Watkins, Palmer. Though they'll be making it up on the hoof. We all know he won't change things, so I think our goose is cooked.
26 Jun 2024 09:44:02
Edw, Southgate has always been useless any progression England have made in tournaments is despite him rather than because of him. Claiming that 2 clean sheets is a positive in this dire group is laughable: Pickford has hardly faced a shot ( which is just as well ) . His selections of the squad and teams is dreadful. The lineup you put forward is one I would support but as you said it isn’t going to happen: Gordon and Palmer won’t start and Kane will start to play his midfield role. The best thing that could happen for England fans is to go out in the next game- which is likely. Then they get on with their summer choose to watch some decent teams and not have to listen to Southgate’s bulls**t excuses.
26 Jun 2024 12:59:28
Bellingham almost the worst of the lot last night. Southgate has oppositie of Midas touch. turns every golden player into something leaden it seems. But perhaps they have been conserving energy and deliberately hiding their skills and will all come alive in knockout stages?!? But they have been terrible in a very weak group which must have the record for fewest goals scored in any Euros group stage ever (perhaps World Cups too? ) .
If the NHS is short of anaesthetists they need only make patients watch a few minutes of these last three England games to get antone nodding off into deep slumber almost instantly.
26 Jun 2024 18:24:25
Jimbo, to say that any progress England have made is despite Southgate rather than because of him is obviously impossible to either prove or disprove, but based on the history of the England team until Southgate took over, and the immediate uplift in the team's fortunes when he did – along with the eye test of players clearly being happier, at the last three tournaments, than any group of England players have looked in my time watching football – seems like a ludicrous claim, and I'd suggest is based on a gut dislike of the man rather than any kind of logic. He is tactically inept, but that's never been all that football management is about, especially international football (until about the last two or three years when international football suddenly seemed to get a lot better at it) . Could we have beaten Italy in the last Euros without his negativity? Maybe. But first you have to ask whether we would have even been in the final in the first place without the self-belief and team ethic he installed, without the better relationship between the players and press, players and fans, that he cultivated and, as I say, based on previous iterations of England and the way otherwise exceptional players have usually looked leggy, demotivated, scared – shadows of their usual selves (very much like the team are currently looking, in fact) – when pulling on the shirt, the answer would be 'no'.
26 Jun 2024 19:22:48
EdW, pretty sure the unity amongst the players is more down to Fergie retiring and Rooney than Southgate. Once old red nose was gone, the cliques started to fade away helped by Rooney seemingly not caring and being friends with everyone. Southgate’s fostered such great squad relations that Englands best CB in White refuses to be called up. He’s created such self belief that we play extraordinarily defensive football despite top quality offensive players.
{Ed014's Note - copy and paste from ed01 fuser, nice! ?
26 Jun 2024 19:37:28
Edw, as you quite correctly say my assertions about Southgate are not provable as are most opinions about football. It is similar to my opinion about Di Matteo winning the CL in 2012, I strongly believe the players won that not the coach. It would be interesting to see how Southgate would fare if he got a job with the Premier League; I know what I think.
27 Jun 2024 10:01:07
Oh, I have no doubt at all if he had a PL job his team would be awful, Jimbo. We actually have evidence that in club management he was ridiculously bad. And I don't think his schtick is working now. I simply think for a while what he did worked, and we outperformed expectations. I also applaud him taking a moral stance on an issue (racism) that was always going to make him unpopular with a fairly large part of the fanbase. But it's clear for all to see now what his flaws are, how inflexible and stubborn he is. The familiar England grind has well and truly returned.