Fair enough, I am about 4 Scot bombs (and other ‘bombs’) in for the transgression of being English tonight so I might be misreading comments slightly….
Probably not, it wasn't my most fluent of messages. I think I probably have the talent to do a good message, but I'm terribly badly managed tonight and have somehow made my point convoluted and boring....
Credit to Scotland. Thought they were very good and deserved their point. If Stones and Mount had taken their chances as they should then we probably win that comfortably. Heads seemed to drop after the couple of early chances. I'm still willing to wait until we fail before sticking the knife into Gareth though. He delivered probably our 3rd best major tournament performance ever so at least deserves our support until it goes wrong. It's mental the amount of people slating Gareth who are the same people who lose the ****ing head if anyone dare suggests that Ralph isn't Brian Clough reincarnated. Double standards me thinks. He's achieved far more with England than Ralph with Saints. Fact. Not suggesting Gareth is blameless btw, but the players deserve their share of the blame. Foden has been bang average in both games so far. Anyone who thought this would be easy is clueless about the game of football imo. This was the biggest game of the oppositions lives and it showed. Long term this result means **** all. It's all about the end result of the tournament.
Bit of an odd statement that. Ralph is working with serious restraints whereas Southgate has the entire pool of English talent at his disposal. Give Ralph the tools Southgate has and he would kick Southgate's arse in managerial ability.
Gareth has achieved far more with England than Ralph with Saints though. What, Ralph finished 11th and said some funny quip about a washing machine? Whoop de ****ing do.
You're comparing apples and oranges though, Libs. Southgate got us to a WC semi final, but we were still pretty poor in that tournament. It's the equivalent (or slightly less) of Puel getting us to the League Cup final. Ralph is doing what he can with a bad hand. Gareth is playing a good hand badly.
It's funny how Sir Bobby is seen as a hero for the 1990 World Cup yet Gareth only gets the lucky tag. Who exactly did we beat in 1990? Only Egypt in 90 minutes and then limped to ET victories to Belgium and Cameroon who were both far poorer sides. That 1990 squad was far better than what Gareth has had too. As I say. Double standards. Wouldn't want to be in trenches with some of you lot.
Fact is Gareth overachieved and gave us our best performance in decades with a limited squad. And people aren't even prepared to wait for us to fail before sticking the knife in. Maybe I'm old school and think you should actually support your team. Probably not the game for me anymore when opta stats and social media ****s dominate.
I don't think that squad was as limited as you say. And this one certainly isn't. I'm not waiting for us to fail - I've always thought he was a poor manager.
I agree that this one is better than three years ago (though don't rate it as highly as some). Don't you think we should wait to see where we end up before judging the tournament though? I reckon we could beat Germany in the last 16 and he'd still get stick. People have made their minds up and won't change it.
In that case then a combination of Pellegrino and Hughes achieved the same as Ralph... Ralph's low points are like Iceland 2016 on crack mind.
Just to respond to the latter part of your post - I'm actually much more invested these days in club football than I am international (rightly or wrongly, but it's just a fact). So, unlike with Ralph, I'm not emotionally invested in Southgate or the team particularly, so I'm not just going to support the team, regardless, in that sense. But that gives a sense of objective perspective to it too, which is a good thing in some ways (it's like seeing what fans of other teams than Southampton think about us), and sorry, but I just don't think he's any good at all. Nothing to do with Opta stats or social media tbh.
I said the other day that if we were playing like Italy we'd be creaming our pants, but still some see negatives in Italy atm. It is what it is, and we'll see July 11th who is right.
Yeah, I take your point with that. Yes, we should wait and see. International football is littered with examples of teams being bog average in the group stage, then finding their feet in knockout, so okay, you are right on that. It's way too early. I have my suspicions though!
