I don't think its a coincidence that our best form over the last few years has come with a defensive midfielder who is good at breaking up play.
I was never a huge fan of Jordan Henderson, but England are missing him and a few experienced type players. Southgate’s a waste of ****ing space, never did like him as a manager and it kills me that he has more England matches to his belt than Bobby Robson. Lastly, thank **** I’m half German!
Ah! Interesting, where are your family from? I’m definitely a German fan, my Dad hates me supporting Germany, but it’s part of me so I’m happy with that. I’ve probably lived in Scotland for too long
We can talk about formations and who should come in / make way all we want, but the hard fact is that if we play any line up or formation with that lack of energy and poor body language, then we are going out in the style of Iceland in 2016. My take on this tournament so far is that I think Southgate is starting to fall into the trap that other managers have made in tournaments. He sounds quite defensive and is talking about expectations on the team, pressure etc. in previous tournaments, he’s managed to get the team thinking positively (not tactics, but their mentality). This tournament it just feels different and walker’s interview after the game was really defensive and a bit paranoid. If you watch the players in the tunnel as they came on for the 2nd half, they looked really down. They were shaking their heads, shoulders hunched etc. The only one trying to gee up the team was Trent, who got subbed 10 mins later (justifiably). I wonder whether Southgate has lost the team. I hope not and I def feel the team were right behind him in all previous tournaments. It just feels different this time. But how many times have we said this in previous tournaments, only for the team to get going as the tournament goes on. I remember when beckham and Anderton clicked on the right and it completely changed how England played. Hopefully there is something that clicks with this group and if so, we could start hammering teams with the talent we have. I was really disappointed with how the pundits got after harry kane today though. He played the exact same way that he’s played throughout his England career, but what can he do if there’s no movement around him. High pressing just isn’t his game and England have won plenty of games without him having to press. How about we play to his strengths.
The 2 problems with Southgate are: a) he’s a defender, so he manages defensively b) he’s just ****ing ****
Why is. Alexander-Arnold always referred to by his Christian name? Is it something he’s requested? I find it a bit cringe when people, especially in the crowd, refer to our players in the same way but more-so with Alexander-Arnold.
the irony on here is that when City play Rosieball it's the best football some on here have seen for years but when Southgate does exactly the same it's **** and he's a **** - just saying
Probably because Alexander-Arnold is more of a mouthful than just ‘Trent’. The other alternative is a three letter acronym that seems popular these days in football jargon like TAA, JWP, KLP, KWP etc. that I find kinda cringey too. Bit of leeway for foreign players as naming conventions are different in other countries. For example, in Turkey it’s common for pundits, commentators and fans to refer to players by their given name i.e. Ozan, Abdülkadir or İsmail instead of their surname Tufan, Ömür or Yüksek.
The thing I find most frustrating about watching England has been that no matter who the manager has been ( exception of Venables), we tend to be so pedestrian. Go forward down one side stop turn back pass across the field rince and repeat down the other side. We have become better at the technical passing stuff, but I wish we had more of our instinctive change of pace that players use week in week out for their clubs. It's usually either slow or panic. Bloody frustrating. Just wish we were encouraged to use more freedom from time to time rather than have the edge coached out of us. Sorry too much booze time to crash
I did it above because it’s quicker to type. You have to switch to that symbol part of the keyboard to do the hyphen too, which is too much of a faff for me.
It wasn’t aimed at people on here. Just in general he’s referred to as just “Trent”. I wondered if he’d said it was a preference.
Tbf though, Southgate has every single bit of eligible English talent to choose from. If Rosey had some of the players he has to choose, I’m sure we’d have won the Championship at a stroll.
I can’t remember anyone ever referring to Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink as simply “Jan” I can see the TAA or KLP when writing but not spoken.
I think it was really interesting that Southgate changed his full forward line at the same time - when actually Foden and Saka were getting some joy. After an initial burst of energy - Watkins, Eze and Bowen did very little. It was a poor performance to be sure and not defensible - but Shearer's attitude on co-comms also felt very over the top negative. The last 30 mins was just him pointing out again and again what wasn't working - only to change his tune slightly when the forward line changed - before going back to being negative when actually it did nothing at all. I wonder if all the attention on England's lack of attacking play over the last couple of months has started to seep into the manager and playing squad. The qualifying campaign was largely positive - we went out of the last tournament on as much of a high as you can if you leave at the QF stage. I'm far from blaming this attention for the poor performance tonight - there's a lot to put that down to - but I wonder if the expectation and the analysis of our play over the last couple of months is getting too much? Slovenia will tell us a lot.
I agree I think he is poor . What we lack is a manager that can pick a team with balance . I think he's made a mistake not taking Rashford or to a lesser extent Grealish who might add something off the bench . He's only really got Gordon who could play down the left so he might as well give it a bash as we are not getting past the last 8 with this set up
Danny 'fecking' Murphy reckons we'll be 'okay'....which means, we'll be out in the last 16s. Nailed on.
