Based on our slow play and number of back and sideways passes, not to mention lack of goal attempts, Rosie is the perfect replacement for Southgate.
Palmer instead of Saka. Gordon instead of either Bellingham or Foden. Mainoo to start in Midfield. Of course, GS won't do all of the above, but you sometimes have to upset players and leave out those who aren't performing
Shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic? What needs to change is the set up / the way we play. Then we might find that the starting 11 (bar the LB issue) are actually ok.
Top of the group or not Frustratingly ordinary England to date. It’s like we’re playing with a fear factor to shoot or take defenders on born out of Southgate’s refusal for change, Only bright spark last night was Palmer who basically showed Saka how it’s done. Time for our high gloss match winners to pull fingers out and demand the ball and Southgate to grow a pair if they don’t improve because better sides are around the corner waiting to exploit our fragile defence and shot shy superstars. .
Over hyped by a mile...Nice guy and all the rest of it, but he's quickly developing the tag of undroppable, which isn't good for us, or him. PS...Southgate boils my piss....Playing Foden out left when he's a box player...I hope someone in the camp purposely drops Southy on his head. Might knock some sense into him.
I do think this is a good point although I don't agree with everything in your post. I've been thinking about this in relation to our group stage before we'd even played. There are almost two separate objectives in the group stage for a top country: there's getting through and then there's having fun and impressing people while you do it. Although the latter doesn't necessarily help win a tournament, it is still important because football is about joy. People want the group games against weaker sides to be a chance for the team to make some memories, score a few goals and have fun on a big stage before it gets nervy in the knockouts. Possibly the single most iconic England game of my lifetime is the Scotland game at Euro 96 - it didn't win us anything and there were bigger games to follow, but we scored great goals and made beautiful memories. People want to see the likes of Foden, Bellingham or Kane having their own Gazza-like moments to look back on in years to come. Just getting through the group is actually pretty dull for an England or a France because it's so easy. I understand having an effective plan and doing everything you can to win the tournament as a priority, but I do think that in international football where there are so few really meaningful games, it's also understandable for fans to want their team to really impress in the group stage. It's a real shame that we so rarely go and batter a team at this stage of a tournament.
On this too - I think there’s two things happening at this tournament. 1. we aren’t playing appealing football 2. Our expectations aren’t being met. Even in the ‘glory’ days of the mid 2000s with the Golden Generation, I don’t think we were ever considered favourites for a tournament. The quality of our players means we expect to win it or go very close. That’s probably the first time in my memory that’s the case. In prior tournaments the hope was the fun bit and we could all wish even if we all suspected it would end in failure. In 2010 and 2016, whilst we were poor, we kind of knew it - so there was still a bit of gallows humour. This time we know we could be good and it’s not satisfying to bumble through. The only thing that can change it now is winning the tournament, otherwise it’s going to be a wasted tournament without any sort of fun.
Yeah I pretty much agree. I think a creditable close defeat to a top nation (like we had to France in the last WC) would be realistically acceptable if our group stage had more to show from it. But when the group stage is such a joyless slog, the end result really has to be impressive or the tournament will only be remembered as a bad failure. Mind you, the draw probably makes that irrelevant anyway. As it is we'll either make the final or lose to a weaker nation.
Unfortunately OLM and i'm not being facetious, its not the fans who vote for the nw manager. Its the FA. Look at the managers going back to Alf Ramsey SOUTHGATE 8 YEARS HODGSON 4 YEARS CAPELLO 4 YEARS MCCLAREN 2 YEARS ERIKKSON 5 YEARS TAYLOR 3 YEARS RON GREENWOOD 6 YEARS!!! THEN 3 RELATIVE SUCCESSES FOR ME AT LEAST BOBBY ROBSON 8 YEARS TERRY VENABLES 3 YEARS GLEN HODDLE 3 YEARS Next manager will be someone like Eddie Howe... someone with the ability to say 'yes sir, no sir, whatever you say sir!!' In essence rinse and repeat.
Going down the left everything stopped with Tri whether some like it or not Southgate will go down as a successful manager. For me it will be about chances lost.
If I remember right we were in a similar situation when Cappelo was appointed, not getting the best out of players, too much scandal type stuff behind the scenes. Cappelo came in as a disciplinarian, headlines depicting him as a school master, cane in hand, a man to say no to the FA. well it lasted a short time and we went back to the same old, players, style, formations and tactics. The problem is bigger than the manager.
Venables and Robson, who most people approve of had win ratios of under 50%. Greenwood had a win ratio of 60%. Southgate is in second place to Capello who has a win ratio of 66.7%. Statistics, eh? No idea of possession percentages and xGs though.
Cappello has the highest win percentage of any England manager. The attack minded Kevin Keegan the worst. Just saying…
