We played crappy and were 30 seconds from losing. It's not only about negativity. The manager instills the don't lose mentality but the players are the ones back passing and not even trying to advance. If they simply looked to play a forward pass first every time.england would be better. Look at walker finally playing a forward ball down the line and then the Quick pass to kane who then played it over to the left to trippier. Pass, pass, pass, no 5 touches. The players have to move to receive but also be willing to make the pass. Most of the game walker was narrow to be closer to stones and facing him and never attempted to go forward with option 1
I said during the game that we seemed intent on only passing it to a man that wasn’t marked. Because they dropped off us that meant only players not marked were the 4 defenders and occasionally one of the CM. How often did you see them pop it into foden/Bellingham/kane when they had a man behind them tight for them to either take a touch and shield and move it on, or first touch pass elsewhere to move the ball and players around. You watch the top teams in any league and players trust each other that if I knock it into KDB while marked he has the ability not to lose the ball because he has 2/3 options for a first time pass. Suddenly becomes difficult to play against. Is that because English players don’t trust each other? Is it a safety first thing, scared of giving ball away because of reaction of the crowd/media?
Yeah. Everyone should have 2 or 3 options. Walkers had 3 or 4 options. They only ones he was interested in was back to stones or pickford. Saka ahead of him should be on if saka is offering and walker actually opens body. Not every time bit a lot of the time. Same that rice or mainoo should be one short to move the ball onto a man facing the right way. That pass back should be the last option considered, not the first. The best players are aware and have selected thst pass before thr ball has arrived. While I don't expect a full back to be able to process 4 options I expect them to know if they can make a forward pass before knocking it backwards by default.
I don’t watch football other than Liverpool these days so what surprises me is the amount of flopping this England side does, Saka, Kane and Bellingham in particular.
Of course, but it seemed to work for Germany in 2014. I'm just looking for something positive. Difference being I don't see England changing anything for the upcoming game and am resigned to seeing the same as we've seen in the rest of the tournament. Except that Switzerland are good enough to tear us apart.
But if that was Liverpool during the time Klopp was manager we would be praising the "mentality monsters". It doesn't matter that we almost lost... what matters is we won. Now, I'm not going to praise the England team too highly here- but we got what was needed. Will need to step it up against the Swiss but as long as we do the bare minimum to win- at least we're winning. A few years from now, we won't really remember how boring we were, or how bad we looked- only that we won. Of course, the moment that we lose... Southgate out. (he needs to go after this tournament either way)
I think the problem I have is that the argument assumes (not by you necessarily Nozzer) that playing crap gives you some advantage and QED means you win. As someone posted on the PL board, I think what will happen with us is we'll carry on playing crap and getting a result until the first good side we come up against who dismantle us. That could as you say be Switzerland. Just to add something from Kyle Walker after our 2nd group game "This is tournament football, you don't score 3 or 4 goals" The next day Austria scored 3 and the day after Portugal scored 3. Yesterday we struggled again while Spain score 4. He can go fck off with that patronising bollox.
I wouldn't be. I'd be calling it **** to klopps face. We are on tournament 4 now and all tjete is to recall is terminal boredom amd a bizarre 2018 var set up that gifted kane pens lwft and right
Nope. Our late comebacks were through a planned tactic. England just got extremely lucky from as long throw
Not always... there were times we were bad all game, but kept trying and got a result right at the death.
France. Too narrow. Manager is holding them back. But their players are playing decent. Belgium. Just perennial ****e results buy never get the luck England do with the draws. Imo the difference for England that the players seem petrified to make an error
There's an argument for "tournament football" when you play teams as good as you but when you are playing Serbia, slovakia and Slovenia you should be comfortable with 3 100mil players in the team and one not even taken to tje tournament.... just for example
I would. Where's the pleasure in saying you won if you were rubbish? If Liverpool won the league playing boring football I wouldn't be happy with that. I simply don't get the "results are all that count" mentality. I don't watch football to gain some vicarious credit for supporting the winning side, I don't engage in tribal point-scoring against rivals much. I want to see good football from my team. I accept that in a 38 game season you might have to grind out a result here and there - that's inevitable - but if it's your MO then it does nothing for me.
Exactly. I think it was Z pointed out that Guehi said before one of the games "We have to be ready to match what they bring". That's a horrible attitude - and comes directly from Southgate imo. When you're one of the best squads in the tournament you shouldn't be grinding out results against inferior opposition. You shouldn't even be thinking that way. It's a self-defeating mind-set and it goes a long way towards explaining the pedestrian football.
Maybe its because of my perverse sense of humour combined with the fact I don't take internationals very seriously... but I'm actually amused we topped the group playing badly and only scoring two goals... and ended up with the easiest path possible to the final- and then still had to fluke our way through the the QF. I'm actually getting more entertainment by us winning doing badly than I would if we actually played well. We're Inspector Clouseau-ing our way through the tournament. I will get much amusement if Southgate earns a knighthood off this.
Well I do get the point that you can't take the opponent for granted and have to put the effort in just like as it it was real.madrid you are playing but this is actually a given and something only said to gaird against complacency I don't need to match them running amd closing. I have to best them with fast pace play and smart fast passing. Thst should be the message Most top footballers, and lfc included waffle like this
Neither do I, as I've said often. That's the reason why I put my argument in terms of Liverpool. I'm irritated because I've had conversations over the last few days with England fans trying to tell me it's all ok because we won the group - but the result doesn't excuse the dismal football for me. I'm not a big England fan, but I think those that are deserve a better showing than this.
