Switzerland are a national team too. So it would be more akin to a top half 11 vs a bottom half 11. The fact they don't play together week in week out is no excuse as that is the same for everyone.
His point is these teams have fewer to choose from and are therefore more settled. England certainly are transitioning right now - but again that is largely on Southgate for dumping the old guard all at once and bringing in players who don't suit his style.
8 of the team that started against Slovakia also started against France in the world cup. Shaw would have too if he weren't injured. So not that big a transition, just a couple of changes which is standard for all national sides.
I agree. But the square pegs that have transitioned into round holes is definitely causing us issues!
As Neville said at half time, Southgate doesn’t do anything. He leaves it all to the players who are experienced enough to sort it out themselves. His whole philosophy is “don’t interfere” and leave it to the players to sort out themselves. So if they are coming out and saying “we won dunno what everyone is bothered about”, “good to stick it to the pundits calling us ****” and Bellingham saying “who else?” when he scored that shows some belief they have internally even if nobody else believes in them. As I’m the most positive person on this thread I can’t help but see some caparisons when I was moaning about Saints performances and we would score late to win and some would be like “where are the negheads now “. Don’t see the difference here when England win despite playing ****
Sorry but I don’t agree with this at all. Every single international team faces the same predicament. If lack of playing together is an issue… then that’s the managers job to fix. Spain and Germany don’t have that problem and England now have the players to match the top sides. To further add to that point, Southgate has been England manager for ages - longer than any of the other big sides manager tenures. (And even before that he was involved with the u21s). If there is a lack of cohesion then it’s only one persons fault. Southgates entire job is to get the team gelling and making tactical tweaks to get the best out of the squad. He isn’t doing it. He’s relying on moments.
Interesting and also a contradiction in history, not necessarily you narrative but maybe Southgate's. Post the 2006 world cup.loss in the quater final to Brazil he slated Ericsson. His beef, he was expecting a hugely motivational, Churchill type speech at half time and what they got got was a limp speech compared to a Simpsons character( I am not a Simpson fan, so can't remember name). Quite a contrast to the "don't interfere" philosophy quoted above
Trippier, Foden, Mainoo and Bellingham have all been booked once. Yellow cards are wiped after the QFs so any of those could miss the SF if we make it.....
Firstly, you're choosing the two best teams in the tournament to compare us to, but conveniently failing to mention that the other big nations (Italy, France, Netherlands, Belgium) are all performing below their expected standards. In fact it tends to be the norm at every tournament, that half the big sides will perform badly. In Qatar, Germany and Belgium out at the Group Stage; Spain, Portugal both out to Morocco; Brazil out to Croatia. So it isn't just England that struggle getting their players to play together. Secondly, you're blaming Southgate, as though he is the first England manager to ever have this problem. Literally every England manager ever, has struggled with this. So I don't really know how it can be argued against.
On the other hand, Brazil, Argentina, Italy and Germany have 31 World Cup semis between them. That would suggest being an elite nation is more likely to get you far than being a non-elite nation...
I mean if you're asking me who I think will win a tournament, between one of the ten biggest nations, or one of the rest, of course I'm going to say the former. But what I'm saying is that the gap in quality between the bigger nations, and those in the next group, is not at substantial as it once was. Look at the last Euros. The quarter finals was a 50/50 split between your big nations (Spain, England, Italy, Belgium), and your smaller ones (Ukraine, Denmark, Czech, Switzerland). You might say that's because two big nations might play each other in the previous round (eg: Eng vs Ger, Por vs Bel), but the reason those teams played each other in that round, is because some of them must have underperformed in the groups. Saying that any team you play in the quarters or semis is 'easy' or that you should beat them, is just arrogance. Those teams are their on merit; not because they have an impressive history of doing well.
Where has anyone said any team is easy? On the other hand, acknowledging that football rankings are some determiner of football team quality is not entirely wrong, is it?
