No I said on a different day we’d have been through. Nobody has completely outplayed England in a competitive match for a long long time. The top teams are all closely matched, nobody stands head and shoulders above the rest. We got beat we move on, there was no shame on our performance
In the last 6 months England have had 11 games, World Cup and Nations League. Hungary 2 loses - 0 Germany 2 draws - 2 Italy a draw and a loss - 1 Iran win - 3 Wales Win - 3 USA Draw - 1 Senegal win - 3 France loss - 0 Thats 13 points from 11 games. If they were in the EPL this would be equivalent to a Bournemouth or Perhaps Leeds compared to a top 6 side on 20 - 25 points. I don't disagree that England do well but in the same way as Leeds fall short of being a top club, at the moment, so do England.
Everyone criticized Southgate for not trying different formations/tactics/players and when he used the Nations League for exactly that he was pilloried because of the results. In fact it nearly cost him his job such was the hysteria. Pathetic isn't it.
I've no view one way or the other on Southgate. He's the head coach he makes the calls and gets the praise or the brickbats. The point I'm trying to make is that perhaps if England want to get further in competitions they should realise there is a considerable distance to go in order to achieve this rather than thinking they have almost made it and they didn't do too bad really.
Southgate never won anything as a manager and he never will. You dont go from being a crap club manager to winning the World Cup. His tactics have not evolved or developed. And guess what wait while you see his next squad because I can guarantee there will be quite a few of this lot who refuse to go. He picks his favs and always will for example would you pick Ben White or Oil tanker MaGuire. Why pick Sterling and Sako every time and forget Foden (until the media scream for him) or Grealish. Strikers never get a look in because Kane plays every game and every minute, but spends more time as a 10. Never mind I’m probably on my own but that’s my opinion
England are some distance away from the sometimes unrealistic expectations being justified, so yes in that respect I'd agree. However if we (England) keep gettting to the latter stages of tournaments then you never know as the best team doesn't always win.
This probably isn't the "English" way but......go into competitions as the best team and smash the opposition, would be my advice.
As Jammy pointed out, the Nations cup is like the old league cup. The Euros and World Cup, they’re the ones that count, the rest might as well be experimental friendlies
Scaloni never won a thing as a coach before Argentina, there was uproar when he was first appointed. I don’t like Southgate, until the Euros I thought he was next to useless but he deserves credit as far as I’m concerned. I’m no expert but maybe some coaches do better at International level because there isn’t that week in week out expectation against them. It’s not like you’re ever going to coach your group to be better, you’re just picking those who will compliment each other in the hope that they reproduce their club form. I hate McGuire but he had a great World Cup, Foden didn’t look great when he came on, team selection was questionable but those who were picked did okay
This sounds just like the argument put forward, by some, in relation to your cricket team. Lose 3 ODI against us and "Oh those don't count as they weren't important matches" win 2, probably 3, tests against Pakistan "aren't we the best team in the world" The point is all international matches should be important, in my opinion, it's just that some are more important than others.
The important games this year were World Cup 20/20 matches. We focused on those. please log in to view this image
In some regarding the cricket doesn’t include me We’ll agree to disagree on all international games are important, the nations cup is where you experiment, where you try out new players. The team selection proves that’s exactly how Southgate approached it. Englands problem is; for a small country we are very diverse when it comes to sport. If you’re born in Jamaica you want to be a sprinter or cricketer. India or Pakistan, cricket or hockey, Argentina or Brazil a footballer. England it could be swimming, cycling, boxing, hockey, cricket, athletics, football, rugby or a whole host of other sports. Very diverse and expectations always far too great
For a small country? In relative terms we are a big country Rich with 75m people and many more than in France which is a big country land-mass, but lets be frank here Belgium is a small country, the size of an English county but has been world No1, Croatia is a very small country but losing finalists and semi finalists. With the recourses our country has and the cash of the premier league we have badly under performed
the cash of the premier league we have badly under performed But the Premier League relies on "foreign" players. To the detriment of home born talent.
The population of this country is rising every month The current population of the United Kingdom is 68,763,110 as of Tuesday, December 20, 2022, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. They told us there were only 3m Eastern Europeans post brexit and then discovered there was 7m the point being there are 11m people in Belgium who have been world No1 and in the top 3 for years. Croatia has less than 4m so that’s my point
Err. It’s not mandatory to lose whilst trying other players, formations or tactics. The idea is to win games this way if your fabled “plan A” isn’t working.
So Rich is correct that we have a lot of sports vying for attention, but the truth is so do most western nations, football is our national sport… and the worlds best club league takes place here. So we have historically underperformed compared to similar western nations. The main reason was we were very slow to sort out prioritising our national team and coaching set up. We ‘started’ 10 years ago, decades behind France/Germany. We are starting to see dividends from that. Minimum expectations at a major tournament should be quarters. After that? Well knock out tournaments are a lottery. You have to put yourself in a position to have a chance. We’ve started doing that. Will it continue when Southgate goes? I would hope so… it’s primarily talent led.
