The reason was, he was running on empty.We were good for the first half but really poor in the second half. But a win is a win I suppose.
A decent opening 20 mins, but then a vintage Southgate performance, cautious negative & low on energy . It’s quite a managerial achievement to make Phil Foden look like Scott Fraser. This guy is a Grade 1 dud …watch him prove it
The best teams seen so far are the big boys, Germany, Spain & Italy. To use horse racing parlance, England need to improve 3st on that showing tonight. Bellingham & Rice were class , but the rest of them …. Kane looks unfit and Foden a shadow of his club self. Imagine how these players feel , going from the likes of Ancelotti & Guardiola & Sean Dyche to Mr Wibble Wibble Southgate. Why can’t Southgate get a tune out of these players ?
There have been some positives from these first few days; Generally decent refereeing (as you say) No ridiculous amounts of injury time No VAR blunders Very little play-acting and face clutching (we only got a bit from the Italians that I can remember) Not very much fighting among yobs apparently It's been a good start My only complaint would be adverts for online casinos and gambling websites during commercial breaks on ITV in the late afternoons / early evenings. But they have been scattered at least, not wall-to-wall (yet). I wonder if they will increase as the tournament goes on and advertising slots get more expensive. At least the National kits being worn are not covered in gambling firm logos.
Cesc Fabregas was an excellent pundit last night. Eloquent and tactically insightful. A stark contrast to Rio “I fink” Ferdinand .
Ally McCoist also. After a few minutes he observed precisely how Germany would expose the weakness in Scotland's setup, and within a minute they scored the first goal in the exact way he said. Then the second.
I think Ally McCoist recently won an award for his punditry, and deservedly so. He’s amusing and astute …the sort of bloke you’d want to talk football with in the pub. There are so many terrible pundits, but none quite as bad as Eni Aluko , who clearly only gets men’s punditry jobs because she’s a black woman. Some of her gaffes on ITV yesterday are being endlessly highlighted on social media today. She should have been banned from ITV punditry full stop after her “you racist white boys” comment.
Good luck to Alan Hansen who is seriously ill. I loved his forensic analysis of p defensive shortcomings.
Brownie is excellent on Charlton TV, and Peter Shirtliff was an education. Most TV punters are bland and just tell you what you already know.
I don’t know many footballers who want to go off But it was the right decision. We don’t want our best player injured. Foden and Kane were both poor.
Yep agree - the second half was a poor show and I was willing him to get the 2nd that we badly needed
Foden and Bellingham in the same line-up, just doesn’t work. It needs to be one or the other. Bellingham dominates the game and Foden just looks lost alongside him.