Match Day Thread Slovakia vs England 8pm 20 June

The results have disappointed but England have looked dangerous and could still click in the later stages.

I don't think the team selection was the issue, we've struggled to put our chances away in all three group games.

 

I'm guessing you're quite young. Go and google England vs Poland, Wembley 1973. See how long some of us have been suffering for, and still haven't given up hope.

 

Poor Roy, I can understand being disappointed at what could have been but we are in the last 16, playing ok and unbeaten. Those people slagging him for not finishing top of the group are the same who gave him no credit for finishing top of the group with 100% win rate in qualification.

There are plenty of positives.

Credit to Coleman and Wales, playing without fear, good luck in the next round.

 

Sturridge should only come off the bench (probably for Lallana who has been one of our better players but can't play 90 min). His single minded selfishness is frustrating when he starts, but if you need a goal with 30 minutes to go, it's just the ticket.

 

He was the only player who looked dangerous last night. His work rate is much better than Kane's as he comes back to collect the ball from the midfield rather than just expecting them to create something for him. Plus you can see he is buzzing with energy while Kane is clearly fatigued. Vardy is unfortunately very ineffective against teams that play so deep.

Wilshere and Sterling should not get anywhere near the pitch for the rest of the tournament.

 

For those expecting England to be world beaters already, let me remind you of something. Were this an U-21's tournament, all of the following would still technically be available for selection;

Marcus Rashford - 18
Dele Alli - 20
Luke Shaw - 20
Raheem Sterling - 21
Harry Kane - 22
Eric Dier - 22
John Stones - 22
Ross Barkley - 22
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain - 22

And the others are not exactly staring at retirement;

Jack Wilshere - 24
Andros Townsend - 24
Danny Welbeck - 25
Danny Rose - 25
Nathaniel Clyne - 25
Chris Smalling - 26
Kyle Walker - 26
Daniel Sturridge - 26
Ryan Bertrand - 26
Danny Drinkwater - 26

Even our keepers are young (Joe Hart, 28, Fraser Forster 29, Jack Butland 23)

This squad should peak around 2020, which means the Euros and the next World Cup are all about experience. For me, this biggest problem is that we have such a ****ing dinosaur as the manager.

 

I don't think we should go to Russia. I think we should qualify and then boycott it. Then go and win 2020 .... Or not as we'll be out of Europe and only be competing in the Brexit Cup against Wales, Norn Iron, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Gibraltar and Scotland (if they qualify).

 

And last night I was feeling all negative about having to potentially take a harder route to the final, but actually, **** that, who cares?! I'm getting so bored of playing against these park-the-bus teams. Let's go and have a proper fight against a team that's willing to throw a few punches of their own. Our young lions need teething. Maybe they will get knocked down a couple of times, but whatever happens it will be much more interesting than the games we've played so far. The negative football is really ruining this tournament.

 

I thought first half we were quite effective getting behind the defence via our right channel. Second half we stopped that apart from Henderson over hitting his cross that luckily found Alli.

It was a strange tactic to try yo go through the middle with 9 players camped on the edge of their own area.

Personally id have put Rashford or Barkley wide to take them on and get round the back, putting Kane there was just going to keep the issue the same.

I was surprised that Bertrand wasn't so effective, don't think he really got going as first half it mostly went down our right and second half Rooney has so many chances to play it early to Bertrand and chose to keep playing it central!

 

These group stages are all about qualifying and mission accomplished.
I don't give a **** who we face in the next round. If you want to win it then you have to beat good teams at some point. You can't win a competition like this by avoidance.

Whether you go out in the quarters or semis, you're still out

 

Agree to a point Saintly.

Is still better to progress to the later stages, regardless if you still exit. The deeper you go the more success you have I find...

I have a feeling we will get through the next round and we are playing well. Not much different to 2004, where we were really unlucky to lose against France and Portugal.

I'm quite excited for the next game, anyone know when and what time this is scheduled?

 

Felt a bit sorry for Bertrand. I noticed two instances when he made telling runs in behind and was ignored by Sturridge and then Kane in favour of them taking a pot shot from 25 yards.
Had he been played in like Clyne did on a couple of occasions then everyone would have ranked his game a lot better.

The most curious decision was removing him from set piece duty and giving it to Henderson, who then couldn't get it past the first man for about four corners in a row. It was then given back to Bertrand at half time, before Rooney came on

 

Couldn't agree more re Bertrand, he was made to look ordinary by the way we played. That said I don't think he helped himself as he wasn't as good as he can be and was unlucky to get booked as he was tripped by their winger first which made him fall down on their guy, but still corners should have been him, esp from the right where Rooney was swinging them out with absolutely no joy, whipping them in from that side by Bertrand could have caused more panic as they were batting them away comfortably...

 

He also full on elbowed their player, looked like he broke his nose so was lucky to get away with that I think.

 

Well if you listened to Glenda's commentary, it was "nearly an elbow"....

 

Small credit to Slovakia on England losing some of the effectiveness down our right. Their left back was getting destroyed and they did make a change to strengthen up on that side. Agree that Ryan didn't get any supply when he overlapped on the left.

We started to look like Arsenal with the trying to pass it through he middle.

*Rooney when he tried to run with the ball into the box and couldn't control it... several times

 

Greece did

 

Great credit to Slovakia, that was their plan and it worked for them, we just made it slightly easy. Just frustrating we didn't try to olay wide and the impact subs were introduced to be narrow.

Still upbeat though, we have played the best tournament football probably since 2004 and think we will,start to improve.

 

Our performances have been pretty good and we have dominated all 3 games which is why only winning 1 of them is a tad worrying, the biggest thing for me is that when plan A isn't working we don't really have a plan B, as good as our squad is the personal are all a bit samey. The squad is severely lacking width and as i said last night with 10 minutes to go that game was crying out for a Carroll type player to mix it up.

 

He had borrowed Fonte's invisibility cloak. No chance of getting booked....all the ref would have seen would be the Slovakian spontaneously bleeding.