Match Day Thread England matches

When he improves his final ball - which he will, it's a matter of regaining the confidence he had at Saints imo - he'll be an exceptional player.

No one better at running with the ball at his feet, & bringing it into dangerous areas.

 

Jesus, I thought Saints fans were negative.

That was a decent performance from England. Some fluid movement, neat passing, & a bit of swagger at times.

Will that performance frighten Germany, Spain etc? Of course not. We've been well below that level for years. Accept that, & it's possible to be at least a bit positive about performances like last night's.

Anyone who thinks we should be walking all over Slovakia is deluded.

 

I did say I don't watch them anymore because I've seen too much of the above. Until well performing players from teams like yours and mine get in ahead f big names from big teams nothing will greatly change

 

I'm hoping Southgate won't be guilty of big club bias, but we'll see.

Ryan Bertrand made a case for himself last night, but tbh there aren't too many Saints players knocking on the door of that squad right now. James Ward Prowse maybe, if he has a good season.

 

I'm pleased for Bertrand and hope Ward-Prowse gets a chance don't get me wrong. If Southgate changes great but not seeing it yet. It did it for me last summer when Drinkwater, on the back of winning the title and having the season of his life got left out of the Euros for Wilshire who I think had only played about 90 minutes in that season which was clearly because he played for Arsenal. I know was Hodgson though. I'm calling it now though that Drinkwater will be on the bench for Chelsea and get called up which is wrong and what I don't like personally. I get that most of here are big club supporters and probably are oblivious to it

 

In his defence, Joe Hart plays for WHam and he still gets picked when we could be blooding a far better, younger player.

 

Yeah about time for Hart to be replaced although I have always liked him. Got some good young keepers particularly Pickford. An advantage some country's have is a lot of players playing for the same team and winning their domestic league (Bayern and Barce for example). The closest we had was last summer the group of talented Tottenham lads but by the time we got to the euros they'd had a traumatic end to the season so confidence or lack of it is key as well. I guess the fact our league is competitive and not a one or two team one doesn't help on that front. Makes the domestic season more interesting though

 

Did Arsenal sell a striker to you? I missed that.

 

Not so sure he will improve at Liverpool, he is a good player but not a game changer.

 

I watched the lad when he started out at Saints. Okay, it was league 1, but he really stood out. More so than Lallana or Walcott, for example. Only youngster that impressed me that much was Gareth Bale (not saying he'll ever be in that class).

 

If ever a man was born to play that role it was Huddlestone. His vision was perfect and lack of movement less important. Not sure of his level now but a few years back would have been ideal.

 

Maybe fans need to stop being so expectant. Every year and I don't need clarification, I've been around long enough to see it and read or hear about it, even on this thread in some instances but England should not be expected to always get to a semi final or they are failures. England are on a par with Denmark, Sweden, Wales etc. As soon as the fans can accept that, they might get behind the team instead of acting like entitled pricks because 'we wun it in 66 innit'.

A lot of you ask to not enjoy International football therefore you don't. I'm not particularly bothered but I enjoy watching the Spurs players and I always will. England did fine yesterday had the ****tiest start possible and turned it around in a must win game.

 

Well said

 

Biggest problem for me with England is the managers. I actually think a number of the players now are really good and if managed correctly could probably take England far but the FA are always hiring what I feel are the wrong guys.

Woy - ****ing dinosaur.
Big Sam - recognisable and sometimes effective way of playing (even if not the most entertaining) but unsure he was right fit for a young squad.
Southgate - must have hired him for banter.

 

Who can England attract? A lot of other countries get relative success with unknown names as managers. I don't see too much difference between a Coleman for Wales, Strachan for Scotland and Southgate for England. Denmark and Greece have had more recent success than England with average managers. The other teams fans get behind their team...we turn up expecting everyone to get tonked or the team gets criticised. We might be the strongest Home Nation but we are not anywhere near perennial achievers in International football. Got to a Semi in 96....that was because we were at home. In International football home advantage is massive. Before then it was a semi final in Italia90. Before then it was not much..yes we won it but that was decades ago. It's hard to criticise 6 points from 6 over the weekend but players still get ripped. That English team does not contain seasoned trophy winners. Spain is full of them from the top 2 Spanish clubs. Germany is Bayern Munich in disguise....I think we are doing as well as we can be expected to from what I see...France drew 0-0 with Luxembourg.

 

Part of the problem with managers in the past is that the FA have appointed individuals with massive egos, then put them under pressure to get immediate results. So there is no chance of building anything for the future.

I'm hoping the appointment of Soutgate is a deliberate attempt to change direction. The guy is a coach rather than a manager imo, and has progressed in that role along with a lot of these young players. With any luck he'll be given the freedom to experiment, get some things wrong, and keep learning - and the players too.

 

I think the opposite. They avoided the egos - Clough, Venables (apart from a ludicrously short period), Redknapp. They went for the nice guys - Greenwood, Taylor and Hodgson. The role needs someone who will gee up the players and who knows something about tactics.

 

Why oh why do people still think the manager or squad is our issue.

Our problems run so much deeper it's unbelievable how many people don't see it.

Until there's a face lift from top to bottom right down to grass roots we'll continue to achieve **** all.

 

But all those three were expected to get results straight away. So the same problem persits.

How do you "gee up" players you don't know, & who aren't used to playing together? As for tactics, they're far less important imo than getting a group to buy into a system that works - and that takes time.

 

That's the question mate but I don't think Woy, Sam or Southgate should've been the answers. I feel like we need/ needed someone with recent experience of the modern game and more importantly someone who truly knows the current Premier League and thus it's players. Woy was massively outdated, he wanted modern players to adopt 90s tactics, Sam knew the Prem but wasn't known for nurturing young English talent while Southgate's last job in the Prem was about 8 years back and he got Boro relegated.

I just feel the FA - who could also do with a shake-up - could've done far better in their choices than those. The current batch of players are probably the best we've had since the likes of Scholes, Beckham, Owen and co yet we're hiring what I feel are duds to manage them.