be alright when England are not on Channel 4 and England went into the last world cup on the back of a 0-4 defeat to Hungary and a 0-1 defeat to Italy, 130% Southgate needs to give Grealish a bell before before he goes on a big one to Ibiza with Wayne Lineker.
I wonder whether we’ve lost too much experience. When the chips are down, experience counts for a lot.
A bit juvenile I know but several newspapers included a wall chart in todays edition. I ended up buying a copy of the Scum - because all the others with wall charts had sold out. I saved my blushes - I wrapped it up in a porn mag so nobody would ever know………
Thought it was the usual from Southgate. We have great players, one the world's best, but we got worse as the game went on. Until our goal we looked positive and on the front foot...... making Serbia look L1. After the goal we looked in a straightjacket and all 11 defending.....Serbia made us look L1. If we win it.......it wont because of Southgate it will be instead of Southgate.
We played poorly but got the win. Had that been Germany, France or Spain it could have been a Scotland score. However it wasn’t - and we won - and top the group. Let’s hope we ‘grow into’ the tournament.
Some of the team played?? Rice? Bellingham? Saka? Walker? Serbia had one shot a half! Never going to score.
Rice was outstanding last night and hope I'm proved wrong about Trent. He's suspect at RB and he's not what Rice needs alongside him. Trent's great at crossing and 40yard passes but, for me, he's not what we need in midfield.
I find Rice flatters to decide tbh; he moves the ball sideways and backwards a lot. All the play goes through him, but for me, he slows down the tempo; he rarely finds an incisive pass forward. Collectively, it was a bad, sluggish night, but we got 3 points. We need some tempo in the team, though; we played the match at an almost walking pace last night, as we did against Iceland, but that can't continue.
Odd eye catching 4oyd passes doesnt seem enough for what England lose. Doesnt fit to I and its a weird balance.
eh? was excellent last night moving the ball one and two touch from that pivot thing the foreigners love a bit of and doing it under pressure. Declan Busquets never seemed to lose it.
For me, his job which he does brilliantly, is firefighting in front of our defenders. He 'smells' trouble.
I don't disagree, but it seems everything goes through him; if Trent had that much time on the ball, we would have been more creative, of that I'm certain, but also, TAA would have given the ball away more as well. It comes down to how the team is set up, and Southgate always puts safety first, which is why the play goes through Rice. At Arsenal, all the play goes through Odeggard, not Rice, which is why Arsenal are more successful in attacking than England has been.
At Arsenal they play a 4-3-3 and Rice is normally the cm/cdm making more passes than Odeggard. Odeggard plays in a differing role further forward.
Watching England is somewhat akin to seeing BCFC each week by not knowing what to expect next. Both teams play boring football and allow their opponents to dictate the play after taking the lead on the scoreboard and England's performance was below par as usual and honestly I can't see them going much further in these Euros. There are far too many teams competing that have more pride in wearing their nation's shirt than most of our lot in their little toe and forgive me for saying this but is there a colour divide in the dressing room? The celebrations, on the rare occasion, seem to be divided down the middle when you see the players racing to give the scorer a high five and all round hugs. On a different matter does anyone know who that annoying American woman commentator is, and am I getting the same feed as you are over there which I think is ITV. I find the drive towards more female commentators on Men's Football a little bit too wokish for my ancient thought process and I suspect the only reason she is used is because the American public will not generally watch anything and everything without a blasting screechy U.S. annoyance. It's the Euros for goodness sake and so Euro voices only please because if you tried to implement the reverse whereby English pundits commentated on U.S. basketball the messy stuff would hit you in the eyes. Rant over for today.
Boys got his St George out the window. Getting pizza in. Big day. If we get to the final going to get three gold painted Lions for the drive. Too much??
Well that first half was about as bad as I can ever remember - apart from the goals. So many England passes either off target, being intercepted or blocked. At least Foden is having a go - and Pickford couldn’t do anything about their goal.
