Match Day Thread Today's Games

Remember Wigan?

 

Yep and they were relegated that season too, so a mix bag for their supporters lol.

 

Oh well, what do I know? I gave up watching when it went 3 nil.

 

Watford didn't play badly, Citeh are just a different class!

 

Yeah they're in a different class, just made watching the game a bit boring.

 

A billion quid puts you in a different class. Unfortunately it probably also puts you out of the Champions League!

 

Anyone watching England?
**** game,but we are 1-0 up.
Rashford pen

 

1-1 and ET!!

 

And they succeeded in achieving defeat from 'the jaws of victory!!!'

 

And some of our so called 'supporters' tried their best to bust a few Portuguese jaws - regardless of whether civilian or police
Deport the bastards and confiscate their passports for christ's sake

 

I'm rapidly going off Southgate, Stones can't even get in the Man City starting eleven, Barkley and Delph are crap and Maddison is not even in the squad.

Thank God for NCFC and sod England!

BAH. (sorry General)

 

Agree Dave,Stones was utter ****e.
Deiph and Barkley were no better.
Walker was poor.Max is far better.
Bring in the U23 players

 

And while they are at it ban the England "band" from "entertaining" us. Fecking dreadful

 

This is the answer.

 

The good General took issue with me when I criticised the mentality of our national teams on the CWC thread. Last night was another classic example of mental weakness. How can Southgate possibly justify his saying he was "incredibly proud" of his players after that performance? That sort of comment both displays and legitimises the mental frailties he is should be eradicating. The message should be 'You failed -- again -- and I'm going to give hungrier, younger players your shirts in the upcoming qualifiers".

 

I did, for me it was too sweeping. As I said, you can't say that all our stars and teams are blighted by mental weakness. Saracens are a predominantly English side and have an increadible winning mentality, both domestically and in Europe. In football, Several English players have just won/competed in the final of the toughest club competition in the world. Much was made of the lay off between the end of the PL and the Champions league final, it was longer still to this nations league semi. I think they switched off, fell short in part due to a loss of match sharpness and perhaps mentally having dropped of due to fatigue and that in truth the game meant very little. It might add some spice to the friendlies, but it isn't a major trophy and the guys probably would rather have started their holidays by now.
Kind of agree re- Southgates comments though. No point trying to call a sow's ear a silk purse.

Bah!

 

Redknapp afterwards questioned why Maddison hadn’t been picked. We really got dominated through the middle.

 

The notion that "the game meant very little" is precisely the kind of thing I'm criticising. Having a winning mentality means being determined to beat anything and everything put in front of you. The England team I want to follow is the team that looks at Saturday's 3rd place play-off as if it were the Final of a major international competition, not -- to quote the BBC's Phil McNulty -- "a fixture that is hardly one to get their pulses racing". Any player whose pulses aren't set racing by the opportunity to at least beat the Swiss and come third, shouldn't be in the team.

 

A lot of the comments leading up to the game were regarding the potential tiredness and fatigue that the players that played in the EL and CL finals may be suffering ahead of the Nations League. I think the thing that they missed was that in watching both of those games the players suffered from having such a long lay off and lacked match sharpness which in turn made those games poor spectacles and lowered the standard of play.

After watching the England game you could see that in particular Maguire, Stones, Walker and others lacked match sharpness, they weren't making the correct decisions in phases of play where they normally would and several times other than the obvious Stones mistake got caught on the ball where they would have been more alive to the danger had it been the middle of the season. For that reason it would have perhaps been better to play the 7 that had recently played in the EL and CL games as they would have regained some of that match sharpness. All ifs and buts now but IMO Alli, Henderson, Gomez, TAA all should have started.

As for Harry Kane...where do I start...when fit he is ours and Spurs number 1 striker, however when he is coming back from such a long lay off why do we feel the need to throw him in, even for a half when we have very good option available. As soon as he came out for the second half the pressing game from the front dropped off, I also don't believe he won a single header against Van Dijk across both games!

 

Representing England every game should be treated as must win!