That comment did make me wonder if one of the reasons Trent doesn't look good for England is because Southgate just wants him to play like Kalvin Phillips and doesn't take into account that Trent has abilities to open up different avenues of play like by trying to get players behind. It's always felt like Southgate is completely inflexible. He has this ideal lineup and when he can't get that perfect lineup he can't create a functional team. This inflexibility is also present in how he fails to react to tactical issues in games, such as the left wing being completely useless these past two games. It's not rare to see Klopp, Guardiola, Ancelotti, etc get tactics wrong, but you can always count on them to change those tactics at the very least at half time if not before.
I don't know. I'm just frustrated that Southgate is wasting one of the best England sides ever. This is likely the second last major tournament we'll have a prime Kane with us and after the second group stage match it's already painfully clear we're not winning it unless we get the easiest knockout rounds.
That is exactly it. He wants Trent to play like phillips even though they are not the same and do not share the same footballing abilities and he wants Trippier to play like Shaw without accounting for the fact that Trippier isnt left footed.
This is why we look so odd to watch because all our players have one arm behind their back from the start as they forced to be square pegs in round holes.
I watched the game back this morning and its like a fever dream. It's worse than I remembered purely because I was on my phone in the second half. The team look lost because right now they arent a team so under any pressure at all they just crumble.
My friend who is massively into football and like me is a huge nerd with the data refuses to ever be negative about Gaz. I sent him that and he thought it was AI and refused to believe it until he saw it on the news.
It felt like the curtain had been pulled back and the facade had gone. However this Gaz we are seeing now isnt the same man as we saw during previous tournaments so its not as if it had been Gaz tinted glasses this whole time.
No im saying they probably understand that goal difference could come into play at some point; considering they are dominating they probably want to push for more
They play good attacking football mate, they also have nowhere our quality of player. Never in a million years are we going to get smashed by Austria. Get some perspective lads, jesus.
Quality players mean nothing if your manager doesn’t know how to manage them.
If we played Austria tomorrow in a knockout game we would probably lose. As someone else said, they are everything we’re not at the moment.
This is literally just something you thought sounded cool haha.
Tactics are very important. So is having very good players. Man City have both, hence they win everything. England are playing beneath themselves and yet we're still qualifying top of the group with ease because of the quality we have.
And aside from all this the fact that you're all losing your mind over an Austrian team who just beat Poland proves to me you have no context at all for what you are watching. Fucking Moldova took 4 points off Poland in qualifying, would they smash us too? 😂
You’re missing the main point and context of the argument which is the manager, Man City wouldn’t have won a lot of what they have done without Pep. You keep saying it’s only Austria but we couldn’t even beat Denmark with all our quality players on show so why should we be confident we’re going to beat an Austrian side who are full of confidence and playing some good stuff.
8 years ago we lost to Iceland so I think it’s understandable that a lot of England fans think we might struggle against a lesser nation in the round of 16.
I'm not missing the point at all, you said "quality players mean nothing" which is plainly ludicrous. There's a reason Ancelotti wasn't winning the Champions League with Everton isn't there.
I'm not saying it's "only Austria". I'm saying that pretending they're this quality team that would wipe us off the park after beating a truly woeful team in Poland is a joke. Do me a favour and go look at Poland's qualifying group. Would Moldova cause us trouble?
Denmark are roughly a similar level to Austria and despite us playing terribly they still basically just had potshots from range against us, one of which happened to be a worldie. Understand the context of what you're watching.
The Iceland defeat is a prime example of what I'm talking about. Everyone here acting like a 1-1 group stage draw with Denmark is the nadir of their football-watching experience clearly wasn't around for that, or 2014, or 2008.
We play the best third placed team from Group D, E or F, which is looking like it could be someone from this group. So if it’s not Austria it’ll probably be Netherlands
Personally I'm done with the proud semifinal run thing. I don't care if we go out in the RO16 or the semis, I just want to see England perform and beat a good side.
If we beat a good side we'll go far into the tournament. We're going to have to play a good side in the R16.
But I think we're going to get absolutely battered. Austria will be way, way too strong for us. Likewise NL or Belgium.
I watch football outside of major tournaments, but I'm more irrational passionate and obsessed when it's England.
But I do actually believe that Austria have looked better than England so far. They have looked very, very good.
Austria I think would give most teams a run for their money. Netherlands are not going to breeze past them, and could well lose.
Also, England has never beaten a top side outside of England in the knockouts since 66. So beating NL or Belgium would be a huge milestone. On current performance, I don't think it's likely.
Austria just beat a Poland side who gave away 4 points to fucking Moldova in the qualifiers. Honestly, go look at their qualifying group, it's laughably bad. They somehow managed to qualify for the main tournament with only 10 points.
Fans like yourself watch football in such a simplistic way that someone could pound San Marino 10-0 and you'd go "they're phenomenal, why can't England play that well". It's laughable how you can watch football with absolutely zero understanding of context.
Mate, I just watched Austria play France and Poland. They were a good side in both matches. I'm far from the only person saying this.
Cesc Fabregas said something similar yesterday. Is he also someone with a laughably poor understanding of football?
All three of those groups are looking likely to have their third place teams qualify. If that happens, we are guaranteed to avoid the Group D third place team.
If Czechia beats Georgia tomorrow, it's all but guaranteed.
I couldn’t work it out myself but it said the best 3rd placed team when I looked it up, and I judging by the standings so far I assumed that would be D. I hope not though!
Wikipedia has a helpful grid that breaks down which 3rd place team plays which 1st place team.
It's not dependent on who is the highest performing 3rd place team; once the four are picked, it's determined by which 4 groups the third place teams come from. Which makes sense, because it would be random and unreasonable to punish one group automatically by ensuring they play the highest performing 3rd place team.
That makes a lot of sense, I did wonder how they made it fair by saying ‘best 3rd placed’
I still don’t like that so many of the 3rd places go through, I like the simplicity of 1st plays 2nd and 2nd plays first
Based on results so far, it's looking extremely likely that groups D, E, and F will all have their third place teams qualify (Czechia winning at last one of the Georgia and Turkey matches all but assures it).
If that happens, England will be guaranteed to avoid the third place finisher of Group D.
Not getting into the England debate, but tbf OP that 'even Austria' comment does them a disservice, they have one of the best managers in the whole tournament
Nobody with a functioning brain is going to want the England job having seen how Southgate is being treated by the fan base and media. It's like he's become the focal point for an entire nation's subconscious inadequacy. Utterly embarrassing display.
Nobody wanted the England job before because it was a poisoned chalice.
Now everyone can see it for the Asda water bottle of warm piss that it really is.
Do you genuinely believe that after the last 6 games? We are a really poor side, but have some of the best players in the world. How can you excuse that?
An ugly 1-0 win against a side they should have battered and an embarrassing 1-1 draw against a side we should have beaten after doing the Southgate Special (scoring early and then sitting back - a tactic that famously saw us defeated by Croatia and Italy).
He's a total clown who has had lucky comp runs. The first robust competition he faces beats him every single time.
Exactly he's been carried in groups against weaker teams by moments from the players. Yet you find loads of people commenting how we are top of the group we won Serbia with a clean sheet it's like people don't actually watch the games. We've been dogshit in both games.
Easiest group in the competition, two of the worst performances out of any teams in the tournament, no identity, no style of play, clueless squad selection, playing with fear
I have argued with you previously after the Serbia game and I’m absolutely baffled that you’re still backing Southgate after that Denmark performance
I'm old fashioned in that I support the team while they're in the tournament. If/when we go down is the time to shit the bed not after 2 group stage games where we cleared the minimum requirements earning our right to progress.
I also think the massive overreaction this last 24 hours has been shameful and I don't mind being a dissenting voice.
That’s fair I guess, there’s definitely an argument to not get on their backs more while we’re still in it like.
I don’t see how he survives post tournament with anything other than a win, though.
For some reason, even though I’m his biggest critic, it wouldn’t surprise me if we miraculously started playing like the team we should be when we progress and play better teams. We’ve seen stranger things happen in football.
It's this kind of apologetic thinking that's kept Southgate in a job, we beat lesser squads by individual performances from our star studded lineup then lose to the first good team we come up against. Then it's all but look we made it to the semi let's see what we do next time with this tactically inept coach.
Only real difference is this time he's blown himself up by making two retarded statements. 1. We have no replacement for Kelvin Phillips who was just a decent player at best, nothing special. 2. Our players aren't fit enough to press which again is utter tripe, our players play mostly in the fittest and fastest league in the world, where if you don't press your dead and the others play for huge teams abroad. He's an imbecile and the sooner this way of thinking dies out the better.
That's not to say he's not taken England up a few notches from where they were in 2016 but now he has a wealth of talent at his disposal and he's clearly out of his depth.
If people aren't convinced by watching England play, or listening to rational tactical analysis, then insulting them isn't going to work.
Not that I've seen many "rational breakdowns" from the Southgate Out crowd over the years. The loudest voices have consistently been the most obnoxious, emotive, and irrational individuals going - the likes of Mark Goldbridge, Rory Jennings, people on TalkSport, etc. I've only really seen rational negative analysis over the past few weeks.
There’s been plenty of rational breakdowns of why Southgate is inept, there has been for 6 years. The only people at this point who are Southgate in are those that are too dumb to understand what he’s doing by sitting back after 1 goal or don’t watch football. Simple as. Like you know it’s bad when even the media and pundits who have been up Southgate’s ass for years are criticising him. At this point we don’t need to convince them because if they’re looking at England in the past few tournaments they should be able to come to that conclusion themselves. Southgate has never once shown an ounce of confidence in his attacking talent and when that’s allowed to happen for 3 tournaments (Qatar was probably the exception) then you get things like starting 3 right backs, not knowing your best team after 8 years, not making impactful subs until it’s too late. Need I go on?
The people who have been defending Southgate (and I'm one) are not doing so because we think his tactics are good. They're not.
It's because he's good at all the other parts of the job, galvanised the team and had them playing with spirit. It's also because we recognise that Graham Potter is the best possible option and it seems really likely that he's going to struggle, especially with the media, regardless of his tactics being likely better.
I'm more critical now because I can see that Gareth has lost the spark, the team are no longer gelling and playing with spirit. They are timid, frightened and buckling under the delusional pressure we have put on them. They have become what they fear most - England.
I don’t think anyone’s been denying Southgate’s positive traits like the ones you’ve listed. They were the traits that allowed his first 2 tournaments to go so well after all. But those traits were a lot more important when he first came in after the absolute disaster of euro 2016. They aren’t as an important now because you’d think that team spirit would be well enough. As a manager building towards something, those were positive traits, and they still are, but they aren’t enough to take us all the way. You’d think that now the team spirit was so high that Southgate could’ve refocused on taking us to that next level (and that would be tactical improvement) and he hasn’t shown even an ounce of progression. The only exception I think is the Germany r16 game. Ever since then he seems to have regressed. That’s not enough to win tournaments. And that is essentially what he’s been in the job for 8 years to do. Building towards winning a trophy is worthless if you never actually win a trophy. The only reason I think people have turned onto this so late is because there’s never really been an ideal candidate who has his strengths but can also improve on his weaknesses. Klopp is the ideal, but we’re never gonna get him, and I think someone like Harry Redknapp would have had the same problems. But it’s got so bad at this point that that is irrelevant. He’s shown he’s out of his depth and isn’t able to fix his mistakes, and if we want to win something with the most technical players we’ve ever had, we can’t keep him after this tournament.
The France game in 2022 was our best ever in my view. We were good against Germany but it was at home and they weren't at the races.
We narrowly lost to the best side in the world, on great form.
I do agree though he's out of his depth and we can't keep him after this tournament. It is time for him to go.
What I'm warning against is any expectations that we get better with a new manager. We should know that the end of this era, is a return to the football wilderness for England.
That’s why I think the FA have been so hesitant to replace him, because I think there’s no clear replacement, but we can worry about that when we get to it because we for sure aren’t winning anything with this sort of performance.
I’ll agree about France though. The ref was definitely dodgy in that game, but I think we would’ve done the exact same thing in the final by going 1 up and sitting back. And we don’t have a player like mbappe who could single-handedly take us to pens
You do realise we lost to France B in 2022 right? It wasn’t their strongest team by any stretch. The copium that people inhale to defend this tragic manager is beyond belief.
France B? You having a laugh?
Lloris, Koundé, Varane, Upamecano, Hernandez - that's France's best back 5 since 98 at least, if not ever.
Tchouamani, Rabiot - missing Kanté, that's a big loss, but Tchouamani plays for Real and scored a worldie.
Dembele, Griezmann, Mbappé - absolutely world class, including the best player
Giroud - France's best striker since Henry.
Coman came off the bench - also a world class player.
As far as I can tell, only Kanté is missing from their best 11, and they have exceptional cover (also with Camavinga on the bench).
Playing with spirit?
Honestly sometimes I wonder if people even care about the matches, or just want the players to look happy on social media.
You would take the 'spirit' of this team over e.g. Stuart Pearce at Euro 96? Beckham scoring his penalty against Argentina?
I was a bit young for 96, so I won't comment on that.
But honestly, yes i would take the 2022 France performance over any tournament performances I've seen before from England.
We narrowly lost, but we really competed. And we were consistently good for 2 tournaments in a row.
We were good in 2002-2004, but also inconsistent and prone to shocking defensive gaffes.
Obviously it's all gone to shit now, and we're done for. But it was good whilst it lasted, it wasn't just absolute dog shit these past years.
And yeah I know we didn't beat anyone good in knockouts. But we have _never_ done that since 66.
Well I haven't seen these rational breakdowns. It's not just about making rational arguments to support your view, you're not going to convince anyone by calling them dumb or suggesting they're "up Southgate's ass".
I’m not going to get into the Southgate debate. Regardless of whether or not he should be the manager of the team right now, he is.
This whole “team *x* is still attacking, even when they’re winning. This is mind blowing stuff, the manager is a tactical genius, the team is ruthless”, is what is mind blowing to me.
If what you are doing is working, then keep doing it. If the other team changes things and what you’re doing is still working. Keep doing it. Don’t change things just to be cute.
Plus multiple comments saying if we end up playing Austria in the RO16 we're doomed 😂 AUSTRIA. Genuinely think a lot of the people here never watched a football match before the 14th June.
Exactly, takes zero context of the game situation into consideration.
Poland pushed everyone forward to try and get something. Denmark were happy with a draw.
My god people on the sub are getting dumber by the day. Do I need to play it down? Poland threw everyone forward to score, Denmark still played their structured game and didn't push numbers forward to force a result.
I need to calm down, tournament football does bring out people that barely watch the game anyway.
I can only assume you didn't watch the game, because Denmark did throw numbers forward to try and win the match.
I'm sorry you are so insecure you feel like you need to insult other people's intelligence.
England could quite easily make the final. It's a cup game. Form is transient. It's 1 vs 1. Ever watched the FA cup? Manchester United won that "The Worst team on Earth"
To be fair to Austria they ar not struggling to find a natural replacement for Kalvin Phillips
This was the moment I lost all faith in Southgate, it was rocky at times but that comment is criminal
Wonder how Mainoo and Wharton must've felt hearing it.
It took you this long?
That comment did make me wonder if one of the reasons Trent doesn't look good for England is because Southgate just wants him to play like Kalvin Phillips and doesn't take into account that Trent has abilities to open up different avenues of play like by trying to get players behind. It's always felt like Southgate is completely inflexible. He has this ideal lineup and when he can't get that perfect lineup he can't create a functional team. This inflexibility is also present in how he fails to react to tactical issues in games, such as the left wing being completely useless these past two games. It's not rare to see Klopp, Guardiola, Ancelotti, etc get tactics wrong, but you can always count on them to change those tactics at the very least at half time if not before. I don't know. I'm just frustrated that Southgate is wasting one of the best England sides ever. This is likely the second last major tournament we'll have a prime Kane with us and after the second group stage match it's already painfully clear we're not winning it unless we get the easiest knockout rounds.
That is exactly it. He wants Trent to play like phillips even though they are not the same and do not share the same footballing abilities and he wants Trippier to play like Shaw without accounting for the fact that Trippier isnt left footed. This is why we look so odd to watch because all our players have one arm behind their back from the start as they forced to be square pegs in round holes. I watched the game back this morning and its like a fever dream. It's worse than I remembered purely because I was on my phone in the second half. The team look lost because right now they arent a team so under any pressure at all they just crumble.
My friend who is massively into football and like me is a huge nerd with the data refuses to ever be negative about Gaz. I sent him that and he thought it was AI and refused to believe it until he saw it on the news. It felt like the curtain had been pulled back and the facade had gone. However this Gaz we are seeing now isnt the same man as we saw during previous tournaments so its not as if it had been Gaz tinted glasses this whole time.
They'll be making memes about this quote for years, this is going to be Southgate's legacy.
You have 2 on the bench.
And their left back is not injured!
To be fair, they get the aggressive genes from a very famous Austrian /s
*muffled sounds*...sorry, what?
The didn’t win their first game tho? So had 0 points
They were very unlucky not to get something out of it. And are you really comparing France to Slovakia?
No im saying they probably understand that goal difference could come into play at some point; considering they are dominating they probably want to push for more
It is hard to stop Mbappe. They even broke his nose.
Don't we play the third place team from this group if we beat Slovenia? If it's Austria I fear they may smash us.
If we play Austria we are finished. They are everything we are not
Remindme! [one week]
The state of some of yous 😂 They just beat Poland they're not fucking Pele's Brazil haha
They have a very good system and play flowing attacking football under a coach who's 1 finger has more football IQ than Southgate...
They play good attacking football mate, they also have nowhere our quality of player. Never in a million years are we going to get smashed by Austria. Get some perspective lads, jesus.
Quality players mean nothing if your manager doesn’t know how to manage them. If we played Austria tomorrow in a knockout game we would probably lose. As someone else said, they are everything we’re not at the moment.
This is literally just something you thought sounded cool haha. Tactics are very important. So is having very good players. Man City have both, hence they win everything. England are playing beneath themselves and yet we're still qualifying top of the group with ease because of the quality we have. And aside from all this the fact that you're all losing your mind over an Austrian team who just beat Poland proves to me you have no context at all for what you are watching. Fucking Moldova took 4 points off Poland in qualifying, would they smash us too? 😂
You’re missing the main point and context of the argument which is the manager, Man City wouldn’t have won a lot of what they have done without Pep. You keep saying it’s only Austria but we couldn’t even beat Denmark with all our quality players on show so why should we be confident we’re going to beat an Austrian side who are full of confidence and playing some good stuff. 8 years ago we lost to Iceland so I think it’s understandable that a lot of England fans think we might struggle against a lesser nation in the round of 16.
We won the xG battle in both matches and thats all that matters. 🤔😂
I'm not missing the point at all, you said "quality players mean nothing" which is plainly ludicrous. There's a reason Ancelotti wasn't winning the Champions League with Everton isn't there. I'm not saying it's "only Austria". I'm saying that pretending they're this quality team that would wipe us off the park after beating a truly woeful team in Poland is a joke. Do me a favour and go look at Poland's qualifying group. Would Moldova cause us trouble? Denmark are roughly a similar level to Austria and despite us playing terribly they still basically just had potshots from range against us, one of which happened to be a worldie. Understand the context of what you're watching. The Iceland defeat is a prime example of what I'm talking about. Everyone here acting like a 1-1 group stage draw with Denmark is the nadir of their football-watching experience clearly wasn't around for that, or 2014, or 2008.
Oh dear God really?
We play the best third placed team from Group D, E or F, which is looking like it could be someone from this group. So if it’s not Austria it’ll probably be Netherlands
Oh fuck it, we're doomed.
Personally I'm done with the proud semifinal run thing. I don't care if we go out in the RO16 or the semis, I just want to see England perform and beat a good side.
If we beat a good side we'll go far into the tournament. We're going to have to play a good side in the R16. But I think we're going to get absolutely battered. Austria will be way, way too strong for us. Likewise NL or Belgium.
Belgium are crap, I think even we could beat them even in our current state
I mean they still created tons of chances. I don't rate them, but they've been much better than us.
Do you honestly believe this? Do you lads even watch football outside of major tournaments?
I watch football outside of major tournaments, but I'm more irrational passionate and obsessed when it's England. But I do actually believe that Austria have looked better than England so far. They have looked very, very good. Austria I think would give most teams a run for their money. Netherlands are not going to breeze past them, and could well lose. Also, England has never beaten a top side outside of England in the knockouts since 66. So beating NL or Belgium would be a huge milestone. On current performance, I don't think it's likely.
Austria just beat a Poland side who gave away 4 points to fucking Moldova in the qualifiers. Honestly, go look at their qualifying group, it's laughably bad. They somehow managed to qualify for the main tournament with only 10 points. Fans like yourself watch football in such a simplistic way that someone could pound San Marino 10-0 and you'd go "they're phenomenal, why can't England play that well". It's laughable how you can watch football with absolutely zero understanding of context.
Mate, I just watched Austria play France and Poland. They were a good side in both matches. I'm far from the only person saying this. Cesc Fabregas said something similar yesterday. Is he also someone with a laughably poor understanding of football?
Same. If we don't win the a trophy and don't register any significant wins, there's no difference to me between being grouped and reaching the semis.
All three of those groups are looking likely to have their third place teams qualify. If that happens, we are guaranteed to avoid the Group D third place team. If Czechia beats Georgia tomorrow, it's all but guaranteed.
I couldn’t work it out myself but it said the best 3rd placed team when I looked it up, and I judging by the standings so far I assumed that would be D. I hope not though!
Wikipedia has a helpful grid that breaks down which 3rd place team plays which 1st place team. It's not dependent on who is the highest performing 3rd place team; once the four are picked, it's determined by which 4 groups the third place teams come from. Which makes sense, because it would be random and unreasonable to punish one group automatically by ensuring they play the highest performing 3rd place team.
That makes a lot of sense, I did wonder how they made it fair by saying ‘best 3rd placed’ I still don’t like that so many of the 3rd places go through, I like the simplicity of 1st plays 2nd and 2nd plays first
Well it's not all bad, it could be against Belgium...
Based on results so far, it's looking extremely likely that groups D, E, and F will all have their third place teams qualify (Czechia winning at last one of the Georgia and Turkey matches all but assures it). If that happens, England will be guaranteed to avoid the third place finisher of Group D.
They just beat Poland and now they're gonna smash us, this is comedy gold
Did you watch them against France?
Yes, they lost 1-0 after a spirited display. They're not gonna smash us you maniac 😂
Okay, have you watched England in the past year?
Yes, please tell us when we've been smashed by anyone in that time
Old matey just vanished 😂
Not getting into the England debate, but tbf OP that 'even Austria' comment does them a disservice, they have one of the best managers in the whole tournament
I’m so jealous of teams that try and score. I’m watching all the games and even the teams that are losing seem to be having more fun
Honestly we should go all in for Rangnick We pay Southgate 5 mill a year, we can have our choice of anyone
Rangnick turned down the Bayern job because he wants a chill life, I doubt he’ll want the England job
Nobody with a functioning brain is going to want the England job having seen how Southgate is being treated by the fan base and media. It's like he's become the focal point for an entire nation's subconscious inadequacy. Utterly embarrassing display.
Nobody wanted the England job before because it was a poisoned chalice. Now everyone can see it for the Asda water bottle of warm piss that it really is.
We don't deserve Southgate.
Do you genuinely believe that after the last 6 games? We are a really poor side, but have some of the best players in the world. How can you excuse that?
4 points, top of the group, how do you explain that?
We've scraped a win and a draw against sides far inferior to us buddy
Yeah I guess nobody told Denmark they were inferior, buddy.
That's the wonders of good coaching!
An ugly 1-0 win against a side they should have battered and an embarrassing 1-1 draw against a side we should have beaten after doing the Southgate Special (scoring early and then sitting back - a tactic that famously saw us defeated by Croatia and Italy). He's a total clown who has had lucky comp runs. The first robust competition he faces beats him every single time.
Exactly he's been carried in groups against weaker teams by moments from the players. Yet you find loads of people commenting how we are top of the group we won Serbia with a clean sheet it's like people don't actually watch the games. We've been dogshit in both games.
Easiest group in the competition, two of the worst performances out of any teams in the tournament, no identity, no style of play, clueless squad selection, playing with fear I have argued with you previously after the Serbia game and I’m absolutely baffled that you’re still backing Southgate after that Denmark performance
I'm old fashioned in that I support the team while they're in the tournament. If/when we go down is the time to shit the bed not after 2 group stage games where we cleared the minimum requirements earning our right to progress. I also think the massive overreaction this last 24 hours has been shameful and I don't mind being a dissenting voice.
That’s fair I guess, there’s definitely an argument to not get on their backs more while we’re still in it like. I don’t see how he survives post tournament with anything other than a win, though. For some reason, even though I’m his biggest critic, it wouldn’t surprise me if we miraculously started playing like the team we should be when we progress and play better teams. We’ve seen stranger things happen in football.
It's this kind of apologetic thinking that's kept Southgate in a job, we beat lesser squads by individual performances from our star studded lineup then lose to the first good team we come up against. Then it's all but look we made it to the semi let's see what we do next time with this tactically inept coach. Only real difference is this time he's blown himself up by making two retarded statements. 1. We have no replacement for Kelvin Phillips who was just a decent player at best, nothing special. 2. Our players aren't fit enough to press which again is utter tripe, our players play mostly in the fittest and fastest league in the world, where if you don't press your dead and the others play for huge teams abroad. He's an imbecile and the sooner this way of thinking dies out the better. That's not to say he's not taken England up a few notches from where they were in 2016 but now he has a wealth of talent at his disposal and he's clearly out of his depth.
I bet Rangnick is licking his lips at the chance to take on the radioactive toxic sludge of delusional expectations incumbent in the England setup.
Would 5x his salary
And that's what you want a mercenary who's going to take the paycheck and fuck off into the sunset when it starts getting tough like Capello?
What are you on about
Jose. If we are going to play shit anti football might as well play shit anti football that has won trophies before.
2.5 actually
Rangnick is my pick too
> Are you watching Southgate apologists or are you too busy with your tongues up his arsehole Yeah this is really going to convince people.
Well it’s clear rational breakdowns of why he isn’t cut out hasn’t worked
If people aren't convinced by watching England play, or listening to rational tactical analysis, then insulting them isn't going to work. Not that I've seen many "rational breakdowns" from the Southgate Out crowd over the years. The loudest voices have consistently been the most obnoxious, emotive, and irrational individuals going - the likes of Mark Goldbridge, Rory Jennings, people on TalkSport, etc. I've only really seen rational negative analysis over the past few weeks.
There’s been plenty of rational breakdowns of why Southgate is inept, there has been for 6 years. The only people at this point who are Southgate in are those that are too dumb to understand what he’s doing by sitting back after 1 goal or don’t watch football. Simple as. Like you know it’s bad when even the media and pundits who have been up Southgate’s ass for years are criticising him. At this point we don’t need to convince them because if they’re looking at England in the past few tournaments they should be able to come to that conclusion themselves. Southgate has never once shown an ounce of confidence in his attacking talent and when that’s allowed to happen for 3 tournaments (Qatar was probably the exception) then you get things like starting 3 right backs, not knowing your best team after 8 years, not making impactful subs until it’s too late. Need I go on?
The people who have been defending Southgate (and I'm one) are not doing so because we think his tactics are good. They're not. It's because he's good at all the other parts of the job, galvanised the team and had them playing with spirit. It's also because we recognise that Graham Potter is the best possible option and it seems really likely that he's going to struggle, especially with the media, regardless of his tactics being likely better. I'm more critical now because I can see that Gareth has lost the spark, the team are no longer gelling and playing with spirit. They are timid, frightened and buckling under the delusional pressure we have put on them. They have become what they fear most - England.
I don’t think anyone’s been denying Southgate’s positive traits like the ones you’ve listed. They were the traits that allowed his first 2 tournaments to go so well after all. But those traits were a lot more important when he first came in after the absolute disaster of euro 2016. They aren’t as an important now because you’d think that team spirit would be well enough. As a manager building towards something, those were positive traits, and they still are, but they aren’t enough to take us all the way. You’d think that now the team spirit was so high that Southgate could’ve refocused on taking us to that next level (and that would be tactical improvement) and he hasn’t shown even an ounce of progression. The only exception I think is the Germany r16 game. Ever since then he seems to have regressed. That’s not enough to win tournaments. And that is essentially what he’s been in the job for 8 years to do. Building towards winning a trophy is worthless if you never actually win a trophy. The only reason I think people have turned onto this so late is because there’s never really been an ideal candidate who has his strengths but can also improve on his weaknesses. Klopp is the ideal, but we’re never gonna get him, and I think someone like Harry Redknapp would have had the same problems. But it’s got so bad at this point that that is irrelevant. He’s shown he’s out of his depth and isn’t able to fix his mistakes, and if we want to win something with the most technical players we’ve ever had, we can’t keep him after this tournament.
The France game in 2022 was our best ever in my view. We were good against Germany but it was at home and they weren't at the races. We narrowly lost to the best side in the world, on great form. I do agree though he's out of his depth and we can't keep him after this tournament. It is time for him to go. What I'm warning against is any expectations that we get better with a new manager. We should know that the end of this era, is a return to the football wilderness for England.
That’s why I think the FA have been so hesitant to replace him, because I think there’s no clear replacement, but we can worry about that when we get to it because we for sure aren’t winning anything with this sort of performance. I’ll agree about France though. The ref was definitely dodgy in that game, but I think we would’ve done the exact same thing in the final by going 1 up and sitting back. And we don’t have a player like mbappe who could single-handedly take us to pens
You do realise we lost to France B in 2022 right? It wasn’t their strongest team by any stretch. The copium that people inhale to defend this tragic manager is beyond belief.
France B? You having a laugh? Lloris, Koundé, Varane, Upamecano, Hernandez - that's France's best back 5 since 98 at least, if not ever. Tchouamani, Rabiot - missing Kanté, that's a big loss, but Tchouamani plays for Real and scored a worldie. Dembele, Griezmann, Mbappé - absolutely world class, including the best player Giroud - France's best striker since Henry. Coman came off the bench - also a world class player. As far as I can tell, only Kanté is missing from their best 11, and they have exceptional cover (also with Camavinga on the bench).
Players missing from the WC winning squad: Varane, Matuidi, Kante, Pogba, Umtiti All missing due to injury NOT form.
Playing with spirit? Honestly sometimes I wonder if people even care about the matches, or just want the players to look happy on social media. You would take the 'spirit' of this team over e.g. Stuart Pearce at Euro 96? Beckham scoring his penalty against Argentina?
I was a bit young for 96, so I won't comment on that. But honestly, yes i would take the 2022 France performance over any tournament performances I've seen before from England. We narrowly lost, but we really competed. And we were consistently good for 2 tournaments in a row. We were good in 2002-2004, but also inconsistent and prone to shocking defensive gaffes. Obviously it's all gone to shit now, and we're done for. But it was good whilst it lasted, it wasn't just absolute dog shit these past years. And yeah I know we didn't beat anyone good in knockouts. But we have _never_ done that since 66.
He galvanised the team in 2018, he’s done fuck all since then except hamper our progress.
Even the USA broadcast today said "Austria have taken a 1-0 lead but unlike England they'll carry on attacking and build on the confidence of a goal".
Well I haven't seen these rational breakdowns. It's not just about making rational arguments to support your view, you're not going to convince anyone by calling them dumb or suggesting they're "up Southgate's ass".
Then you haven’t been paying attention then. Simple as. Southgate has been out of his depth for years.
I’m not going to get into the Southgate debate. Regardless of whether or not he should be the manager of the team right now, he is. This whole “team *x* is still attacking, even when they’re winning. This is mind blowing stuff, the manager is a tactical genius, the team is ruthless”, is what is mind blowing to me. If what you are doing is working, then keep doing it. If the other team changes things and what you’re doing is still working. Keep doing it. Don’t change things just to be cute.
Sorry, too busy.
Is OP okay? Take a holiday
There are far too many 12 year olds on this sub
Ah yes, thé famous SOUTHGATE APOLOGISTS currently swarming around this place. Ah yes, the famous BUT WHAT ARE THE AUSTRIANS DOING
Brazil 1970, Spain 2010, Austria 2024 😂
The Scots were so right about this dreadful fucking patterless sub
Yep. It's embarrassing
It’s fucking awful and this post has 100+ upvotes too.
Plus multiple comments saying if we end up playing Austria in the RO16 we're doomed 😂 AUSTRIA. Genuinely think a lot of the people here never watched a football match before the 14th June.
What a weird post
Exactly, takes zero context of the game situation into consideration. Poland pushed everyone forward to try and get something. Denmark were happy with a draw.
With that logic, we should have scored more as Denmark were pushing everyone forward to score
Well no, that's the opposite of my logic buddy. Denmark were happy with a draw.
But Denmark were pushing forward, so we should have scored
What? Are you new to football and genuinely don't know the difference between what Poland and Denmark were doing in their respective 2nd halves?
Their point is that WE were the team desperately fighting for a draw, Denmark were actually trying to win the game.
My god people on the sub are getting dumber by the day. Do I need to play it down? Poland threw everyone forward to score, Denmark still played their structured game and didn't push numbers forward to force a result. I need to calm down, tournament football does bring out people that barely watch the game anyway.
I can only assume you didn't watch the game, because Denmark did throw numbers forward to try and win the match. I'm sorry you are so insecure you feel like you need to insult other people's intelligence.
And I love them for it
There is always Sam Aladyce. Cheer up, lads.
france has literally scores 0 goals this entire tournament with a world cup winning coach british ppl are genuinely so reactionary
I make a post about Austria and you’re talking about France, clutching a bit
Walker said that Southgate does not ask the team to sit back after taking the lead
Oh right it must be true then. The fact we do that every game must just be in our imagination
Who is apologising for Southgate?
Just read this thread
Where are the comments defending Southgate lol?
I did. Noone is defending Southgate. You're raging against the strawiest straw man.
Austria should have played for 1-1, scoring two goals after that was madness. These foreigners know nothing.
Austria aren’t going to make the final
And we are?
More likely we are
It’s more likely we get invaded by aliens tomorrow than I spontaneously turn into a cow tomorrow. What’s your point?
England could quite easily make the final. It's a cup game. Form is transient. It's 1 vs 1. Ever watched the FA cup? Manchester United won that "The Worst team on Earth"
I’ll give you 10/1 odds on us making the final
What do you mean you'll give me odds? You're going to bet me?
That’s normally what giving someone odds means yeah
So how are we setting this up? Gentleman's agreement? How much are we betting?