World Cup 2022

[Alex 34913]

6 hours ago, Howmanheyman said:

AND FUCKING KEEGAN, ALEX!!! DON'T DISS THE MESSIAH BY OMISSION!!!!

 

 

 

Double European footballer of the year and that brief appearance as a sub was the only World Cup Finals football he played. But I think 82 was the first World Cup England had played in since 1970 (and he wasn’t fit going into the tournament). 

[Howmanheyman 32826]

31 minutes ago, Alex said:

Double European footballer of the year and that brief appearance as a sub was the only World Cup Finals football he played. But I think 82 was the first World Cup England had played in since 1970 (and he wasn’t fit going into the tournament). 

Still shouted 'KEEGAN!' when I put my foot through a ball.

[Alex 34913]

I loved him even before he signed for us. I couldn’t believe when it happened. We were down south visiting family and my dad was driving and he had to pull over when the news came on the radio  

[Howay 12496]

 

What a fucking wank opinion. He talks as if Southgate is a club manager with a 25 man squad, he doesn’t have to select that error prone keeper, and saying there’s no fit left back is ridiculous - he has other options besides Shaw and Chilwell  there’s a load of PL or championship left backs that are English. Again flawed CBs is always a stretch to me if Stones is good enough for regular selection by the side that has won 4 of the last 5 PL titles, he’s good enough for England, the others are also better than what the vast majority of international sides can select. The creative midfielder bit is bullshit too, he doesn’t select any of them and whenever he does he chops and changes which one it is or throws them on late in the game, when they do come on they’re locked into his woeful formation that has zero fluidity or quick tempo about it.
 

But aye, keep writing off the team of CL and title winners as “not good enough” in favor of the failed Boro manager which no decent club team will touch with a barge pole. 

[Alex 34913]

I’ve said similar before but he comes across as a lovely bloke. Articulate, and dignified he may be but he’s also essentially your typical ex-centre half turned manager. He’s never really looked getting the balance right and he’s always erred far too much on the side of caution given the attacking talent at his disposal. We never crossed the halfway line after scoring against Italy in the Euros final. How much game time did those creative midfielders get? It’s not his fault like but he’s never have been appointed other than under that particular set of bizarre circumstances 

[Craig 6682]

10 minutes ago, Alex said:

I’ve said similar before but he comes across as a lovely bloke. Articulate, and dignified he may be but he’s also essentially your typical ex-centre half turned manager. He’s never really looked getting the balance right and he’s always erred far too much on the side of caution given the attacking talent at his disposal. We never crossed the halfway line after scoring against Italy in the Euros final. How much game time did those creative midfielders get? It’s not his fault like but he’s never have been appointed other than under that particular set of bizarre circumstances 

 

That's been his M.O. for a while now. And against Italy we tried to play them at the type of game they mastered decades ago. 

I don't understand what issues he has with Grealish either who, whenever he's introduced seems to increase our attacking threat tenfold.

 

[Ayatollah Hermione 13837]

I think Grealish is better off the bench for England tbf but half the time, he’s introduced with about 15 minutes left so what’s the point? Another major flaw of Southgate’s is how fucking long it takes him to make a sub. Either he doesn’t know or he’s that indecisive, he can’t pick.

[Craig 6682]

I personally don't get the fascination with Sterling either. I thought that at the Euros and thought it was more luck than judgement that he scored so many. I know there's bias but quite why Callum Wilson hasn't even been considered for the squad is baffling.

[Alex 34913]

I thought Sterling was our best player. 

[Craig 6682]

3 minutes ago, Alex said:

I thought Sterling was our best player. 

A lot of people did. He frustrated the fuck out of me each time I watched him though. Grealish was the standout for me.

[Alex 34913]

9 minutes ago, Craig said:

A lot of people did. He frustrated the fuck out of me each time I watched him though. Grealish was the standout for me.

I don’t think Grealish played enough for that (not his fault). I thought he delivered end product and more vision in terms of playing people in thank I'd seen previously in an England shirt. Struggled in the final but I’d blame the tactics 

[Howay 12496]

Grealish is interesting, apparently he had the highest xA per 90 mins in the PL last season, I know xG is contentious on here never mind xA but I think it shows he is clearly a creative player and better than his goal involvements last season. Despite this Southgate rarely uses him and just throws his hands up when he can’t get anything out of him, it’s a similar story with Foden who is probably England’s most talented player. I’m at the point where I hope Man City do buy Phillips and he basically never plays a PL game so that Southgate is pretty much forced to stop playing this dreadful Rice - Phillips midfield which just kills our attack. 
 

I think my biggest annoyance with Southgate (and his absurdly over the top supporters) is he plays his system, and despite all the clear issues with it doesn’t change a thing - then once in a while he makes a change sort of like what people are asking for (but usually within the same framework of his system meaning players in roles they’re not used to, or not enough of the changes needed to actually be impactful), then when it’s not immediately a resounding success it’s basically held as proof he’s right and the players are incapable. He’s also had years to try things and figure out ways to improve since the Euros but hasn’t bothered, he’s just kept the same formation and players then tried a bunch of random last minute things immediately before the WC when he should really be simply fine tuning. 

[Ayatollah Hermione 13837]

Grealish wasn’t our best player at the Euros, behave  Shaw, Walker and Phillips all have claims ahead of him by a mile.

[spongebob toonpants 3956]

I was going to write a supportive post for Southgate based on getting to consecutive semi then finals, having seen nothing but shite in my long long life

The I realised I haven't seen a single second of these games, and I don't care anyway, so I didn't bother

[scoobos 298]

Personally, as an England fan thats been to matches and paid for tickets in major competitions, this media shit sickens me.

Even here (sorry Howay, usually agree) - we've posts saying "failed boro" manager - well maybe, but hes also been a VERY successful manager from the youth team upwards for the FA with England for years (since 2012 ?) and knows this squad and players. And lets not take the piss and forget who we would have had - Sam Allardyce - and people are complaining that we aren't playing 1990's brazil free flowing attacking football.

This is a great England team - it is. 

This is a friendly break where we try options. People scream at him in the media to not play 5 at the back with 2 holding midfielders and "release the creativity" and we get rolled over or have 5 shots on goal.  Don't start with Sterling etc (Sterling is like the opposite of John Barnes, he's one of our top scorers in recent memory).. Every time he's appeased the media it's gone to shit. I'm sure he's one to hold strength to his convictions.

Most competition winners play possession football nowadays , with counter attack. I have faith still that our first 11 is strong and the results are consistently the best I've seen from any other England manager in the lifetime that I had memory (I wasn't really old enough for Bobby's England).

Terry Venables is the only manager I can rank as close and it was very different times back then.

Remember this post and take the piss all you like - but I'm thinking we'll still make the quarters or semi's in Qatar cos no team is going to be able to play free flowing fast attacking football in that fucking heat. No way.
 

Edited June 16, 2022 by scoobos
too much 'effing.

[scoobos 298]

1 hour ago, Howay said:

Grealish is interesting, apparently he had the highest xA per 90 mins in the PL last season, I know xG is contentious on here never mind xA but I think it shows he is clearly a creative player and better than his goal involvements last season. Despite this Southgate rarely uses him and just throws his hands up when he can’t get anything out of him, it’s a similar story with Foden who is probably England’s most talented player. I’m at the point where I hope Man City do buy Phillips and he basically never plays a PL game so that Southgate is pretty much forced to stop playing this dreadful Rice - Phillips midfield which just kills our attack. 
 

I think my biggest annoyance with Southgate (and his absurdly over the top supporters) is he plays his system, and despite all the clear issues with it doesn’t change a thing - then once in a while he makes a change sort of like what people are asking for (but usually within the same framework of his system meaning players in roles they’re not used to, or not enough of the changes needed to actually be impactful), then when it’s not immediately a resounding success it’s basically held as proof he’s right and the players are incapable. He’s also had years to try things and figure out ways to improve since the Euros but hasn’t bothered, he’s just kept the same formation and players then tried a bunch of random last minute things immediately before the WC when he should really be simply fine tuning. 

Foden was injured in this campaign. (covid)

"I think my biggest annoyance with Southgate (and his absurdly over the top supporters) is he plays his system, and despite all the clear issues with it doesn’t change a thing - then once in a while he makes a change sort of like what people are asking for"

Then 1 sentence later:
"when he should really be simply fine tuning." 

Which do we want?

and what clear issues are there with playing not to concede in a knockout competition and relying on counter attack? It's got us further than my living memory has. We used to win all the friendlies and bottle the competitive games, he's totally reversed that behaviour.

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by scoobos

[Howay 12496]

All fair points, as long as you’re enjoying it and see it that way. No piss taking here. I’ve shared my opinion on what I see as his failings so won’t rehash, but do you not think the reaching late stages of competitions is a bit overstated? We’ve really not faced much strong opposition in either tournament and when he did we were knocked out, there was the win over Germany which was great but I think we can all agree it was a German team in a bit of a rebuild rather than the one from previous tournaments. I don’t mean to take away from him, and I’ll always remember him favorably for those tournaments but I don’t think we should ignore the issues in them which have only gotten worse. He also gets a ton of the praise when things go well, while the players then take the flak when things or bad (until this recent round of things). 
 

I disagree that him taking the shackles off means we lose heavily, it’s not been given a fair shot and even when he apparently did it he had Bellingham in a deep role. He should have been trying to progress and improve the attack since the Euros imo as we don’t create enough chances. There’s a chasm between attack and defence, meaning Kane drops as far back as midfield to get the ball and when he does stay high Mount tries to occupy the same space as him. 

[Howay 12496]

5 minutes ago, scoobos said:

Foden was injured in this campaign. (covid)

"I think my biggest annoyance with Southgate (and his absurdly over the top supporters) is he plays his system, and despite all the clear issues with it doesn’t change a thing - then once in a while he makes a change sort of like what people are asking for"

Then 1 sentence later:
"when he should really be simply fine tuning." 

Which do we want?

and what clear issues are there with playing not to concede in a knockout competition and relying on counter attack? It's got us further than my living memory has. We used to win all the friendlies and bottle the competitive games, he's totally reversed that behaviour.

 

I know Foden was out but I’m speaking about this generally, he tends not to favor Foden and prefers Rice, Phillips, and Mount. 
 

You’re taking those two sentences out of context. My point was he should have tried all this over the time between the Euros and now, and now should be dialing in - we are regressing not improving. People can write off the games as meaningless but he doesn’t have many opportunities so he should have tried to improve the attack while he had the chance and be in a more settled tactical set up. 
 

The clear issue is our strength is the attacking players, yet we focus on defence and create next to nothing - the teams that win tournaments by defending and counter attacking have the players that suit that style and typically have world class defenders whereas we don’t. Despite that attacking strength we barely create and barely score from open play. 
 

We historically had a squad that all fucking hated each other, that’s not the case and I think that’s one of the areas Southgate deserves praise but I don’t think his prior tournaments makes him immune from criticism. He also isn’t the sole reason we made it this far in tournaments we have a brilliant crop of players, and depth, we don’t know if we could have made it just as far playing another way with them - again no way of knowing that so I’m not layering that on as a criticism just an observation. 
 

I agree we will make it to the QF, where we will likely meet France the first good opposition we play and be knocked out playing within ourselves. It’ll then be written off as an impossibility to beat France and he will carry on, totally agree that France would be favorites but we will have reached that point playing the same negative way against weak opponents. Again, if you’re enjoying it that’s great but I don’t and in my personal opinion we won’t win a tournament playing this way, it’s not to our strengths which is the way to win tournaments. 

[scoobos 298]

Yeah , I'm being a bit of a twat today - at least you didn't reply with "Fuck off you prick" so that's an improvement on another post I've made today

"My point was he should have tried all this over the time between the Euros and now, " When is that exactly? Personally I think he's took his chances now and I hope its worth it, because its probably broken some momentum they felt.

A lot of people are playing down the fatigue thing too - but I do think its relevant, it has been an extraordinary campaign for Man City , Liverpool and Tottenham this year. 

I think we'll beat France with this team though It's the ones like Italy I worry about, who play dirty and dont have teeth . I still think England deserved that game for the Saka foul alone - absolutely blatent..

Some of our fans being pricks doesn't help either ..

[Dr Gloom 21847]

england fans are incredibly fickle and i think a little harsh on southgate, who is obviously the most successful england manager since alf ramsey.

 

yes, he didn't have to beat many of the top sides on the way the to world cup semis and euros final. ok, his tactical caution can be frustrating, and he did seem to bottle the games against italy and croatia to a certain extent - or perhaps we just lost to better sides? 

 

but he definitely won't be sacked before qatar. that would be ridiculous. he has more than earned a third crack at a major tournament having done so much better than any of his predecessors.

 

i love southgate for getting me interested in the england team again. he's a top bloke, speaks brilliantly - dare i say it almost makes you feel proud to be english? (if only there were more good eggs like him out there)

 

he also deserves huge credit for unifying the england dressing room and getting them playing as a team, which is half the battle and something managers before him with bigger reputations failed to do.

 

i suspect this might be his last tournament. i don't think we'll do as well this time - hope he proves me wrong. i'd love him to go out as a winner. what a redemption story that would be but it does look like he might have taken this team as far as he can. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Dr Gloom

[scoobos 298]

We want to hope he isn't, because seriously I can see the media baying for our Manager! (And as much as I love him, its bad for both clubs - he's a FUTURE england manager, but a bit more future than the next 3 years !)

 

[Dr Gloom 21847]

his reliance on players he trusts, whwther they're out of form or not, is annoying, but most managers are like that to a certain extent aren't they? they always have their favourites. i could never work out why el tel had such a hard on for darren anderton when there were clearly better players out there at the time 

[Howay 12496]

12 minutes ago, scoobos said:

We want to hope he isn't, because seriously I can see the media baying for our Manager! (And as much as I love him, its bad for both clubs - he's a FUTURE england manager, but a bit more future than the next 3 years !)

 

I think club football is the main focus for managers nowadays. When you look at the standard of most the managers at the top national sides it’s not particularly high. So I think Howe would choose to stay. 
 

I hope you’re right btw Scoobos and I’m fully behind the team for the tournament - I wouldn’t be booing him if I was there. I’m pretty sure without looking back at my posts I’ve been fairly consistent with my opinion on Southgate, I acknowledge his positives but just think maybe it’s time to move on. It’s too late at this point though I agree with you both on that - and the Saka foul that was absolutely fucking ridiculous. 
 

I disagree that Croatia and Italy were better teams btw Gloomy. Very solid and have some brilliant players but also had some glaring areas to attack. Both CM’s were strong with fairly weak (in comparison) flanks, we changed tact after controlling the games early doors, and both sides were fairly old in key areas (Modric is immune to age but I more meant Mandzukic etc) Italy had lost probably their player of the tournament in Spinizzolla and the centre of Italys defence needed to be tested for pace far more than it was. Not saying we absolutely should have won both games but we should have looked more impressive than we did imo. 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Howay

[Dr Gloom 21847]

49 minutes ago, Howay said:

I think club football is the main focus for managers nowadays. When you look at the standard of most the managers at the top national sides it’s not particularly high. So I think Howe would choose to stay. 
 

I hope you’re right btw Scoobos and I’m fully behind the team for the tournament - I wouldn’t be booing him if I was there. I’m pretty sure without looking back at my posts I’ve been fairly consistent with my opinion on Southgate, I acknowledge his positives but just think maybe it’s time to move on. It’s too late at this point though I agree with you both on that - and the Saka foul that was absolutely fucking ridiculous. 
 

I disagree that Croatia and Italy were better teams btw Gloomy. Very solid and have some brilliant players but also had some glaring areas to attack. Both CM’s were strong with fairly weak (in comparison) flanks, we changed tact after controlling the games early doors, and both sides were fairly old in key areas (Modric is immune to age but I more meant Mandzukic etc) Italy had lost probably their player of the tournament in Spinizzolla and the centre of Italys defence needed to be tested for pace far more than it was. Not saying we absolutely should have won both games but we should have looked more impressive than we did imo. 

 

both games were similar in that we scored early, exposing southgathe's preference to protect a lead instead of looking to kill the game off. but it was ultimately's england's old problem of ball retention that did for us in both games. croatia controlled the game - they were far better in possession than us, modric and rakitic ran the show in the second half and they deserved to win in the end. italy dominated possession too. southgate could have introduced graelish earlier and i don't get why mount gets so many minutes, or why he continues with two holding midfielders. but i find it hard to be too critical of southgate given we were a couple of penalty kicks away from winning a major trophy. 

[Howay 12496]

39 minutes ago, Dr Gloom said:

 

both games were similar in that we scored early, exposing southgathe's preference to protect a lead instead of looking to kill the game off. but it was ultimately's england's old problem of ball retention that did for us in both games. croatia controlled the game - they were far better in possession than us, modric and rakitic ran the show in the second half and they deserved to win in the end. italy dominated possession too. southgate could have introduced graelish earlier and i don't get why mount gets so many minutes, or why he continues with two holding midfielders. but i find it hard to be too critical of southgate given we were a couple of penalty kicks away from winning a major trophy. 

He’s a man with miniature balls. I’m just glad I support a team with players like Trippier and Bruno who push theirs around in wheelbarrows, I used to see England as my only hope to see a team I support win something thank fuck that’s not the case anymore.