England - Euro 2021 Discussion | FA chairman: Southgate to be offered new contract until Euro 2024

[Strelok]

Southgate has done a horrible job and honestly it won't change even if he wins on Sunday. Anybody who is not English can see this. Those who are English get the benefit of being excited about the result - the exceptional success of the national team and do not need to care about how it happened. Enjoy

This team has largely succeeded DESPITE Southgate and not because of him. They mostly play horrible football, there is not really anything you would call "a team" and they have gotten away on individual skills of players, mostly Sterling. In this last game - exceptionally shameless diving abilities of the same Sterling saved the day, too.

But it didn't have to be this way. Imagine what a real, capable manager could have done with these players!!! Unfortunately, at this point we can only imagine

Bang on.

Playing like that with all the attacking talent he got is already dreadful enough, but 2 DM against Ukraine and subbing Grealish off against an obviously gassed Denmark? Let's be honest that's pure cowardice.

If England win the final and he somehow got knighted that'd be hilarious.

 

[Judas]

Yes hilariously brilliant.

 

[GlasgowCeltic]

France should be expected to win and win well, or Brazil, teams with a history of winning consistently. Not a team with about five knockout wins in 50 years pre Southgate, just enjoy winning for now ffs it's basically Oleball and its absolutely the right approach

 

[Salt Bailly]

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I have now watched this 17 times.

 

[mancan92]

Nah its quite the popular opinion from what I've seen. Yep did well for the goal, but often made the wrong decision. But then so did Sterling many many times! Saka has all the tools to be a brilliant player though, look forward to see where he ends up.

Eh I've seen different. He didn't play worse than anyone else and created a goal. Can't expect much more. Definitely has been far better than Foden.

 

[::sonny::]

Walker underrated

 

[Pexbo]

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[anant]

Southgate has done a horrible job and honestly it won't change even if he wins on Sunday. Anybody who is not English can see this. Those who are English get the benefit of being excited about the result - the exceptional success of the national team and do not need to care about how it happened. Enjoy

This team has largely succeeded DESPITE Southgate and not because of him. They mostly play horrible football, there is not really anything you would call "a team" and they have gotten away on individual skills of players, mostly Sterling. In this last game - exceptionally shameless diving abilities of the same Sterling saved the day, too.

But it didn't have to be this way. Imagine what a real, capable manager could have done with these players!!! Unfortunately, at this point we can only imagine

I'm not English, but it's stupid to say he's done a horrible job. This is an incredibly young Eng side (I believe this is the youngest squad this tournament), so you need to cut them some slack here.

As far as individual brilliance is concerned - you'd have to say that this isn't a side better than the Golden Generation of early 00s or the current French side, and I can list a few more sides alongside this. But they've done better than each of those teams. In an international tournament, hiding your weakness is more important than showing off your strength, and by playing a defensive brand of football, Southgate's doing exactly that. French didn't and they went out this time.

Teams don't become successful on the back of just individual brilliance - you can maybe win a couple of more games than what you could have, but that's just how limited it's impact would be

 

[Irwin99]

Mate there’s a middle ground between tactical genius and what he’s been labelled as on here. I wouldn’t say he’s that good a manager myself, I wouldn’t want him at United, but he’s clearly much better than most of us gave him credit for. Anyone who is daft enough to say England are in the final despite their manager are either very bitter or just can’t accept that maybe he’s a better manager than they thought and maybe he doesn’t need to pick their starting xi to get results.

I agree with most of that but there were times when it does get a bit much and you'd think he was getting a tune out of a bunch of championship level players by the way some in the media are carrying on.

I said it before the tournament but I don't think the technical quality of the English players is emphasized enough. I've seen people have a go at Sterling, Kane, Saka, Mount in the match threads and these guys walk into just about any national team at the moment: and then you have Grealish, Rashford, Sancho, and Foden on the bench

 

[NewGlory]

I'm not English, but it's stupid to say he's done a horrible job. This is an incredibly young Eng side (I believe this is the youngest squad this tournament), so you need to cut them some slack here.

As far as individual brilliance is concerned - you'd have to say that this isn't a side better than the Golden Generation of early 00s or the current French side, and I can list a few more sides alongside this. But they've done better than each of those teams. In an international tournament, hiding your weakness is more important than showing off your strength, and by playing a defensive brand of football, Southgate's doing exactly that. French didn't and they went out this time.

Teams don't become successful on the back of just individual brilliance - you can maybe win a couple of more games than what you could have, but that's just how limited it's impact would be

Well the reality is, there are many examples of teams of shitty managers going far in international knockout competitions. This isn't club football, and this isn't league football, where you would not be able to hide deficiencies behind individual brilliances of players and some luck. England hasn't been dominant, it has barely scraped by to this point, including this last match with Denmark where basically Sterling got away with a shameless dive, otherwise England could have been knocked out. That is called luck, in the best case, or fluke in more pragmatic case - it isn't manager's credit that England needed such thing to advance past Denmark, for feck's sake.

You cannot judge a manager, in this kind of competitions, by just results. England had a pretty easy run (missed most strong teams) and it got very lucky in critical moments. None of that is Southgate's credit. If you look at the quality of the games, however - you will see some really interesting, and pretty dire stuff.

Why is he refusing to play in-form Jadon Sancho? Even after the game with Ukraine where everybody could see how much difference Sancho makes for the attack. Why not play him against Denmark where clearly England would need creativity? How does that make sense?

Subbing Grealish was laughable. First, who subs a sub? Everybody knows that's a big red flag, secondly - Grealish was doing fantastically and England attack was starting to finally look live. But he chickened-out and tried to keep the lead. Very easily he could have been punished for that. Luckily for England he didn't, but it wasn't a smart move, necessarily and certainly a cowardly one.

Bottomline - Southgate is playing trash football, his team got so far mostly on being lucky and for anybody who only cares about results - by all means, but if you are paying attention, you cannot possibly watch England games and be like: "omg, I see managerial genius here".

I predict the final against Italy will also be one of those "pragmatic" (i.e. boring, defensive, garbage) games where he will rely on luck rather than courage. Let me not be a fan of that.

 

[Berbasbullet]

Well the reality is, there are many examples of teams of shitty managers winning international knockout competitions. This isn't club football, and this isn't league football, where you would not be able to hide deficiencies. England hasn't been dominant, it has barely scraped by to this point, including this last match with Denmark where basically Sterling got away with a shameless dive, otherwise England could have been knocked out. That is called luck, in the best case, or fluke in more pragmatic case - it isn't manager's credit that England needed such thing to advance past Denmark, for feck's sake.

You cannot judge a manager, in this kind of competitions, by just results. England had a pretty easy run (missed most strong teams) and it got very lucky in critical moments. None of that is Southgate's credit. If you look at the quality of the games, however - you will see some really interesting, and pretty dire stuff.

Why is he refusing to play in-form Jadon Sancho? Even after the game with Ukraine where everybody could see how much difference Sancho makes for the attack. Why not play him against Denmark where clearly England would need creativity? How does that make sense?

Subbing Grealish was laughable. First, who subs a sub? Everybody knows that's a big red flag, secondly - Grealish was doing fantastically and England attack was starting to finally look live. But he chickened-out and tried to keep the lead. Very easily he could have been punished for that. Luckily for England he didn't, but it wasn't a smart move, necessarily and certainly a cowardly one.

Bottomline - Southgate is playing trash football, his team got so far mostly on being lucky and for anybody who only cares about results - by all means, but if you are paying attention, you cannot possibly watch England games and be like: "omg, I see managerial genius here".

I predict the final against Italy will also be one of those "pragmatic" (i.e. boring, defensive, garbage) games where he will rely on luck rather than courage. Let me not be a fan of that.

Sooooo not a fan of Southgate then?

 

[NewGlory]

Sooooo not a fan of Southgate then?

Clearly not

I think Luis Enrique is 10x the manager than Southgate will ever be, and Enrique showed it in the game against Italy, very clearly. But Spain got knocked out, and England is in the final. That is luck, not the manager.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Well the reality is, there are many examples of teams of shitty managers going far in international knockout competitions. This isn't club football, and this isn't league football, where you would not be able to hide deficiencies behind individual brilliances of players and some luck. England hasn't been dominant, it has barely scraped by to this point, including this last match with Denmark where basically Sterling got away with a shameless dive, otherwise England could have been knocked out. That is called luck, in the best case, or fluke in more pragmatic case - it isn't manager's credit that England needed such thing to advance past Denmark, for feck's sake.

You cannot judge a manager, in this kind of competitions, by just results. England had a pretty easy run (missed most strong teams) and it got very lucky in critical moments. None of that is Southgate's credit. If you look at the quality of the games, however - you will see some really interesting, and pretty dire stuff.

Why is he refusing to play in-form Jadon Sancho? Even after the game with Ukraine where everybody could see how much difference Sancho makes for the attack. Why not play him against Denmark where clearly England would need creativity? How does that make sense?

Subbing Grealish was laughable. First, who subs a sub? Everybody knows that's a big red flag, secondly - Grealish was doing fantastically and England attack was starting to finally look live. But he chickened-out and tried to keep the lead. Very easily he could have been punished for that. Luckily for England he didn't, but it wasn't a smart move, necessarily and certainly a cowardly one.

Bottomline - Southgate is playing trash football, his team got so far mostly on being lucky and for anybody who only cares about results - by all means, but if you are paying attention, you cannot possibly watch England games and be like: "omg, I see managerial genius here".

I predict the final against Italy will also be one of those "pragmatic" (i.e. boring, defensive, garbage) games where he will rely on luck rather than courage. Let me not be a fan of that.

you’ve got a small kernel of a good point.

that’s that good club managers don’t necessarily make good international managers and visa versa. It clearly requires a different skill set and mentality.

the rest of your post is trash.

 

[romufc]

Clearly not

I think Luis Enrique is 10x the manager than Southgate will ever be, and Enrique showed it in the game against Italy, very clearly. But Spain got knocked out, and England is in the final. That is luck, not the manager.

Is he really? Spain showed what?

Luck? You will note that Spain were the lucky ones even to be in the semi. Won 1 game in 90 minutes whereas England only conceded 1 goal until this tournament.

 

[NewGlory]

you’ve got a small kernel of a good point.

that’s that good club managers don’t necessarily make good international managers and visa versa. It clearly requires a different skill set and mentality.

the rest of your post is trash.

Oh yeah? And what if the ref wasn't so dumb and didn't eat up Sterling's dive, instead gave him a yellow card? Followed by England getting knocked out on penalties? Would you still rate Southgate high? Because that scenario was VERY real yesterday and that scenario not happening was pure luck, nothing Southgate did.

Do you see the point now? Good managers don't leave that much to luck. Shitty ones do. He is a very lucky, garbage manager

 

[NewGlory]

Is he really? Spain showed what?

Luck? You will note that Spain were the lucky ones even to be in the semi. Won 1 game in 90 minutes whereas England only conceded 1 goal until this tournament.

You have to analyze the quality of the game Spain showed against Italy, to see my point. If you just look at the results you won't ever tell luck from skill.

 

[romufc]

You have to analyze the quality of the game Spain showed against Italy, to see my point. If you just look at the results you won't ever tell luck from skill.

I guess you watched the England game too? How was that luck when England created the better chances, had the better of most of the game.

How many chances did Denmark really create?

What makes England lucky to be in the final?

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Oh yeah? And what if the ref wasn't so dumb and didn't eat up Sterling's dive, instead gave him a yellow card? Followed by England getting knocked out on penalties? Would you still rate Southgate high? Because that scenario was VERY real yesterday and that scenario not happening was pure luck, nothing Southgate did.

Do you see the point now? Good managers don't leave that much for luck. Shitty ones do. He is a lucky, garbage manager

how enlightening you are!

England were all over Denmark - and I would suggest it was far more likely that England score if that pen wasn’t given than go to pens. Of course you can argue around that all day, and all night, because it’s a hypothetical scenario.

Why are you so angry?

Why can you not give any credit to a manager that’s got a team to a final. Instead it’s just LUCK. instead it’s all because of a DUMB referee? Listen to yourself.

 

[NewGlory]

how enlightening you are!

England were all over Denmark - and I would suggest it was far more likely that England score if that pen wasn’t given than go to pens. Of course you can argue around that all day, and all night, because it’s a hypothetical scenario.

Why are you so angry?

Why can you not give any credit to a manager that’s got a team to a final. Instead it’s just LUCK. instead it’s all because of a DUMB referee? Listen to yourself.

I am not angry. I am chill as feck. But I also watched the games and am calling-out what I see. Is cold-headed, objective analysis not allowed just because England advanced to the finals, first time in 50 years?

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

I am not angry. I am chill as feck. But I also watched the games and am calling-out what I see. Is cold-headed, objective analysis not allowed just because England advanced to the finals, first time in 50 years?

You seem to be pretty emotional, far from cold-headed.

 

[NewGlory]

I guess you watched the England game too? How was that luck when England created the better chances, had the better of most of the game.

How many chances did Denmark really create?

What makes England lucky to be in the final?

What makes them lucky? Sterling's dive and undeserved penalty at the end of the second half of the added time, makes them lucky. It didn't happen some time early in the game, it happened at the point where they kept being unable to score and were on the verge of penalties. You do know Sterling could have just as easily gotten a red card for that, right?

 

[NewGlory]

You seem to be pretty emotional, far from cold-headed.

Haha.. Thanks for telling me how I feel. Always a classy move, mate.

 

[Alex99]

@NewGlory it's okay, Gareth Southgate can't hurt you.

 

[romufc]

What makes them lucky? Sterling's dive and undeserved penalty at the end of the second half of the added time, makes them lucky. It didn't happen some time early in the game, it happened at the point where they kept being unable to score and were on the verge of penalties.

A bit of luck once all tournament makes them lucky to be in the final?

What about the foul which led to the goal for Denmark? that was a clear foul right?

Without diving Denmark couldn't even get close to Englands goal.


P.S Enrique better manager but rode his luck all tournament winning 1 game in 90 minutes. 1 game

 

[Inter Yer Nan]

All this talk about England not deserving to be in the final in a game they dominated, conceded off a clear non-foul, and went 1-1 on 50/50 penalty calls. Yet nothing about Italy scraping by the mighty Austria in a game VAR wiped a goal off which was about an inch or two, or spending the last 25 mins of the Belgium game diving all over the place, or getting outclassed by what most here said is a poor Spain side, and escaping a clear handball in the box in the last minute. Why is this? Is there a bias?

 

[Ledom]

Southgate was a central defender who stubbornly refused to move beyond his happy place in Birmingham for a challenge at a top club. People have been slagging him off since I was young for being cautious and yet 24 years after driving the ball into the open arms of a German keeper and preventing our first final with a team that probably deserved more than they got, here he is in a final. I dont think Spain or Italy best Germany, I don't think they best Denmark last night either. He isn't the best manager in the world, but dear God, he has a vision and is picking players that suit that vision. Sven literally admitted that he felt pressured into picking squads on individual talent rather than squad cohesion, Southgate hasn't had that and thank christ. Luck plays a part in everyone's game, Argentina in 98, Simeone dives to get Beckham sent off. Brazil 02, a wonder strike from Ronaldinho puts Seaman and his pony tail back into the 90s where they belonged. Hell, Terry's slip, the Solskjaer 3 minutes added time in a CL Final. People need to accept that even if we lose, this is our best tournament in 55 years for christ sake. Let's stop with the entitled I want a well structured, organised team who play like they've been in each other's handbag for 8 years, for a nation that has a long tradition of winning in a certain style bollocks.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Haha.. Thanks for telling me how I feel. Always a classy move, mate.

Read your posts. Read how you have described the ref, Southgate etc. That doesn’t read as ‘cold-blooded’ analysis.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

I am not angry. I am chill as feck. But I also watched the games and am calling-out what I see. Is cold-headed, objective analysis not allowed just because England advanced to the finals, first time in 50 years?

England 20 shots 10 on target
Denmark 6 shots 3 on target
England 58% possession Denmark 42%

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Denmark 0 shots in England’s box
Denmark highest xG shot 0.06

England’s chances breakdown here

http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2021/...danmark-stats-match-attendance-64950-wembley/

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If you think that’s ‘lucky’ then I don’t think you’re a reliable judge of a football match

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[8thWonder]

Well the reality is, there are many examples of teams of shitty managers going far in international knockout competitions. This isn't club football, and this isn't league football, where you would not be able to hide deficiencies behind individual brilliances of players and some luck. England hasn't been dominant, it has barely scraped by to this point, including this last match with Denmark where basically Sterling got away with a shameless dive, otherwise England could have been knocked out. That is called luck, in the best case, or fluke in more pragmatic case - it isn't manager's credit that England needed such thing to advance past Denmark, for feck's sake.

You cannot judge a manager, in this kind of competitions, by just results. England had a pretty easy run (missed most strong teams) and it got very lucky in critical moments. None of that is Southgate's credit. If you look at the quality of the games, however - you will see some really interesting, and pretty dire stuff.

Why is he refusing to play in-form Jadon Sancho? Even after the game with Ukraine where everybody could see how much difference Sancho makes for the attack. Why not play him against Denmark where clearly England would need creativity? How does that make sense?

Subbing Grealish was laughable. First, who subs a sub? Everybody knows that's a big red flag, secondly - Grealish was doing fantastically and England attack was starting to finally look live. But he chickened-out and tried to keep the lead. Very easily he could have been punished for that. Luckily for England he didn't, but it wasn't a smart move, necessarily and certainly a cowardly one.

Bottomline - Southgate is playing trash football, his team got so far mostly on being lucky and for anybody who only cares about results - by all means, but if you are paying attention, you cannot possibly watch England games and be like: "omg, I see managerial genius here".

I predict the final against Italy will also be one of those "pragmatic" (i.e. boring, defensive, garbage) games where he will rely on luck rather than courage. Let me not be a fan of that.

England have been statistically dominant in every game they've played so far. They've controlled the pace and tempo of the majority of the games, so this is false.

Who are the strong teams? Portugal? France? Spain? Holland? Portugal, France and Holland have all been knocked out by 'inferior' sides and Spain struggled against Poland, Sweden and Croatia themselves. Football isn't played on paper.

England have pretty much controlled every game they've played so far. But that for some reason is no credit to Southgate?

He's not refusing to play Sancho, Grealish, Henderson or Rashford etc at all. He's the manager and he's picking a team to win which is so far what he's managed to do. Fact is, Sterling is scoring, Kane is hitting form and Saka is impressing. No hidden agendas mate I promise you.

Why was subbing Grealish laughable? It was tactical, straight after the goal to put us ahead and we saw out a tournament Semi Final after the sub. The goal was to see the game out. Achieved.

I still fail to see how any of this is lucky? If teams want to play possession football that's nice. If they want to play counter attacking, go ahead. If they want to play all out attack that'll be nice to watch. But they all carry risks, a coach has to make big calls and the fact is that there are only two teams left in the tournament.

I'd disagree on everything you have just said and say the tournament has been very well navigated on the whole to this point. Well done Gareth and the team.

 

[Bilbo]

His tactics are a matter of opinion, and really an unwinnable argument against this generation of armchair experts so its largely pointless trying to debate it at length

What is undoubtedly true though IMO is that Southgate hasn't received enough credit for those things he has achieved that can't necessarily be measured but that have almost certainly been a large factor in our recent improvement. He's largely removed the 'weight' of the England shirt from these players. We've seen countless sides affected by this in the past. He also appears to have removed the cliques within the squad. This group genuinely look like a squad and not portions of United/Liverpool/Chelsea etc thrown together

 

[WeePat]

England 20 shots 10 on target
Denmark 6 shots 3 on target
England 58% possession Denmark 42%

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Denmark 0 shots in England’s box
Denmark highest xG shot 0.06

England’s chances breakdown here

http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2021/...danmark-stats-match-attendance-64950-wembley/

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If you think that’s ‘lucky’ then I don’t think you’re a reliable judge of a football match

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If we're being honest, outside a decent spell in the first half, we genuinely battered Denmark. It's not a slight on Denmark to say that. They were a spent force from the 60th min. That's an entire hour of football with England just peppering Denmark's box. A bit of an iffy penalty possibly but the right team deservedly won that game.

 

[8thWonder]

England 20 shots 10 on target
Denmark 6 shots 3 on target
England 58% possession Denmark 42%

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Denmark 0 shots in England’s box
Denmark highest xG shot 0.06

England’s chances breakdown here

http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2021/...danmark-stats-match-attendance-64950-wembley/

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If you think that’s ‘lucky’ then I don’t think you’re a reliable judge of a football match

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If your problem with Gareth is the style then fair enough to a point. Many would agree, I'm definitely in the camp of, get over the line any way you can.

If you're problem with England is that they are lucky however then this is provably incorrect. It's obviously difficult to control any international game of football, that's why there are so many upsets and yet we've managed to do it pretty seamlessly so far.

 

[anant]

Well the reality is, there are many examples of teams of shitty managers going far in international knockout competitions. This isn't club football, and this isn't league football, where you would not be able to hide deficiencies behind individual brilliances of players and some luck. England hasn't been dominant, it has barely scraped by to this point, including this last match with Denmark where basically Sterling got away with a shameless dive, otherwise England could have been knocked out. That is called luck, in the best case, or fluke in more pragmatic case - it isn't manager's credit that England needed such thing to advance past Denmark, for feck's sake.

You cannot judge a manager, in this kind of competitions, by just results. England had a pretty easy run (missed most strong teams) and it got very lucky in critical moments. None of that is Southgate's credit. If you look at the quality of the games, however - you will see some really interesting, and pretty dire stuff.

Why is he refusing to play in-form Jadon Sancho? Even after the game with Ukraine where everybody could see how much difference Sancho makes for the attack. Why not play him against Denmark where clearly England would need creativity? How does that make sense?

Subbing Grealish was laughable. First, who subs a sub? Everybody knows that's a big red flag, secondly - Grealish was doing fantastically and England attack was starting to finally look live. But he chickened-out and tried to keep the lead. Very easily he could have been punished for that. Luckily for England he didn't, but it wasn't a smart move, necessarily and certainly a cowardly one.

Bottomline - Southgate is playing trash football, his team got so far mostly on being lucky and for anybody who only cares about results - by all means, but if you are paying attention, you cannot possibly watch England games and be like: "omg, I see managerial genius here".

I predict the final against Italy will also be one of those "pragmatic" (i.e. boring, defensive, garbage) games where he will rely on luck rather than courage. Let me not be a fan of that.

You don't need to be dominant to win games. It's much easier to hide your deficiencies over 7-8 games in a month than hide it in a league season and hence you'd notice most teams that have an exciting attack are often boring on paper. And secondly, you really need to watch yesterday's game. 70th min onwards it was all England. Goal and a couple of shots apart, it was all England.

Coming to the Sancho point, did you notice how Maehle was kept relatively quiet yesterday or how Damsgaard didn't really create a chance from open play? Their prolific LW was largely ineffective, and that was because he used a more "defensive option" in Saka.

Coming to the Grealish point, that's absolutely trash what you're saying (not that points aren't but this especially tops the lot). The way you managed to move the ball, pass it around to waste the entire 2nd half of ET was elite game management. It was what Spain should have done vs Croatia and France vs Switzerland. Grealish's biggest strength is getting fouls and carrying the ball. While they are useful ways of killing time as well, none is better than just keeping possession

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

You don't need to be dominant to win games. It's much easier to hide your deficiencies over 7-8 games in a month than hide it in a league season and hence you'd notice most teams that have an exciting attack are often boring on paper. And secondly, you really need to watch yesterday's game. 70th min onwards it was all England. Goal and a couple of shots apart, it was all England.

Coming to the Sancho point, did you notice how Maehle was kept relatively quiet yesterday or how Damsgaard didn't really create a chance from open play? Their prolific LW was largely ineffective, and that was because he used a more "defensive option" in Saka.

Coming to the Grealish point, that's absolutely trash what you're saying (not that points aren't but this especially tops the lot). The way you managed to move the ball, pass it around to waste the entire 2nd half of ET was elite game management. It was what Spain should have done vs Croatia and France vs Switzerland. Grealish's biggest strength is getting fouls and carrying the ball. While they are useful ways of killing time as well, none is better than just keeping possession

that 3 minutes at the end of the second half of extra time was outstanding. That would have been completely demoralising for the opposition. They need a goal, and can’t even get a touch for 3 mins.

 

[Woziak]

Let’s be clear here, he was an average club Manager but he’s a great international Manager whose in touch with Modern Britain and speaks eloquently, he’s done something ole has not by surrounding himself with good coaches and then he’s not scared to mix it up and change it, please correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Gareth the first English Manager to reach 3 international semi finals and the first since sir Alf to reach a final. Gareth is decisive, he knew having someone like Eric Dier in the two CDM’s role was never going to win you anything as he’s too slow, so finding Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips who reminds more and more of Owen Hargreaves now gives England the ability to use their wealth of attacking options in wing back/full back options and then using all 26 squad options to be able to play in so many attacking options from the wide striker roles shows me he’s learnt very quickly, we can play hybrid wingers, inverted strikers like saka who use the right side to cut in from the left and vacate the space for Trippier and Walker to exploit low blocks like Grealish and sterling do with Shaw.

I think the reality is that Gareth has been learning on the job and to be honest he’s clearly a fast learner so win or lose Sunday we finally have a national team and coach to be proud of !

Most of us were not born in 1966 so now we can say we saw England play in a final and hopefully if he continues to be brave and decisive and use all his options and the wide playing field of Wembley come Sunday at 11-30pm we will all be dancing in the streets, if not we accept we got beat by a better side, remain gratious and then will come back better in 18 months.

 

[JulesWinnfield]

I wonder how large the crossover is between people arrogantly insisting they are right about Southgate and he's a total fraud who's fluked everything despite all evidence to the contrary, and people who believe batshit conspiracy theories.

Because the levels people go to deny Southgate any credit just because it goes against their preconceived opinion - largely based on absolute nonsense like the bizarre view he's a yes man surely have issues with reality.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

I wonder how large the crossover is between people arrogantly insisting they are right about Southgate and he's a total fraud who's fluked everything despite all evidence to the contrary, and people who believe batshit conspiracy theories.

Because the levels people go to deny Southgate any credit just because it goes against their preconceived opinion - largely based on absolute nonsense like the bizarre view he's a yes man surely have issues with reality.

Pretty high.

these people were slagging him off before a ball had been kicked, and even more so when he played Trippier at left back! That in itself proved he’s not a yes man.

the ridicule he got from so called armchair fans for playing Sterling. For taking Maguire and Henderson, all he got were horror stories about Beckham and Rooney…

i said at the time - give the guy a chance, and let it play out. First manager to win an opening game, beat Germany, beat a team in a knockout inside 90 mins for the first time in decades, got to a final - conceded only one goal!

I really have to ask, at this stage what more could he have done?

if getting to the final, playing well during the KO stages (when it matters) whilst barely giving an opposition a chance is not a fantastic achievement and a good managerial performance. Honestly I don’t know what would be?

 

[Rajiztar]

Pretty high.

these people were slagging him off before a ball had been kicked, and even more so when he played Trippier at left back! That in itself proved he’s not a yes man.

the ridicule he got from so called armchair fans for playing Sterling. For taking Maguire and Henderson, all he got were horror stories about Beckham and Rooney…

i said at the time - give the guy a chance, and let it play out. First manager to win an opening game, beat Germany, beat a team in a knockout inside 90 mins for the first time in decades, got to a final - conceded only one goal!

I really have to ask, at this stage what more could he have done?

if getting to the final, playing well during the KO stages (when it matters) whilst barely giving an opposition a chance is not a fantastic achievement and a good managerial performance. Honestly I don’t know what would be?

They wanted Hodgson ball.To open their legs for Iceland to score type football.

 

[stw2022]

Other than Muller missing his chance in six games what chances have been created against us?

 

[WeePat]

Other than the Muller missing his chance in six games what chances have been created against us?

I'm sure Scotland had at least one. Che Adams maybe?