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Just got back, (from a music festival) did I miss anything?
Nope!
its coming home.jpg
No one's going to do "Oh dear. How sad. Never mind"?
Well, allow me.
Here yer go. Best message I've read tonight. "This Southgate love in has got to stop! If you like playing 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 tactic. Cole Palmer as Right full back. BY all means love the man but dont you want someone that can actually manage a football team?"
That was in reply to a comment about him getting England to two consecutive Euros Finals. .....I still enjoyed the match though![]()
I think England deserved the last Euros more than this one in what Id watched of it. Although in 21 they had a hell of a lot of home field advantage, this tournement they had one of the easiest routes to a final for a major nation and were fairly underwhelming throughout. Only play whats in front of you etc.
Anyway, I had a very nice evening having a meal in Italy instead of watching the match. Didnt pass a single place tonight that looked remotely like theyd be playing the game. Youd never know a Euros final was on.
It's the opposite though. In terms of individual players, England are by far the more accomplished side. One from City, one from Real and one from Barca in the Spain team (and the Barca player was 16 for most of the tournament, as good as he is) - over half the side tonight won't be playing for a team in the Champions league next season. But what they did have was a manager who knew what style he wanted to play, which players would fit it and then left out more highly rated players for the ones that fit his squad.
England had one of the top players in the world, Premiership player of the year, the top scorer in the Bundesliga... on paper talent throughout the 26, but they weren't a team and they were thrown together in a style that was the same timid crap with 2 holding midfielders and 7 men behind the ball until they go behind the manager has been playing for years. It has been obvious the entire tournament it was a collection of square pegs in round holes... slightly better once he went with wing backs, once Shaw was fit and once he dropped the ridiculous TAA experiment, but still an utter disaster in terms of tactics and they were totally outclassed by the first quality team they played... yet again.
I'm sorry, I just don't buy into this rubbish that England have the best players in the tournament and the strongest squad. Rodri, Ruiz, Williams, Yamal, Olmo, Zubimendi, Carvajal for instance are head and shoulders above any England player I've seen to date. Nearly all the English players are over-hyped by the media and football pundits.
If England had Spain's manager they would still play like England because it's not in their DNA to play like the Spanish. They are unable to play with composure against the really top sides, are unable to retain possession especially when pressed and have minimal movement in or out of possession. No for me they are second raters when measured against the world's best teams.
I disagree. Traditionally, England have been a more physical, power based team that did not seem to place technique as high up their list of priorities as most other international teams did, but that’s changed gradually to the extent that I would say they now have a squad that is as technically proficient as most others in the world. It’s clear that England’s record since the 2016s Euros places them among the very top teams in Europe and their tournament record recently has them probably in the top five in the world.
It’s great that what has generally been a pretty miserable tournament has been won by the team that wanted to play front foot football no matter who the opposition was. Spain were the best team in the competition in terms of results and performance, but I’d still say it was an opportunity wasted for England because they had a man in charge who just would not release the handbrake as far as playing to what should have been England’s strengths was concerned.
As England went further in the competition and the performances improved to some degree, those who, rightly, were critical of Gareth Southgate found themselves under fire as if his approach had been vindicated - it hadn’t in my view, England made it to the Final despite Gareth Southgate, not because of him.
England had 1 decent performance during the whole tournament. Other than the semi final, they've been quite poor, but have scraped through.
Saka has probably been their best player but Kane and Foden have been pretty anonymous throughout. Southgate's loyalty towards Harry Kane hasn't helped. If England want to improve then Southgate will have to move on.
One refreshing thing is that the pundits have been pretty honest in their assessments, rather than overhyping the team
The hype surrounding the Premier League blurs the lines in my opinion, it’s England based but is so successful despite the English players not because of them. History doesn’t lie, one World Cup win (on home soil & every game at Wembley) is sure proof that English players aren’t quite at the same level as Germans, Spanish, French, Italians not to mention the South Americans. In tournament terms they rank alongside The Netherlands, Greece, Denmark etc, tournament winning history can’t be changed, there’s no ‘ah, buts’ or ‘they were lucky’ alongside the winners names.
Most of the time I haven't a clue what the commentators/summarizers are talking about. All I could see is when Spain passed the ball it seemed to have purpose - England just passing in triangles endlessly trying to create 'an overlap'. Absolutely tedious. Ironically really because I'm in the camp the England have probably the better players - certainly a better squad - than Spain. One final thought. Look at the two paths to the final for both teams. England didn't have one really tough game on paper..
Disagree. Apart from probabaly Spain, more English players have won the Champions League in the last 10 years than the rest of the countries you mention. To dismiss English players to not being as good as their European counterparts is a nonsense. Foden, Walker, Stones, Grealish all multiple PL winners. Foden Premier League player of the year. Alexander Arnold has won everything there is to win at club level before the age of 24. Bellingham has already won La Liga and the Champions League at 21. They have some terrific players they just dont have a coach who coaches them in the same way they play at club level. Thankfully.
If the FA go after Klopp as is being suggested then England become a different proposition altogether.
You said:—-
“Apart from probabaly Spain, more English players have won the Champions League in the last 10 years than the rest of the countries you mention.”
Without going into it in depth, although Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Manure have won the European Cup, their teams didn’t comprise of mainly English players .
I would hazard a guess that it was about half and half
You’ve mentioned 4 Man City players as multiple Premier League winners, very good players yes, but surrounded by non UK team mates with a Spanish manager. It’s been proved time and time again that a team of 100% Englishmen aren’t up to winning a tournament. They have had esteemed non English managers in the past and it was still the same outcome.
So let's see the last 100% Spanish team to win the Champions League then? This year's Real team had 2 - less homegrown players than City did the year before.
This England squad had the Prem player of the year and 4 of the starting team of the year in the Opta rankings (Palmer, Foden, Watkins, Rice - and would have had a 5th arguably if Southgate hadn't totally mismanaged Ben White) the Bundesliga top scorer, arguably one of the best 5 players in the world who was in the La Liga team of the year. England had as many players in the La Liga team of the year as Spain did, and Spain have more players who won't be in next seasons Champions League than will be - their starting CB's will both be in Saudi and one of the players who is was a 16 year old (compare that to how Southgate treated Bellingham at the last Euros, for shits and giggles)
There just no evidence that this England team had inferior players to Spain, in fact quite the opposite. A far inferior team as the sum of it's parts and manager yes.