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As soon as England lost there would be questions on negative selection.
Foden walks into the Italian team. Doesnt even kick the ball in the final. England have better strikers who didnt even make the plane than Immobile and Belotti.
Grealish Sancho Saka etc all bit part players.
The Italians deserved the win , England have had a superb tournament and been edged out. We will never know what would have happened if say theyd played 1 DM and added another attacking player.
Ahead of who? One of the players of the tournament in Chiesa? Insigne who's had a wonderful season with Napoli? Serie A winner Barella?Originally Posted by Hilts
English teams and players are hugely overhyped. Foden's a good player but he doesn't "walk into" the best team at the tournament. Had England been on the other side of the draw they'd have been knocked out well before the final
I watched the start of one of those Match of the Day programmes where Alan Shearer and Micah Richards rank ten candidates with Gary Lineker having a casting vote if needed this morning. It was made before the tournament started and the subject was candidates to be Player of the competition. Foden was on the shortlist and maybe he might have lived up to such a billing if his shot had not rebounded back into play off the inside of a post after just five minutes of the opening match with Croatia, but it didn't and that seemed to sum up the next few weeks for him - with the comparisons with 1966 that the media are so fond off, I suppose it could be said that Foden was a little bit like Jimmy Greaves in 1966.
Despite all of the plaudits and the hype, I'm not wholly convinced by the much of the spine of the England team - Pickford doesn't seem as error prone playing for England as he is with Everton mind and Kane has added a new dimension to his game this season which I believe now makes him one of the best in the world in his position, but central defence and central midfield? I'm not sure.
Maybe it’s better movement, but I find Ingurlish players, play better with their foreign teammates alongside them (club football)
This is and always will be their problem, fantastic players at club level, mediocre at international level.
Kane is a cheat
They made the semis of the last World Cup and lost the final of the euros on penalties. They aren’t perfect but they are a lot better than mediocre.
It’s about opinions.
Once they came up against a top team, they lost.
They got there with an outrageous pelanty.
They drew against Scotland, without threatening a goal.
They were lucky against Croatia
They are not that good.
you can think about it in more than one way.
you could say they had their best European championships ever, only missing out on winning the whole thing by a couple of penalty kicks To a team who haven't lost in 34 games. with a very young squad that will only get better. they only conceded one goal in open play in the entire tournament.
in successive tournaments they've finished 4th, 3rd and now 2nd.
on the other hand they got to play almost all their matches at home, had no important injuries or suspensions to contend with. an extremely favourable draw in the competition, and they still didn't win anything. their manager is still to slow to react when another team are dominating the ball.
when the dust settles it should go down as a good tournament for them though.
some pundits are already talking about them dominating for the next 10 years though, which is extremely premature.
sure, they COULD - especially if the manager corrects his shortcomings (and retains his strengths). but they won't keep getting favourable draws, or avoiding injuries to key players, and the next world cup will be very hot which might not suit them.
If England are mediocre, what does that make the 22 teams who didn't make the final?
England had a very good tournament but they played 6 out of 7 games at home and despite this failed to beat a top 10 nation in normal time. While rankings flawed, no way Czechia should be ranked FIFA's 40th best side, officially they played against as many sides in FIFA's 40s as the top 10, beat a Croatia side not as good as they were 3 years ago, a Germany side not as good as they were 5 years ago and a Ukraine side with top players injured in a round too far for them.
Performances were very good, attitude was very good but it's surely a bit much to say they had a superb tournament?
Italy beat 3 teams in the top 10 (1 in normal time), beat 2 teams ranked 10-20 (same as England) and beat the the 2 teams they played ranked 20-30. They didn't face anyone outside top 30 and had a much better tournament overall.
Foden was injured
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