Footaball again? The Euro 2024 edition

Right, enough of this drudgery, anyone for France v Spain? Should be decent.

That was a gruelling watch. I thought Saka was the brightest spark. But my word it was grim overall.

Italy Spain or leaders special hmmmm…?

Absolutely dire , I don’t know why I bother I don’t really like football but always think I’ll be missing something 🙄

The ‘mug of Ovaltine and sleeping pill’ nutrition strategy is not paying off yet.

i felt like I’d had a sleeping pill.

Christ on a bike – that was a painful watch.

Time for Southgate to go he has no clue, most of these players had a great season.

I had a nice nap on the sofa and still plenty of evening to enjoy now. Lovely.

Can’t argue with it.

Like clockwork… pic.twitter.com/1rUyj9gSaQ

— Paddy Power (@paddypower) June 20, 2024

Watching Spain v Italy – what a difference. Lots of attacks particularly by Spain, limited sideways and back passing, loads of skill on show.

Southgate’s clearly had enough of the Tories and doesn’t want to risk any bounce.

We’ll scrape a draw next Tuesday, a dodgy (prob pens) win in the last 16 next weekend, and then a qtr final the day after the election.

When miraculously we’ll turn out to actually be **** brilliant.

Italy giving England and Scotland a run for worst performance of the tournament here!

Well, Southgate has now completed the full life cycle of England management – early promise, build on it, finds a new “golden generation”, starts to believe own hype and over-analyses it, and then rapidly reduces star-filled team to tired and clueless collection of individuals whose only connection is that they wear the same shirt.  Now time for the headlines of ridicule and riding off into the Neverland of punditry.

Southgate hasn’t changed. He’s always been tactically naive. He doesn’t have a Plan B and current evidence B suggests that Plan A belongs in 1988. He has completely failed to embrace modern tactics.

What really grates is his interviews where he displays his O level psychology and tries to reinforce the positives whilst ignoring the negatives.

He’s out of his depth at Intentional level

I’m an Ireland fan, I have no skin in the game but England and this crop of talented players deserve so much better.

I’m always amazed at how England supporters all but destroy their confidence while still in the group phase, reality is England had a howler yesterday, all the big players were woeful, but the thing you get with world class players is they tend to never have two bad games in a row.

The group games are there to progress and make tweaks to work out the best formation, i think Southgate now knows that TAA is just not for that position, the player needs to go away and work on how to be a midfielder, Kane needs to stop thinking he’s a false 9, he is a bloody striker, a full fat 9, stop him slinking into midfield, Rice is better up a little, so try out Mainoo or Wharton in their actual club positions, to allow Rice to be in his club position, you’ve got one more group game, against probably the weakest team in the group, so just put a formation of players in their rightful position.

The one thing i do think is a worry for England though, and it wasn’t shown hugely last night, is down the left, you have Trippier out of position and Guehi as the left full back, if you’re a big team with a world class striker/winger, you’re targeting that big style, i don’t think there’s a fix for that in the squad, unlike the issues in midfield and up front.

One element in his defence is just how choreographed the top club sides are – Foden is spontaneously great at Man City, but he is particularly so within a team of great players who know exactly what to do and when because his manager has spent hours working on the patterns (note how Guardiola regularly berates players who haven’t necessarily had a poor game, they may have had a blinder even, but if they didn’t play the right pass at the right time he gives them an earful).  Trying to get players from different clubs with their different systems and ideas to blend well in a relatively short time is probably almost harder than the days of “go have a good game lads” instructions.  That is the limit of the case for the defence; firstly you have to play players where they are used to playing – experimenting with TAA at international level is a bit daft.  Secondly, it can’t be beyond the powers of a manager to install the sense of collectivity, running off the ball and, for example, deciding on when the team is going to press.

When was the last time England played a high pressing lively game, back in ’96 maybe? How about going into a tournament having spanked a few teams instead of scraped by, can you just imagine the team talk for opposing teams ahead of facing England…..”yeah they’ll back pass in a tick, just nick the ball of them and smash it in the net”

Rice is obviously playing (very badly yesterday) to instructions to sit in front of the back four.  Which is all well and good but to be effective there he needs an outball and when he looks around his left back, Trippier, isn’t viable because he is out of position and his companion central midfielder, TAA, just doesn’t have the experience to be there and/or Rice doesn’t quite trust him.  His next best alternative is probably Bellingham but yesterday he looked as though his stellar season had caught up with him.

I think ‘lack of trust’ is the issue from back to front.

None of them trust the players around them to do their jobs, retain the ball, pass accurately at pace, reposition or clear up the mess if a move breaks down. So they slow everything down to a crawl, don’t push forward and press other teams hard, try a creative run or a lower percentage through ball.

It’s a kind of fear paralysis, even the likes of Kane is sitting inside his own half just backpassing as soon as he gets the ball, and their back four is alongside him. And the remarkable thing is that it seems to tire out players more than just attacking at full pelt, judging by the state of them after 70 minutes.

Rice is obviously playing (very badly yesterday) to instructions to sit in front of the back four.  Which is all well and good but to be effective there he needs an outball

Did I hear Southgate saying that we were missing Kalvin Philips at one point in his post-match interview?

Yes. Yes, you did.

I think Southgate fixates on one particular system for the team. If Kalvin Phillips is the only way to achieve it, and you’re playing the likes of Foden and TAA out of position too, perhaps it’s not the right system for the moment.

Did I hear Southgate saying that we were missing Kalvin Philips at one point in his post-match interview?

You also heard him say they need to ‘walk toward’ the challenge. Perhaps they should ‘lean into’ it too? Maybe leverage their skills and experience to achieve synergy and materialise success in the realtime work environment? Or maybe Southgate can **** off with his corporate middle manager bollocks and start acting like a football manager?

The solution is simple, Rice, Bellingham and Mainoo in midfield, Gordon, Watkins and Palmer up front. They are the 6 in form players coming out of last season and three of them haven’t even been on the pitch yet.

Most the sides seem to play with two defensive midfielders, I suspect that’s what Southgate was getting at re Phillips. Him and Rice did look good together. Asking Trent to perform the role is daft, he’s never played there consistently, he would only ever drift inside from full back and only in the last year when it became trendy to do so.

It never ceases to amaze me the level of optimism football fans have. Every big tournament they are hyped up that we will win and we never do.

‘Did I hear Southgate saying that we were missing Kalvin Philips at one point in his post-match interview?’

Yes you did. In which case (as has been suggested) play Mainoo or Wharton instead of TAA.  (Mainly is good at trying to make forward progress and Wharton is great with long passes).

Yesterday it was like the whole team formation had been jigged around to try and accommodate Foden in his favoured position. Rice ended up having the worst game I’ve ever sèen him have, Bellingham wilted in the shadows

The truth is that Foden has never really shone for England, he doesn’t have the connection with other players that he has at City and he doesn’t impose his personality on the team. It was if Rice and Bellingham were having to compensate for TAA  and Foden.

The TV pundits are no better with their Foden love in either. And what exactly have England been working on in training???

City are like a prescison instrument, like a Rolex. England are more like a Timex.

Don’t get the criticism for Southgate – good players can play any position. Maybe the players are again less than the sum of their parts.

I’ve heard this argument for as long as i have been watching football – the expectation on the England team is way overblown – they are not a tier 1 team – ever. Due to their size and prestige they are always drawn in easy qualifying groups then shock horror, when they get to a tournament they look ordinary.

Him and Rice did look good together.

They did – but that was when Philips was in form – he was bench-warming at West Ham for most of the second half of the season as he was an absolute liability on the pitch.

Don’t get the criticism for Southgate – good players can play any position. Maybe the players are again less than the sum of their parts.

The team includes the Bundesliga top scorer, PL player of the season, and La Liga player of the season.

The team includes the Bundesliga top scorer, PL player of the season, and La Liga player of the season.

they dont look like it when they play for England – but hey ho it’s the manager only. Don’t forget they are surrounded by great players too.

Glad I went riding rather than watch it last night.

The team line up is massively unbalanced – there is no one on the left hand side & Kane as good as he is comes looking for the ball too much so we end up compact & overcrowded on the right.

John Stones (where he plays on occasion for City) would be a better fit alongside Rice, but that would leave us exposed at the back then.

Maybe Southgate should play 3 at the back with Stones dropping back in when needed

they dont look like it when they play for England – but hey ho it’s the manager only. Don’t forget they are surrounded by great players too.

I agree, but if we have several of the best players in the best leagues in Europe, I suggest a talent deficit isn’t the problem. The manager does have to take some blame for the way the team is set up, with too many people out of position, and wtf is the low block all about? It’s what I expected from Moyes at West Ham…

Right, enough of this drudgery, anyone for France v Spain? Should be decent.

It was decent enough and France were magic, they turned into Italy

It was decent enough and France were magic, they turned into Italy

I was discombobulated after watching England. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

I agree, but if we have several of the best players in the best leagues in Europe, I suggest a talent deficit isn’t the problem.

Of course it’s not. Any other side in the tournament would love to have the likes of Bellingham, Kane, Foden, Saka etc in their team. Southgate just doesn’t know how to use them, and his team setup and tactics are so antiquated the players clearly don’t agree with them or like playing that way which results in the negativity and passiveness which we see repeatedly. It’s not rocket science. Pick the most in form and fit players, put them in the positions they’re used to playing in, and then allow them to play. Southgate isn’t doing any of that.

I noted some time back I thought this was Southgate’s toughest test given the lack of balance in the squad and the expectations based on previous tournaments and the week to week performances of the front unit.  Southgate deserves the flack because it is up to him to come up with the system to make the best of the team, even if one of the big names is dropped because they don’t fit the system.  In the current set up it might mean dropping Foden to put in a more natural wider player like Gordon, or pushing Bellingham back alongside Rice.  And rather than picking players who play in all-conquering teams maybe pick ones who are best at scrapping for their success (see Pickford and Guehi) and in that regard Palmer carried Chelsea through the season and has pedigree in proving doubters wrong

Southgate deserves the flack because it is up to him to come up with the system to make the best of the team, even if one of the big names is dropped because they don’t fit the system.

He’s doing what every England manager has done before him, which is pick the big names and personal favourites and then shoehorn them into a system they’re not familiar with. After the season they’ve had Palmer and Gordon not playing is simply criminal. He hasn’t even used them as a sub which suggests something’s going on behind the scenes. And if Kane isn’t 100% fit why the hell play him when we have an in-form and fully fit Watkins in the squad?

Anyway, here’s hoping they go out as early as possible and I can go back to ignoring football for a few weeks. I only hope Eddie Howe tells the FA where to go when they inevitably pick up the phone. Although it would be interesting to see what Howe (or any other manager up to speed with modern football) would do with these players. You certainly wouldn’t see them passing the ball sideways and back to the keeper at a snail’s pace and standing around pointing at others.

Palmer and Gordon had good seasons but not comparable to Foden, Kane and Bellingham

Southgate is just an average manager promoted from an under-perfoming U21s when Allardyce got rumbled and the FA lacked the imagination to get someone good in

Eddie Howe will fail too – they may as well sack him before employing him.

In recent years England have had authoritarians such as Capello (who won countless trophies) to Sven, who was basically a hippie; and none of them could win a major trophy with the stars they had. Southgate’s record is better than both of them.

Palmer and Gordon had good seasons but not comparable to Foden, Kane and Bellingham

Kane isn’t fit, Foden’s half the player without his man city mates alongside him and Bellingham is suffering from a case of Ronaldoesque ‘just give the ball to me and I’ll do everything’. Gordon and Palmer at the very least should have had significant time on the pitch as subs, especially when you consider the pace and energy they would bring to so far pedestrian performances.

Eddie Howe will fail too – they may as well sack him before employing him.

I don’t disagree, that’s why he should tell them where to go.

Southgate is just an average manager promoted from an under-perfoming U21s when Allardyce got rumbled and the FA lacked the imagination to get someone good in

It’s important to remember just how poor and how unlikeable England were when Southgate took over. Overall, he’s done a good job but it’s time to move on.