That's a position I can get on board with.Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
Mac - I don't dispute that we've been poor in this tournament and had we got a harder group we wouldn't have got through it the way we're playing. Overall Southgate's record with England is good though and I can't agree it's been complete luck.
I think there’s been a big element of fortune. Russia we got to the semi finals by beating Tunisia, Panama and Sweden (and Colombia on penalties)
In the last Euros the draw opened up for us, in that our route to the final in the knockout stages took us past Ukraine and Denmark…the only scalp we took was Germany and if you’re being super critical you’d acknowledge that this was a German side bereft of confidence and at a time where Joachim Low was at the end of his tenure.
It’s not to say literally anyone could have done that, but I do think there is very much a barrier to beating the best sides. I genuinely think we could and should have beaten the Italians at Wembley but we just allowed ourselves to be pushed back more and more.
We gave the French a torrid time for about 15 minutes of the second half in the World Cup 1/4 finals we just retreated within ourselves again.
This tournament as I say is whole other level. Watching Southgate England can be frustrating but there were some games where we scythed through sides. Denmark second half was probably the worst ive ever seen an England side play.
in all seriousness, did you mean to say here "...where we should have scythed through sides"?
if so i agree
Ukraine and Iran, and to a lesser extent Walesin all seriousness, did you mean to say here "...where we should have scythed through sides"?
if so i agree
By the way, it's easy to look with misty-eyed nostalgia at past tournaments but let's not forget in 1990 - when we really should have got the the final and could have won the thing - we needed 2 penalties to beat Cameroon and we only beat the Belgians with a very late goal. England have never swept all before them. There's been occasional good games - Euro 96 was a pretty enjoyable tournament all round from England till...you know. But those are very much the exception rather then the rule.
England also haven’t had the vast array of talent that they’ve got now. That England team of 1990 was a team where the top players were Gary Lineker and Paul Gascoigne and Gazza bless him, you never quite knew what you were going to get from him.
The Germany side we played in Turin was in almost every area of the pitch superior to us, we equalised against the run of play and worked our bollocks off to even take it to pels
Cameroon were the Georgia of that tournament, just went for it in games….even with a 38 year old Roger Milla
If the FA were ruthless they’d have looked beyond Southgate’s tournament achievements and looked to have appointed someone who let’s be fair isn’t a plodding defensive minded coach. I’m not buying that Spain for example are all technically more accomplished than England, their coach isn’t this big name but he has them playing a style much in the same way Germany do.
I accepted mediocrity under Hodgson because the quality of the players wasn’t there. But this feels like wasted time and potential.
Last edited by HCZ_Reborn; 01-07-2024 at 03:55 PM.
I keep hearing things like this. Is our squad really that good? There are some really good players, but I'm not sure it's quite the quality that we should be installed as favourites - although we certainly should be a lot better than we are.
The thing is Letters, this England side could be playing to its full potential and there’s no guarantee it would beat Spain, Germany or France. But I can guarantee that we’d go toe to toe with them. At the moment we aren’t doing that with post communist countries still finding their feet on the international stage
No argument there.
England fans do have a tendency for sky-high and unrealistic expectation. But this team has so far been a lot less than the sum of its parts.
Although I don't think you can blame Southgate for everything. Some of the quality of delivery is really poor. Players at this level are surely capable of better.
Oh you mean in the past, ok
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