[Football] Scotland vs England

[Guinness Boy]

I know he's not too popular around here, but if Southgate continues with this clueless selection, turgid rubbish and flunks out early, the FA may just have an ideal candidate, out of work with zero compensation.

Smug Eddie would actually be a great appointment for the England job imho, tactically light years ahead of Southgate, an FA type man and a decent modern manager who'd get more out of this crop of talented young players.

I've related this back to us before and I still can't work it out. On the one hand Ashworth was partly responsible for hiring Southgate, on the other the only time we looked innovative and played with freedom was while DA was still there. I'm probably conflating correlation and causation there but something has happened as Southgate has gone on that has made him very, very conservative with both his picks and formations. Smug Eddie would, indeed, be better. There, I said it.

But if you're going to play with two holding midfielders, ask Kane to drop deep and never play Foden and Grealish on the same pitch then at least have the decency to HAVE a midfield. How many times did you see McGinn in twenty yards of space? How many times in the first half did Scotland win the first and second balls from goal kicks? I mentioned Rice in my other post because everything he did was backwards (how many times did we ignore a switch that was on and go backwards or up the line - it felt like all night?) but how poor was Phillips?

 

[amexer]

These tournaments are all about getting through to next round and than proper do or die games start. Southgate will be delighted with 4 points from 2 games.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Along with most on this thread I am putting last night down to the manager’s tactics and how outthought and outfought we were by Scotland for most of the game.

Question is - are you 100% certain that with the right manager this is a talented bunch of players that could be genuine challengers? Not sure I believe these players are as good as the better foreigners in their teams make them look which is why we always look uncomfortable and on the back foot against decent or very competitive teams in meaningful games

We have great players who should be playing fearlessly. But, as I've said many times, they are mostly constrained into two areas; right back and "attacking midfielder".

The only good reason for playing a 4-2-3-1 is to protect the centre backs while the attacking players and full backs get after the opposition - unless you don't trust your centre backs and keeper. And yet neither of those narratives quite held last night. We brought in Shaw and James, presumably to try and keep their wingbacks quiet but Shaw looked lost. James was ok going forwards but was always going to come under pressure from Robertson and then Tierney overlapping. Phillips gave it away and went to sleep but it was hard to tell what he had been told to do and Rice had clearly been told "just keep the ball". Kane looked knackered after about 2 minutes and dropped deep looking for it. Foden struggled to get through their packed midfield and Sterling the same. Consequently just about the only players who emerged with any credit at all were Stones (though he should have scored) and Pickford!

Southgate hasn't worked out how to get the best out of his creative players without exposing the ones who are making up the numbers. Consequently the tactics are stifling the creativity further up the pitch.

IMO like.

(Cue people saying "you weren't saying that on Sunday" - except that a slower paced possession game is exactly what you need when it's 30 degrees C and you can't let a player like Perisic have any space - so conversely Southgate did get that one right, even it was another "safe" performance)

 

[zefarelly]

I've been wondering if Gsouth deliberately played crap tactics so we don't win the group . . . .but I don't think he's that smart.

We'll know on Tuesday. . . . .expect more of the same and another 0-0

The Scotland game will be the one to watch

 

[Randy McNob]

These tournaments are all about getting through to next round and than proper do or die games start. Southgate will be delighted with 4 points from 2 games.

This with bells on. Wales get 4 points look at all the fawning and adulation, England 4 points disaster! It's not how you start it's how you finish, Portugal were rubbish at this stage in 2016 but still won it.

I'm glass half full - we are comfortably through the group and haven't looked like conceding, a solid foundation for a good tournament

 

[NooBHA]

I'm starting to think that the Maguire gamble is starting to seem like a huge mistake for Southgate.

The main problem as I see it tonight was playing both rice and Phillips in midfield and sterling as number 10.

It was clear in the first half that there was no link between our defence and attack lines.
The obvious thing to do would be to replace one of the defensive midfielders with grealish to link up with our attack or replace sterling with grealish.

The fans in the stadium were calling for grealish and the pundits were calling for grealish and Southgate was clearly under pressure to "BRING ON GREALISH FFS".

So Southgate sent on grealish but put him out wide and subsequently grealish was pretty innefective.

So I've been wondering why didn't Southgate deal with the obvious issue of having two defensive midfielders on the pitch?

I think the answer is because he doesn't have confidence in our defenders so he is giving them the added cover of two defensive midfielders as protection and that's why he didn't make the obvious change.

But if he wants to play the two defensive midfielders to help in defense,that's ok.
But if he does that then he needed to replace sterling for grealish to sit in front of rice and Phillips and link up with the attack.
So why did Southgate do this either?
The reason is because Southgate is showing the same blind loyalty to sterling as he is to an obviously unfit Maguire,and it had cost us this evening.
To make it things worse I changed channels in an effort to forget about the footy and braveheart was on channel 5 FFS.
But that was not Southgates fault.

I have just wee-ed myself laughing at your very last line of that post.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

This with bells on. Wales get 4 points look at all the fawning and adulation, England 4 points disaster! It's not how you start it's how you finish, Portugal were rubbish at this stage in 2016 but still won it.

I'm glass half full - we are comfortably through the group and haven't looked like conceding, a solid foundation for a good tournament

I admire your Stoicism.

 

[Hugo Rune]

I liked the 4-3-3 system in the Spain 2-3 England result although keeping Dunk sat on the bench wasn’t great.

For Czech, I’d go:

———————-Pickford————————
James——Stones——-Mings——-Shaw
—-Mount———Phillips——-Grealish—-
—Sancho———Rashford——Foden—-

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

Lol.
[tweet]1405989732069351430[/tweet]

 

[Guinness Boy]

I liked the 4-3-3 system in the Spain 2-3 England result although keeping Dunk sat on the bench wasn’t great.

For Czech, I’d go:

———————-Pickford————————
James——Stones——-Mings——-Shaw
—-Mount———Phillips——-Grealish—-
—Sancho———Rashford——Foden—-

Expect our own version of the Disgrace of Gijon. 0-0 gets us and the Czechs through and us with the second place that sees an easier draw. We will park an even bigger bus on Tuesday.

 

[B-right-on]

This with bells on. Wales get 4 points look at all the fawning and adulation, England 4 points disaster! It's not how you start it's how you finish, Portugal were rubbish at this stage in 2016 but still won it.

I'm glass half full - we are comfortably through the group and haven't looked like conceding, a solid foundation for a good tournament

So building momentum, confidence in your team mates, winning attitude and sprit of a team generated by 'leaving everything out on the field', has no impact?

Bit like erm Wales.

 

[amexer]

As I said good point for England. If we needed to win Grealish would have replaced Phillips not Foden

 

[DarrenFreemansPerm]

This with bells on. Wales get 4 points look at all the fawning and adulation, England 4 points disaster! It's not how you start it's how you finish, Portugal were rubbish at this stage in 2016 but still won it.

I'm glass half full - we are comfortably through the group and haven't looked like conceding, a solid foundation for a good tournament

You do see that there’s a slight difference in ability between the English and Welsh squads?

 

[Stat Brother]

You do see that there’s a slight difference in ability between the English and Welsh squads?

Not according to NSC.

In the least surprising news of the day, there was a faction here keen to sing Keef Moore - minutes after he scored a goal!

 

[herecomesaregular]

White and Sancho won't get a game all tournament. A tragedy.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

I didn't think our first match was as convincing as many suggested and last nights performance/result wasn't as awful as many claim now.

The real test comes in the knock out phase where I will happily join in the wildly OTT immediacy bias based result dependant hyperbole [emoji106]

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

 

[Stat Brother]

White and Sancho won't get a game all tournament. A tragedy.

Although, as it's stands this morning, White being in the squad but at arms length isn't that tragic.

 

[um bongo molongo]

This with bells on. Wales get 4 points look at all the fawning and adulation, England 4 points disaster! It's not how you start it's how you finish, Portugal were rubbish at this stage in 2016 but still won it.

I'm glass half full - we are comfortably through the group and haven't looked like conceding, a solid foundation for a good tournament

It all depends what your expectations are, based on the quality of players. Southgate himself has targeted Semis, which seems right for the ability of the squad. So the comparison with Wales, who have done very well to (most likely) qualify from their group is pointless. And we look a long way off being Semi finalists. I’ve been to both games, and in both the lack of a playmaking #8/#10 is glaringly obvious. The one thing I disagree with many posters about is I don’t think that’s Grealish, I think it’s Foden. He himself thinks that’s his best position, and he’s potentially our best player. Mount keeps drifting left which is part of the problem.

Pickford
Trippier - Stones - Maguire / Mings - Chilwell
Rice - Phillips
Foden
Sterling or Sancho - Kane - Grealish

 

[Stat Brother]

I didn't think our first match was as convincing as many suggested and last nights performance/result wasn't as awful as many claim now.

The real test comes in the knock out phase where I will happily join in the wildly OTT immediacy bias based result dependant hyperbole [emoji106]

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

One of the Football Weekly talking heads is of the opinion Southgate has spent his tenure perfecting the art of beating a technically superior opposition in knock out football.


Fingers crossed we get that far.

 

[um bongo molongo]

I didn't think our first match was as convincing as many suggested and last nights performance/result wasn't as awful as many claim now.

The real test comes in the knock out phase where I will happily join in the wildly OTT immediacy bias based result dependant hyperbole [emoji106]

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

I agree with you on the first match, but we were WOEFUL last night.