Maximus Decimus
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Posts posted by Maximus Decimus
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1 hour ago, The Masked Poster said:
Having watched a few games of this tournament, I think the reason for England being poor is being overthought. They are simply not playing as a team, not even close. Who was captain on Thursday? (I do know but...) Did they even have one? They just looked like 11 guys on a pitch doing their own thing. Keep this up and they'll be going home soon.
It's easy to blame the manager but I can't imagine a team playing so lackadaisical under a manager like Clough or Jack Charlton.
Finally, come on Hungary
. (Not because I hate Scotland, I just love Hungary)
I'm in a quandary, as I genuinely want Scotland to qualify but I don't think they will so I want to bet on Hungary. If I bet on them, I'll end up wanting them to win.
On a slightly different point, if Scotland do qualify I'm fully expecting to hear the plaudits about how they're the first team in 70 years to qualify through the groups and what a great achievement it is etc
Whilst this would be true to an extent, it'll also be because it is much easier than ever to do so. I somehow suspect this will barely get a mention.
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I'd love to have learned a language, and have tried to learn French a few times.
I went travelling when I was 22 and did a bit then. I was demoralised when I plucked up the courage to speak French and the guy responded in English.
During lockdown, I did Duolingo for ages and came to the conclusion that to learn it in any way I'd have to go to totally different lengths. I naively hoped if I used an app long enough, I'd get to a point where I could read it or watch stuff.
That's my personality sadly. There are quite a number of things I can do better than your average Joe (piano, guitar, darts), but none I am expert in. I just haven't got the discipline required.
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God, wouldn't you love to see England play like this?
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David Moyes putting himself forward for the future England job with insightful analysis.
'England have got to get back to playing better.'
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2 minutes ago, JohnM said:
Someone posted earlier,"Watched every game so far, all enjoyable, except two games. Yep, the England ones, that says something. Genuinely loved it all except England games, slow and boring.,"
Can anyone list any games when England were NOT rated "Slow and boring"?
I wonder if there is something in the psyche of England fans that makes them them feel this way
I had this exact thought. After all, it has been such a common experience as an England fan that it makes you think. Objectively, the Denmark game was boring, but maybe the Serbia game wasn't so bad.
I was watching the Spain-Italy game and thinking how I'd feel if I was an Italy fan. As a neutral, they seemed limited and were getting outplayed, but I didn't think they were playing terribly, more that it was their style.
I wonder if I'd have thought that as an England fan.
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31 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:
The chances are all potential though, and conceding them to the Danes is one thing, to Spain, France, Germany or the like is another.
Rice had a really bad game, and nobody else was there to do his job.
Our only consistently successful outlet, at least whilst Kane is on the pitch, seems to be down the right to Walker and Saka. That can get spotted pretty quickly by oppositions I expect.
Walker's probably been our best player over the two games.
I suppose the big remaining hope, after a transformation against Slovenia, is that this is a team that will rise to the occasion like in 90 and 98 (although we still lost...).
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2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:
This is the question of where this is coming from? Is it the manager? Is it the players? Is it just some of the players?
It's worrying how such good players can completely drop off intensity so rapidly.
I think we have spells of dominance, against Serbia we had a lot of clear chances, we had even fewer against Denmark but generally played worse so perhaps it's covered in that. Outside of the brief period of aggression from England we don't look like scoring at all.
Thankfully the Denmark goal, and the nature of it, will have totally dissuaded the management and squad that we're defensively fine and don't need to score many to compensate.
For me, that's the one relatively OK part. We haven't really conceded many clear-cut chances, the majority that we did on Thursday were to do with mistakes caused by the pitch.
The big problem is on the ball and inability to move it up the pitch. This must be the system, or some players not being good enough. One thing that struck me when the Spain game came on, was the speed of play. We tend to walk around with the ball whereas their movements were all quick and purposeful. There's a video doing the rounds of Declan Rice passing it sideways and backwards all game.
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Is it just me or has the weather been a bit dodgy in Aus this season? Been like watching Super League at times.
Albeit with high-quality athletes.
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34 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:
Regarding England, the players are good enough generally speaking, and we have some real top talents.
I don't know what it is about England that we drop off completely after scoring.
I think we also seem to really struggle with certain players playing like little kids trying to prove themselves. The difference between say Foden and Saka has been immense. The latter has been solid, creating opportunities for team mates and working well down the right with Kyle Waker. The former has been shut out in the first game, then reacted by trying desperately to do too much against Denmark.
Rice had a terrible game, yet our squad lacks depth in that position nobody could come on to replace him and take him out of the firing line. It's fair enough to have a naff game.
As soon as Watkins came on and started running at and beyond the Danes the game opened up again and the team looked to have some impetus but it was too late. Kane is good but he stifles our attack when Saka and Foden can't play with him.
Guehi and Stones were solid once again. I'd like to see Stones get forward more like he does for Man City to make up for times when Rice has an off day.
I really like Bellingham. He has all the passion, talent and confidence to take this team forward. I love his arrogance to an extent, he's one of the world's best players, playing for Real Madrid and he's playing like that.
I think Southgate has always been a tactically stunted manager. He's safety first to compensate for that which as we've seen can get you so far yet time and time again we see that this results in an hour or so of England sitting back and asking teams to come attack us - even when those teams aren't actually very good! England have the quality to be scoring multiple goals against our group stage opponents, yet it's clear that it must be a direct order to sit back that stops us from doing that.
I do worry that this is becoming a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and an easy answer to our problems.
There are seemingly clear examples where we've gone ahead and sat back. Italy in 2020/1 seems like the obvious candidate. However, there have been plenty of cases where this hasn't happened - Panama, Iran, Wales, Senegal and Ukraine in a QF.
The Serbia game seemed like the most obvious example ever. 35 decent minutes followed by sitting back and durge. The Denmark game was a turning point for me. We weren't playing well but got a goal. This has been rewritten as another example but it masks a bigger problem for me. Maybe, teams are figuring out a way to counter us and we can't respond.
The proof of the pudding will be what happens when we go behind. If we still sit back and are unable to respond, what is the narrative then? For instance, do we really think that if Denmark had gone ahead, we would have been able to switch it up and respond?
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19 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
To me the problems are tactical and systemic rather than personnel which I’ve outlined earlier in the thread and won’t go into here.
I also believe that it’s not just England who have made a slow start and gone on to reach the latter stages of a tournament - the Germans were masters of this in their storied past.
Peaking at the right time is what matters and keeping players free from injury. We’ve been rubbish so far, but we’ve four points, no significant injury concerns or discipline issues.
As ever with England the influencers/pundits in the various media always overreact to the evidence that we’re not the best team in the world nor the worst either as it doesn’t make for great headlines.
I've been pondering reactions to this tournament and the last. 2020 is interesting, as on paper we started pretty similar. My memory of the opening win against Croatia was that we were unimpressive but got the result, and then the Scotland game was similar to Thursday night. Souness famously said we've got no chance.
However, this time feels a lot more negative overall. Of course, the Croatia match was a semi-final repeat and in theory better opposition but they're still not one of the big teams.
Maybe it's because of the fact that we got to the final in 2020 and played well in 2022 that means people are less forgiving of a team finding its feet. Maybe it's from the disconnect between being bookies favourites and looking so bad?
Hopefully, a la 2020 we'll have long forgotten what come to be seen as teething issues. I think the Slovenia game is crucial to this, there has to be at least an indication that things are coming together.
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14 hours ago, HawkMan said:
Watched every game so far, all enjoyable, except two games. Yep, the England ones, that says something. Genuinely loved it all except England games, slow and boring. There's only a limited number of reasons for England's poor performances. Either, 1) Southgate's tactics are all wrong and he's incompetent, 2) the other teams tactics are masterful and have negated England's tactics, or 3) the players are not as good as we think. Kane has performed brilliantly at Spurs and now Munich, he is class, Bellingham has been great at Dortmund and now Madrid, class, the others I don't know, they've only performed in the EPL, surrounded by class overseas players. Foden for example is great at Man City, with top players around him, creating space for him with clever runs so he can weave his magic. IMO the players are not as good as we supposed, except the above mentioned Kane , Bellingham and Pickford I think is good, he seriously helped Everton stay up. Eze and Palmer definitely ones for the future, Saka and Foden , good with right players around them.
So is it 1, 2,or 3? Perhaps all 3 , Southgate tactically isn't a genius and responds far too slowly to reverses on the pitch, the other coaches know England's predictability and counter it and the players aren't world beaters despite what the media may think.
I do think there's an element of 1 and 3.
I'm somewhat of a defender of Southgate but recognise he's far from perfect. Take the 2020 final, he definitely was part of the problem including the bizarre decision to bring on people for the shootout. My issue with many England fans is that they seem to negate the whole getting to the final bit. Just ignore the fact that we hadn't in any circumstances for 55 years got to a final, Southgate was lucky and held us back.
In this tournament so far, I think he's much more at fault. We seem to have come in without knowing our best system, trying to simply fit players on the pitch and putting square pegs in round holes. This has previously been one of Southgate's strengths even if it wasn't pretty to watch. The whole Trent situation will be something we ridicule in years to come. Some of the continental newspapers already have been doing.
However, as Gary Neville said in the aftermath, the inability to control the game in possession has been an England problem for decades. The changes made at youth level mean that the newer crop are more technical than ever. The changes to team culture mean that the old problems about the weight of the England shirt aren't nearly as bad. I did consider that maybe our stars are players who are great in systems surrounded by superstars but less effective when they have to lead the play. That still doesn't account for why we struggle against Serbia.
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2 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
We’ve been rubbish so far but we still have four points.
For me the basic thing lacking is some kind of pressing game when we lose possession probably because the team is too unbalanced with attacking potential.
Anyway, what you do in the group stage is pretty irrelevant compared to the knockout element that we look on course to make in a preferential spot (first/second)
I was explaining to my lad last night that there have been countless prior tournaments where poor group performances had been explained away with the hope that things will come good when we meet a top team.
I think it comes from the 1990 experience, where our best performance was easily the semi vs West-Germany as well as the 1998 game against Argentina, both of which came after very
Realistically, it is far more often an indication of significant problems or at the very least a lack of real quality. 2016, 2012 and 2010 are the worst examples of this but you can also throw in 2002 and 2006 to an extent.
I still have hope of course. Slovenia is crucial to morale. We need to see something that shows improvement and ideally a few goals. If it's like Slovenia in 2010 (a dire and fortunate 1-0) or Slovakia in 2016 (a horrendous 0-0) then we'll be clutching at straws.
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12 minutes ago, RayCee said:
If you read what I said...I know his record but my comments are about his drop in success. Coaches should never be judged on what they did some time ago but on what they did recently, are doing now and likely to do moving forward. For that reason, he should have gone before Euro 24. He has some outstanding players at his disposal but messes up trying to best ultilise their talent. He lacks the ability to change things when they aren't working during a match.
His downward trend. That 2022-23 nations league is the most recent and what an underachievement that was.
2018 World Cup 4th 2022 World Cup 6th 18-19 Nations L 3rd 20-21 Nations L 9th 22-23 Nations L 15th 2020 Euros 2nd 2024 Euros This very much depends the stock you hold in the Nations League. Personally, I don't hold much. It's a step up from previous friendlies but still not a fully fledged competition. Don't get me wrong, it's not good but in the past England have been great in tournament qualification and friendlies only to fail miserably when it matters. I'm pretty sure in the build up to 2016 we had some great results like beating Germany in Germany.
Using 2022 as a step down in comparison to 2018 is completely disingenuous IMO. You don't choose when you face the best teams. Facing the current champions and actually outplaying them for large periods, isn't a step backwards because it happened in a Quarter-Final rather than a semi-final.
IMO 2022 performance wise was probably our best overall since 2004. It's close with 2020, but the final performance takes away from that somewhat.
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I read an interesting quote from back in the day from an FA suit when talking about England at big tournaments.
"Unrealistic expectations, dawning realisations, bitter recriminations."
Southgate's reign largely hasn't been this, but right now it seems rather prophetic when talking about 2024.
Far from being a dead rubber, the Slovenia game feels like it's make or break for England. We have to see something that gets people positive again or we could see a real spiral.
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8 hours ago, JohnM said:
I believe England are unbeaten in 13 group stage matches at the European Championship (W8-D5-L0), since a 2-1 defeat against France in Lisbon at Euro 2004. This is a tournament record.
Southgates record as England manager is second to none.
But OMG, Ingerland is a hard watch. Go one up then retreat and put themselves under pressure. So ########## frustrating to watch.
Odd team selection at times, too. Does Kane fit in with a team with Bellingham , Foden etc. but Kane is almost God at Bayern Munich and is an excellent player.
Finally, credit to Denmark. I think we may have underestimated them.
I was saying this last night, and tbf it goes back a generation not just recently.
For as bad as England are at times, we have an incredible knack of not actually losing. If you'd have said to me last night the game would be 1-1, I wouldn't automatically have assumed it was terrible. After all, that's the same score from 2020 before extra-time.
In so many of those penalty defeats, we were basically dreadful for long periods but got the game to penalties. I include Italy 2020 in that.
The outlier is of course Germany 4-1. Other than that, when was the last time we lost by say 2 clear goals in a tournament. 1988?
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4 hours ago, RayCee said:
Southgate started off well but has gradually fallen as other managers realised he is a Plan A only guy.
Comparing England's historical success requires much more than statistics. Many unique factors that each coach had to deal with could vary. GS has had many factors in his favour but is increasingly failing to deliver anywhere near England's potential. Surely that is the standard he should be judged on.
His record has benefitted from the modern trend of top sides playing lesser ones. Under his tenure, England has played Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro, Kosovo, San Marino, Andorra, N Macedonia and Bosnia. Has any previous manager had such opposition? He has a fine squad at his disposal but seems to be adept at turning top club players into bang average international ones.
The FA failed miserably in not replacing GS sometime before the 2024 Euros. There are much better managers out there, Whether they want the England job is another matter of course.
If England can somehow extract a successful outcome from the Euros, good on them. GS's limited talent as a manager suggests otherwise. If the players can reach the standards they are capable of, they are in with a shot. Unfortunately, their standards are well ahead of the one that leads them.
I think this is unfair. What was striking about the second half of Sunday and last night is how often you are hearing the accusation that it was like the bad old days. This itself is a reflection of how things haven't been like that.
As for his record, nobody judges it on qualifying or friendlies. Not only was he not the first manager to benefit from playing teams like this, but the teams he's faced in tournaments have certainly been no different in quality since say 2004.
The reality is that since Alf Ramsey, England haven't strung 2 decent tournaments together until Southgate who managed 3. That's the record he's judged on.
Don't get me wrong, we've never been a great team to watch - the closest we came was 2022 - but we were effective and didn't suffer from an inability to keep the ball like the worst teams of yonderyear.
Southgate himself said he knows how this ends. Either in Trafalgar Square or in disaster. I suspect heavily we're looking at the latter and it was one tournament too far for him. Sadly, like a boxer who ruins his record by fighting on too long, it'll allow his detractors to pour scorn over his previous record.
What I will say is be careful what you wish for. Before Southgate, we had a string of failed managers from every stripe who just couldn't figure out how to get England to play. I don't know why we suddenly think it'll be any different next time around.
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Can someone tell ITV to stop playing this game in fast-forward its hard to keep up, and also get the message to Spain that they need to stop playing the ball forward so much. Aimlessly passing around the back is top level football.
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1 minute ago, Gomersall said:
Lineker touched on it at HT for me. We play much faster and aggressively, for want of a better expression, domestically but for some strange reason think we can play a continental style i .e. stroking the ball around the midfield waiting for an opening, internationally.
Been this way barring the odd decent performance for 30 years.
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To say I'm really concerned is an understatement.
All the progress we've made since 2016 is in fear of being lost. Not just because we're playing badly, but the negativity is creeping in amongst the fans again.
My 40 odd years of watching England teams leads me to think that, we're heading for a poor exit in the knockouts.
Why do we never have an England team, successful or not that plays well?
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I think I speak for the country when I say,
STOP PASSING THE F****G BALL AROUND THE BACK.
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6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:
The structure isn't working.
That appears to have a lot to do with a very disciplined Danish performance.
England need to be quicker and actually use the space when they manage to create it.
I do think this is feeling like one of those tournaments where we haven't got the right system. The Alexander-Arnold thing looks like a mistake.
Dare I say it, but I'm not sure St Bellingham is ideal in the middle.
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9 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:
Fair enough, wrong choice of word, I was just meaning we were actually pushing forward, getting a lot of chances for the first half hour and then fell off and as a result Denmark have scored...
Unlike the Serbia game, where we actually dominated, I thought the goal came largely out of nothing.
The narrative about England sitting back has truth but I don't think it applies here. We've been largely rubbish tbh.
It feels like a pre-2018 England team, where we're looking at superstars who can't seem to do it.
The idea that we're favourites is frankly laughable.
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1 minute ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:
We're doing same thing again, classic Southgate, we've dominated for half an hour and then dropped deep.
Not sure how you can say we've dominated. Been very scrappy.
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Damn. Fully deserved.
What languages do you speak?
in Any Other Business / Any Other Sports
Posted
I wish you'd never told me this lol. I think I did 5-600 days and realised how far away I still was from even being able to hold a simple conversation, and came to the conclusion I'd have to go to classes or do much more immersive stuff.