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EURO 2020 ('21) THREAD


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36 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

From the press this morning and the response on here you could be forgiven for not realising that it's England that have effectively qualified and Scotland who are bottom of the group.

England needed a draw, Scotland could really have done with a win. It showed.

 

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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8 hours ago, Maximus Decimus said:

It's hard to blame Southgate purely because we've seen this exact same performance with so many different England managers in charge. Dare I say it, but when have we seen an English team go for it like Scotland did? 

We always play well in qualifying, and then just freeze when it really matters.

I completely agree about the sideways and backwards passing, there are so many players who seem to spend most of their time facing and passing the wrong way. 

I'd have had a problem with that performance if we were either behind in that game or hadn't won the first one. As it is, it was very boring, very pedestrian but, ultimately, there's now a very good chance that England progress to the round of 16 whilst Scotland celebrate a glorious goal-less draw as the high point of both their ambition and achievement.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

I'd have had a problem with that performance if we were either behind in that game or hadn't won the first one. As it is, it was very boring, very pedestrian but, ultimately, there's now a very good chance that England progress to the round of 16 whilst Scotland celebrate a glorious goal-less draw as the high point of both their ambition and achievement.

Indeed.

I think the England team see this as a group game, rather than an old rivalary. Consider that none of the players will remember Scotland having being good in their life times. The idea that Scotland are rivals and Wales are plucky underdogs will not make sense to anyone under thirty.

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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10 hours ago, DavidM said:

Two things , well done Pickford who was the best player tbh …. And how the hell did Stones not score ? Well three things , i hope they get mullered by Croatia

I don't. I hope they're 1-0 up and Croatia equalise in th 90th minute. That would be the Scots way.

"I am the avenging angel; I come with wings unfurled, I come with claws extended from halfway round the world. I am the God Almighty, I am the howling wind. I care not for your family; I care not for your kin. I come in search of terror, though terror is my own; I come in search of vengeance for crimes and crimes unknown. I care not for your children, I care not for your wives, I care not for your country, I care not for your lives." - (c) Jim Boyes - "The Avenging Angel"

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10 hours ago, Maximus Decimus said:

I would bet money that they still don't qualify lol.

The apparent world beaters have still failed to score a goal. 

That's their problem. If they had any one of the England forwards they'd win way more games.

"I am the avenging angel; I come with wings unfurled, I come with claws extended from halfway round the world. I am the God Almighty, I am the howling wind. I care not for your family; I care not for your kin. I come in search of terror, though terror is my own; I come in search of vengeance for crimes and crimes unknown. I care not for your children, I care not for your wives, I care not for your country, I care not for your lives." - (c) Jim Boyes - "The Avenging Angel"

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It would be fine if we were just content that it was it group game , and we qualified if then you knew we were gonna switch it on and cut loose …. But that kind of tepid display is what we see repeatedly in tournaments and recently under Southgate .  I’m sitting there thinking I’ve seen this before . We get told oh we’ve got him and him and him , and him on the bench , and him not even on the bench …. And you watch us play , get outplayed and think ‘ is that it? ‘ . We seem to have a philosophy of not losing and then seeing wgst happens .We might score and get something to hang onto till the end . We’re passing it around aimlessly - even at the end we were doing it ! I have no faith this bloke is suddenly gonna unleash us . We basically have 6 defenders and then 4 guys totally disconnected from them . And the longer a game goes the worse we get . It’s frustrating because you just feel we drift along until we get knocked out rather than playing the up tempo style we play here and having a go . I mean I watched this all year for Everton 

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2 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I'd have had a problem with that performance if we were either behind in that game or hadn't won the first one. As it is, it was very boring, very pedestrian but, ultimately, there's now a very good chance that England progress to the round of 16 whilst Scotland celebrate a glorious goal-less draw as the high point of both their ambition and achievement.

It was a terrible performance, but the one possible plus about it was that we've had the huge wake up call before we've gone out. We've had bad performances in group games before where people still made excuses and thought that we'd eventually come good, I don't think there could be any after last night.

From here it could go one of two ways, either we'll carry on being awful or there'll be a significant reaction. We're somewhat fortunate that we basically have a free game to try and right some of the wrongs. 

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Rocket up the backside for England last night. 

They were good against Croatia, but not great. Creatively they still suffer. Kane is quite clearly out of form. Tactically England still seem poor. Taking Foden off made no sense. Pressing was almost non-existent for large parts of that game. 

It was a classic back down to earth really with Southgate's England. On paper we have immense talent, but we tactically aren't capable of breaking down teams if plan A isn't working. I'm still yet to see an England performance under Southgate against a mid to top quality team that looks in any way convincing - and that has therefore usually resulted in a draw or defeat.

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2 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Rugby Union is exactly the same . Scotland basically grow a leg . I’m beginning to wonder if they just don’t like us much 

Tbf the 6 nations only works as a tournament because England aren't as good as the financial and other resources at their disposal means they should be.

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38 minutes ago, DavidM said:

It would be fine if we were just content that it was it group game , and we qualified if then you knew we were gonna switch it on and cut loose …. But that kind of tepid display is what we see repeatedly in tournaments and recently under Southgate .  I’m sitting there thinking I’ve seen this before . We get told oh we’ve got him and him and him , and him on the bench , and him not even on the bench …. And you watch us play , get outplayed and think ‘ is that it? ‘ . We seem to have a philosophy of not losing and then seeing wgst happens .We might score and get something to hang onto till the end . We’re passing it around aimlessly - even at the end we were doing it ! I have no faith this bloke is suddenly gonna unleash us . We basically have 6 defenders and then 4 guys totally disconnected from them . And the longer a game goes the worse we get . It’s frustrating because you just feel we drift along until we get knocked out rather than playing the up tempo style we play here and having a go . I mean I watched this all year for Everton 

The biggest disappointment for me, was that it felt like the routinely bad performances at tournaments we've had under numerous managers over the years. Tepid, slow and unable to keep hold of the ball unless we pass it around aimlessly at the back. 

I could probably name 10 examples of games like this one. Iceland, Slovakia, Algeria, Trinidad and Tobago etc

As I said probably the only plus point is that we didn't nick a goal and then forget about the problems until we were exposed in a knockout game. 

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3 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Rugby Union is exactly the same . Scotland basically grow a leg . I’m beginning to wonder if they just don’t like us much 

I know. I can't understand why not.

"I am the avenging angel; I come with wings unfurled, I come with claws extended from halfway round the world. I am the God Almighty, I am the howling wind. I care not for your family; I care not for your kin. I come in search of terror, though terror is my own; I come in search of vengeance for crimes and crimes unknown. I care not for your children, I care not for your wives, I care not for your country, I care not for your lives." - (c) Jim Boyes - "The Avenging Angel"

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12 hours ago, DavidM said:

Honestly that was so bad i would  barely believe it if i hadnt seen it numerous times before in tournaments . We consistently play below the sum of our parts and are just ###### to watch …. Slow , ponderous , no invention , no creativity , no cutting edge . Please drop the two midfield defenders system its utterly tedious watching them pass sideways and backwards very slowly . Weve seen before this has stymied us so southgate does it again . No drive or energy or forward passes there at all . Kane looks half an hour off the pace , Sterling was horrendous . The only guy looking lively was foden and he took the kid off , then plays grealish on the wing . I mean wtf? Southgate has imprinted his character on this team , very bland and unexciting . Dont lose and maybe we can nick it . You wont do owt until you go out there play uptempo like we do in this country and try and grab it . The more it went the less we looked like scoring , and eventually we had no centre foreard at all!

100 % in agreement.

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22 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Rocket up the backside for England last night. 

They were good against Croatia, but not great. Creatively they still suffer. Kane is quite clearly out of form. Tactically England still seem poor. Taking Foden off made no sense. Pressing was almost non-existent for large parts of that game. 

It was a classic back down to earth really with Southgate's England. On paper we have immense talent, but we tactically aren't capable of breaking down teams if plan A isn't working. I'm still yet to see an England performance under Southgate against a mid to top quality team that looks in any way convincing - and that has therefore usually resulted in a draw or defeat.

I actually thought Foden was coming into the game more before he was taken off. I'm very suspicious of the momentum around Grealish, I've seen enough saviours of English sport in my time to know that they all end in failure (I can remember Danny Maguire going to lead us to ashes glory!). 

One of the things I liked about Southgate was he seemed to get the idea that England need to have a team and a system rather than squeezing individuals.

Last night seemed like the bad old days again. Here's hoping we see a reaction on Tuesday. 

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2 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

The baffling bit for me is that we are so often impressive in qualifying, usually against many of the same teams we then struggle against in major tournaments. It's not even like they are friendlies, in many qualifying games teams are just as motivated as they would be in a tournament if not more so. 

Doing poorly against the big teams is one thing, doing so against teams we routinely beat easily is another. 

Indeed, we are poor at tournament football. 

If it was a 38 game season I predict England would comfortably be in the top 3 in Europe, but in one off tournament games we consistently fail to get the best out of the immense quality at our disposal.

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1 hour ago, Maximus Decimus said:

I actually thought Foden was coming into the game more before he was taken off. I'm very suspicious of the momentum around Grealish, I've seen enough saviours of English sport in my time to know that they all end in failure (I can remember Danny Maguire going to lead us to ashes glory!). 

One of the things I liked about Southgate was he seemed to get the idea that England need to have a team and a system rather than squeezing individuals.

Last night seemed like the bad old days again. Here's hoping we see a reaction on Tuesday. 

Tbf with Grealish I think its more "well he will at least try and do something". Thats perfectly natural when we've been so flat.

Sterling and Kane should not start the next game IMO. Sancho sat on the bench when we totally lack speed, impetus and creativity is madness. 

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6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Tbf with Grealish I think its more "well he will at least try and do something". Thats perfectly natural when we've been so flat.

Sterling and Kane should not start the next game IMO. Sancho sat on the bench when we totally lack speed, impetus and creativity is madness. 

I certainly don't object to him playing, it's more this impression from before the tournament even that he is the new Gazza and the missing link to our ultimate victory. 

There was definitely an element last night of 'get Grealish on' as if he was going to save the day. I feel like I've seen this so many times in English sport, when in reality our problems are always more fundamental. 

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24 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

I certainly don't object to him playing, it's more this impression from before the tournament even that he is the new Gazza and the missing link to our ultimate victory. 

There was definitely an element last night of 'get Grealish on' as if he was going to save the day. I feel like I've seen this so many times in English sport, when in reality our problems are always more fundamental. 

It says a bit about us tbh that he’s seen in this light . At least he can come on and ‘ win ‘ 247 free kicks . People will say I’m biased but I’d play DCL up front - at least he’s a centre forward and a focal point . Kane is coming deep and looking sluggish and to often I’m looking in the area and there’s no one there . I’d play Sancho , where’s he at ? , and Foden either side and Grealish in the middle with Mount with one holding player , Phillips or the kid from Dortmund - he looks the part . I find Rice the new version of Eric Dier 

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I don't know a lot about football, but I'm always amazed at how bad pundits are. It always seems to me that they look at the result and then decide whether it was good.

The Croatia game is the perfect example, we played very similar to the Scotland game IMO. The only difference was that we got a goal and Croatia were toothless. However, most pundits were singing our praises. 

Similarly, most pundits are asserting that Scotland deserved to win last night. This is based on emotion rather than reason, both sides had their chances including the single best chance going to England. Considering the respective quality of both they did better, but on balance a draw was definitely fair.

Think what you like of Roy Keane but he says it as is, while they were all going on about how great Scotland were he basically said but you haven't scored a goal. 

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16 minutes ago, DavidM said:

It says a bit about us tbh that he’s seen in this light . At least he can come on and ‘ win ‘ 247 free kicks . People will say I’m biased but I’d play DCL up front - at least he’s a centre forward and a focal point . Kane is coming deep and looking sluggish and to often I’m looking in the area and there’s no one there . I’d play Sancho , where’s he at ? , and Foden either side and Grealish in the middle with Mount with one holding player , Phillips or the kid from Dortmund - he looks the part . I find Rice the new version of Eric Dier 

I'll never hear a bad word said about Eric Dier. Colombia 2018 erases all else.

Kane is clearly not right, what looked like an off game against Croatia now looks a bigger problem. There was a moment last night at about 65 minutes where he got some space to shoot in the box and I thought we'd finally broke them and he was going to score, but he didn't even get the shot off. 

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57 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Tbf with Grealish I think its more "well he will at least try and do something". Thats perfectly natural when we've been so flat.

Sterling and Kane should not start the next game IMO. Sancho sat on the bench when we totally lack speed, impetus and creativity is madness. 

The somewhat familiar problem we now have is that we're approaching the knockout stages not knowing the best way or our best team etc. 

This was something I thought Southgate has been good at in the past. 

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3 hours ago, Maximus Decimus said:

I certainly don't object to him playing, it's more this impression from before the tournament even that he is the new Gazza and the missing link to our ultimate victory. 

There was definitely an element last night of 'get Grealish on' as if he was going to save the day. I feel like I've seen this so many times in English sport, when in reality our problems are always more fundamental. 

As someone who has not really watched football for a couple of years, I noticed that they both had a lovely touch. I had not realised they were being touted as a new Gazza and the suggestion is clearly silly. It is not even clear that Gascoigne contributed more to England that Bryan Robson.

"You clearly have never met Bob8 then, he's like a veritable Bryan Ferry of RL." - Johnoco 19 Jul 2014

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