Well that was no surprise was it? Spain deserved to win and the 2-1 flatters England.
I think it is time for a few changes in the England camp.
Firstly: Southgate has to go, he had the best group of players in the whole competition and still couldn’t get a tune out of them. Ignored Gordon, gave others just cameo roles. First manager to lose two European championship finals and also only one to get to two consecutive finals and not win at least one of them. His time is up and we need fresh thinking.
Secondly and sadly I think Kane’s period as an England regular is now up. I personally think he should be allowed one final game in recognition of his goalscoring and to allow him to bow out with his 100th cap.Bit like a testimonial really🤔
Who do I think should take over? That is the conundrum, do we stick with just English managers or do we look at getting an experienced international manager to steer us in the right direction?
Time for Change
posted on 15/7/24
I agree. Ithink the most damning thing about this tournament is that we always improved witrh the substitutionsnbut he always started more or less the same eleven despite that. Yesterday, we were crying out for a different striker, be it Watkins for the press or Toney if you're going to play long and he waited too long. We were also desperate for Palmer to come on and actually try and play the ball forward - the rest played sideways and backwards all night. Why did Gordon and his directness not see any minutes?
We seemed to lack any plan, we has no patterns of play, no vision. It's like a Sunday league kids team where you just stick who you think are the 11 best players on and tell them to play but you are not a team.
It's not all Southgate's fault. Some players just didn't turn up. Rice has been ropey all tournament and he is key for us at the base of midfield. Foden, Bellingham and Kane just kept getting in eachother's way. I think Bellingham has to be taken down a notch, undoubtedly a great talent, but he believes his own hype. Too many players just didn't show up.
But in the end, Southgate's negative style will not win anything. Spain were the better team last night so it was always going to be a struggle but against Italy, when we were by far a better team, we went up after 3 minutes and tried to defend for the next 87 and then played for penalties. WTF?
We need to appoint a manager who will get the best out of THESE players. We don't have top defenders at present, so we have to appoint a more positive manager to take advantage of Bellingham, Foden, Saka, Palmer and all the forwards we have.
posted on 15/7/24
Southgate made the same mistake as Poch and played a half fit Kane in a final. Kane was way way way off the pace all evening and he should’ve had the balls to put the country first and tell the manager he wasn’t up to it. England tried to play counter attacking football without a striker and it cost them one of the biggest prizes in world football. Sick and tired of Kanes ego being the thing that takes precedence. He got right under my skin with that pre tournament interview where he talked about having a ‘big club aura’ now which would give him ‘more respect on the field’
Kane should lose the captaincy now and definitely stop being a garrunteed starter
posted on 15/7/24
I think if you play Kane you set up and play a certain way, andnone which has pace that goes beyond Kane, or you work positions for crosses.
I'm fine playing Kane but the set up around him meant he had ittle impact.
How we persisted with a 352 even when needing a goal says all you need to know about Safegate.
We should have removed a defender and added another attacker instead of taking Kane off.
Wr played with a small club mentality, looking to nick something from the big club instead of imposing any of our quality.
Another opportunity missed and it's one Aouthgate
posted on 15/7/24
comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 28 minutes ago
I think if you play Kane you set up and play a certain way, andnone which has pace that goes beyond Kane, or you work positions for crosses.
I'm fine playing Kane but the set up around him meant he had ittle impact.
How we persisted with a 352 even when needing a goal says all you need to know about Safegate.
We should have removed a defender and added another attacker instead of taking Kane off.
Wr played with a small club mentality, looking to nick something from the big club instead of imposing any of our quality.
Another opportunity missed and it's one Aouthgate
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Spot on, Kane doesn't fit the system.
The system didn't fit England.
Huge opportunity squandered.
Pleasing.
posted on 15/7/24
We were playing counter attack with one winger and a forward who was never in the opposition penalty area. That's why we invited all the pressure back on ourselves and had no possession. This smacks of tactical naivety apart from the negativity of solely looking to counter attack against a team that is spectacularly organised and does everything well.
posted on 15/7/24
We came up against arguably the second best team in the world at the moment and lost narrowly. Pick the bones out of it all you want but this naive bloke who doesn’t know how to manage a football team has taken us to 2 tournament finals in 4 years. He has had “easy” routes that have knocked out the likes of Germany and Netherlands along the way.
We lost on pens to Italy
We lost in the last few mins to Spain
People are flapping their gums and coming out with Schitt. Fortunately, the FA rarely listens to anybody and I think they like Southgate so we’re safe for a few more years
posted on 15/7/24
He did say he would go if England didn't win it.
posted on 15/7/24
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s ... (U18109)
posted 1 hour, 51 minutes ago
We came up against arguably the second best team in the world at the moment and lost narrowly. Pick the bones out of it all you want but this naive bloke who doesn’t know how to manage a football team has taken us to 2 tournament finals in 4 years. He has had “easy” routes that have knocked out the likes of Germany and Netherlands along the way.
We lost on pens to Italy
We lost in the last few mins to Spain
People are flapping their gums and coming out with Schitt. Fortunately, the FA rarely listens to anybody and I think they like Southgate so we’re safe for a few more years
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It's deja vu.
We put in one performance in that tournament and Spain put in 7.
That is what happens when you give your highly talented squad belief, when you play to your strengths and Spain got better and better through the tournament.
England stumbled from one under whelming performance to another, from one selection to another, from one formation to another and only really performed in the SF vs Netherlands.
With the talent we had available in the squad it is ridiculous that we didnt performance to a higher level, look cohesive and like we had a plan and a style.
I felt all along we went in under cooked, not knowing who out best XI were and it is remarkable that the line up and formation which formed our last few games had never played together before 2 feckin years to get us here and we go in totally under prepared and unable to get the very best out of the very talented squad we have as a result.
Southgate managed to get us performing to less than the sum of our parts, so that's totally on him
posted on 15/7/24
Called it at HT
Kane & Mainoo...both passengers to be replaced by Palmer & Watkins
Only trouble was Southgate took too long to do it....again
posted on 15/7/24
and basically in a nutshell..this is entirely our problem, we have the players - they just need using
Poch was the same last term with us....everyone could see it, took him until early April to finally clue up