Poll: UEFA Euro 2020 Final Italy v England ** spoilers ** [Sunday 11th July 2021]

[DrToffnar]

Tbf Fez has been anything but fickle. He's been pretty consistently dour throughout the comp, often regardless of the victories. I see where he's coming from but I just don't look at it the same way. Fair play to him for his consistency. Him and Southgate have that in common ironically

 

[chroniclard]

Gutted, we bossed that game for 60 minutes, they created bugger all, a scrappy goal and a loss on pens.

Shame compounded by brexiters racially abusing the players.

 

[AiiR]

Yep think a generation of quality is going to be lost to Southgates **** management and people aren’t going to realise until it’s too late. We won’t do anything at the World Cup. Quarter final and lose to a half decent side because we don’t have the guts to play to our strengths and have a go at teams.

Would rather lose by trying to win than lose by trying not to lose.

He's already done better than any other England manager of recent years, with an arguably less talented starting 11. You want to go back to being quarter finalist specialists or something?

 

[adam cool dude]

Two competitions hes taken This “golden generation” to a semi final followed by a final

some fans are fickle

biggest let down this tournament for me was kane

Where you get in a comp is irrelevant. We have had two of the easiest draws ever. Progression through a tournament is nothing really. We lost at our first biggest challenge. Just like we lost 3 times in the World Cup to better managed teams.

Everyone just gets caught up in the hype. Our performance in the next world cup will be determined by the draw we get. We come up against a proper decent side and we are toast.

Spain bossed Italy in their semi final as well but lost out on penalties. I think it would have been even worse had we faced Spain instead.

I can see a pattern in this forum as the club regulars can see it for what it is but the rest just blindly think we actually did well. When you break it down statistically we were very poor in our attack considering the wealth of players we have.

 

[Basher]

Gutted, we bossed that game for 60 minutes, they created bugger all, a scrappy goal and a loss on pens.

Shame compounded by brexiters racially abusing the players.

*Racists

 

[Rroff]

Gutted, we bossed that game for 60 minutes, they created bugger all, a scrappy goal and a loss on pens.

Shame compounded by brexiters racially abusing the players.

It is what [this] Italy do though, employ game management to keep themselves in the game and capitalise on mistakes. Maintain shape and just keep slowly turning the game in their favour.

I can see what Southgate was trying to do - draw them out so they couldn't maintain shape and expose holes in their defence but it was silly to even try it with the players we had - neither Sterling or Kane are a good fit for that task though Trippier and Shaw were capable of it.

 

[The Running Man]

Gutted, we bossed that game for 60 minutes, they created bugger all, a scrappy goal and a loss on pens.

Shame compounded by brexiters racially abusing the players.

Are you kidding me?

We scored in the 2nd min and then did nothing for the next 64 mins. It was obvious to everyone that a goal was coming.

That was apparent from the 71% possession that the italians had up to that point.

The complete lack of ambition to go on and win the game reminded me of Ole's tactics. Making 120th minute subs was the death knell.

Mancini made earlier subs and tried to actually influence the game in a positive way.

 

[mmj_uk]

Put simply, under Southgate if we'd played a team like Italy, Spain or even Belgium in the round of 16 we'd have gone out in the round of 16, just as we would have done in the 2018 World Cup. Yes we beat Germany but they very nearly lost to Hungary and weren't the power house they usually are.

We need a manager who can compete with the best.

 

[Joxeon]

Agree. Yesterday he was 'a great manager look how far he's taken us, I can't believe were in the finals' today hes 'pure trash, awful manager sack him immediately'

Some people are so fickle. Italy were simply the better team as clearly shown by the completely uneven possession. If we had won those penalties I dont think anybody bar English supporters would have considered it a worthy win.

Italy were the better team because we let them be and sat back and tried to defend a 1-0 lead instead of capitalising on our great start.

Spain showed what we needed to do to beat Italy and made them look very ordinary in the semi yet Southgate got his tactics totally wrong and sat back and did nothing especially in the second half when we were getting over run, it was the same against Croatia in the World Cup semis when we tried to defend a 1-0 lead and got found out and like that game also we made no use of our subs.

Had we played our best and got beat then I wouldn't have minded so much but we were nowhere near are best but I can't blame the players as I think they were just following the game plan set out a manager who was so afraid to lose that he did not dare to try and win which was evident by bringing 2 subs on at the end for penalties when they could have come on much earlier had the manager wanted to win the game.

 

[The_One]

Where you get in a comp is irrelevant. We have had two of the easiest draws ever. Progression through a tournament is nothing really. We lost at our first biggest challenge. Just like we lost 3 times in the World Cup to better managed teams.

Everyone just gets caught up in the hype. Our performance in the next world cup will be determined by the draw we get. We come up against a proper decent side and we are toast.

Spain bossed Italy in their semi final as well but lost out on penalties. I think it would have been even worse had we faced Spain instead.

I can see a pattern in this forum as the club regulars can see it for what it is but the rest just blindly think we actually did well. When you break it down statistically we were very poor in our attack considering the wealth of players we have.

yes we were poor comsidering the attacking talent but we also had the best defence in the tournament

winning teams are built on a solid defence in knockout tournaments

If it wasnt for southgate the country wouldn’t of even been anywhere near an euro final

i dont agree with some of his subs and timings but the man clearly is taking england in the right direction

if your club manager took you to a semi and then a final in two back to back tournament competitions after not being anywhere near for years and years you wouldn't slate them like southgate gets stick

england fans are fickle

when southgate played trippier lb early on in tue tournament he was getting slated it ended up being a masterstroke for that game

 

[adam cool dude]

It is what [this] Italy do though, employ game management to keep themselves in the game and capitalise on mistakes. Maintain shape and just keep slowly turning the game in their favour.

I can see what Southgate was trying to do - draw them out so they couldn't maintain shape and expose holes in their defence but it was silly to even try it with the players we had - neither Sterling or Kane are a good fit for that task though Trippier and Shaw were capable of it.

What are you talking about? If you wanted to exploit Italy you would play a 443 with a pacey front three to stretch the CB's. Sterling/Rashford/Sancho. You also do not put two holding midfielders. You have someone more attacking box to box like mount, Foden or Grealish.

 

[adam cool dude]

winning teams are built on a solid defence in knockout tournaments

Our defence couldn't have been that solid because he was scared shirtless playing two CDM's.

Being the best defence whilst still attacking is what makes a great defence. Like Italy. Not packing the field with numbers to reduce the chance of conceding. That's the mentality of a manager that is fighting relegation.

 

[The_One]

Our defence couldn't have been that solid because he was scared shirtless playing two CDM's.

its a defensive unit

 

[Terminal_Boy]

'Football's coming Rome' just doesn't have the same ring to it.

How about “Eu venturus est in domum suam!”?

 

[chroniclard]

Are you kidding me?

We scored in the 2nd min and then did nothing for the next 64 mins. It was obvious to everyone that a goal was coming.

That was apparent from the 71% possession that the italians had up to that point.

The complete lack of ambition to go on and win the game reminded me of Ole's tactics. Making 120th minute subs was the death knell.

Mancini made earlier subs and tried to actually influence the game in a positive way.

Italy created nothing of note, before their scrappy goal we were excellent.

 

[fez]

Tbf Fez has been anything but fickle. He's been pretty consistently dour throughout the comp, often regardless of the victories. I see where he's coming from but I just don't look at it the same way. Fair play to him for his consistency. Him and Southgate have that in common ironically

That’s because you could see this coming from a mile away. When you are playing badly, nowhere near the capabilities of your squad, making bad tactical decisions game after game you will eventually run out of luck.

We needed an OG and a soft penalty to scrape past Denmark for Christ’s sake.

The rest of the world is laughing at how unimpressive we have been considering our players and the way things have been stacked in our favour.

If we get an easier run to a final I will eat my hat. Maybe we will as I didn’t think we would get an easier run than the last WC so let’s all hope for the stars to align and we only have to play one half decent team next tournament. Maybe we will defend our way to a trophy.

Southgate is just a poor mans Ole. Does the easy parts of management well but completely falls down when it comes to the harder parts.

 

[beachBOYken]

Gutted, we bossed that game for 60 minutes, they created bugger all, a scrappy goal and a loss on pens.

Shame compounded by brexiters racially abusing the players.

What are you going on about. It was racists and these racist comments can come from anywhere on a world wide social platform.

 

[wildman]

yes we were poor comsidering the attacking talent but we also had the best defence in the tournament

winning teams are built on a solid defence in knockout tournaments

If it wasnt for southgate the country wouldn’t of even been anywhere near an euro final

i dont agree with some of his subs and timings but the man clearly is taking england in the right direction

if your club manager took you to a semi and then a final in two back to back tournament competitions after not being anywhere near for years and years you wouldn't slate them like southgate gets stick

england fans are fickle

when southgate played trippier lb early on in tue tournament he was getting slated it ended up being a masterstroke for that game

best defence in tournament ? is that a joke ? The only reason people think that is because you played poor quality sides all the way to the final and were never really tested.

 

[McBain]

Biggest concern for me from last night is that the manager, who made big calls that didn't pay off has shown he hasn't learnt a single thing about playing the bigger boys in knock out football. Happened 3 years ago, happened yesterday. Score early, sit back, get beat... brilliant.

You can get away with it against the duffers like Scotland but the Italy, Belgium, France etc are going to punish you.

Mount out wide - madness, I said it before the game and sure enough it was like playing with 10 men. How many managers have made that sort of mistake for England in the past 20 years? Scholes on the left wing anyone, how well did that work out? Only having 2 midfielders Vs their 3 meant they could completely dominate possession, which they did. I'm someone who never played at the sort of level that Southgate did, but if I can see that how can't he?

Then wasting 2 subs on penalties, letting Saka take a penalty when he had been poor, never taken a pro penalty, 19 years old. All real bad decisions, it's all well and good saying it falls on his shoulders but we all know that means **** all.

 

[Rroff]

What are you talking about? If you wanted to exploit Italy you would play a 443 with a pacey front three to stretch the CB's. Sterling/Rashford/Sancho. You also do not put two holding midfielders. You have someone more attacking box to box like mount, Foden or Grealish.

I didn't say Southgate was doing it the right way

But I'm pretty sure the intention was there to try and break the way this Italy build off defence.

Only having 2 midfielders

Somewhat unconventional but I don't think that was what Southgate was trying to do - IMO he was trying to make the fight for mid-field well into our half, not a heavy defence as it appears, and it plain didn't work with the players we had.