UEFA Euro 2024 Qualifiers & Friendlies ** spoilers ** [7th - 12th September 2023]

[SimonRigga]

England won't win anything.. unless we scrape a win coming from behind...

Last night was a perfect example.. dominate the first half, with some good possesion, but then an end result by passing forwards, and risking the ball to create an opportunity..

Cue second half, and we go completely negative, lots of possesion but going nowhere, the Scots start to feel more comfortable and get a bit more confidence, then they get back into the game, and probably should have got a second.. do this with a good team, and England are not going to win the game..

This mindset of we're winning so we need to just keep hold of the ball at all costs, must come from the manager. It was the same with our world cup quarter final and the euro final.

It's very depressing to see such good players with such a negative mindset when the team is winning. ( I literaly end up shouting at the screen with frustration! )

Luckily last night Scots didn't get a second, and their chances seemed to wake the players back up.

However the only way we're going to win a big tournament final, is if we go behind, and don't get in front until almost the final whistle.

R.

 

[redeye]

Thought it was discraceful the way the Scottish fans went after Maguire from the second he came on the pitch. I'm far from his biggest fan but honestly can't remember when an almost entire fanbase got on a player like that before. Appaling bad sportsmanship. He actually played perfectly fine aside from that own goal (ha). Then again, they booed the national anthem like nobody I've ever heard before which is both highly amusing but also pretty pathetic and sad considering it's theirs too (although I'm sure a chunk of them would refuse to acknowledge that).

To the football... England seem incapable of playing a whole match with a consistent performance level. They switch off for 15mins or more and play like a non league club and then yet all of a sudden they go and do what they did for the last goal. It's almost like Southgate has ingrained in them.. when we're ahead pull back and just defend the lead. But all that does is pile pressure on you. The keeper refused to kick the ball long or get it out with any speed for what 60 minutes? Every single time it pilled pressure on the defence to try and get it to the midfield. It worked ok sometimes but there is so much of a slow down in the game doing this, and everything goes sideways and back. Its so defensive and just gives the opposition time to get back in the game and re-organise. We were 2-0 up we should have kicked on and completely killed the game off.. there were 4 or 5 goals in that easily.

 

[mid_gen]

Thought it was discraceful the way the Scottish fans went after Maguire from the second he came on the pitch. I'm far from his biggest fan but honestly can't remember when an almost entire fanbase got on a player like that before. Appaling bad sportsmanship. He actually played perfectly fine aside from that own goal (ha). Then again, they booed the national anthem like nobody I've ever heard before which is both highly amusing but also pretty pathetic and sad considering it's theirs too (although I'm sure a chunk of them would refuse to acknowledge that).

I can only assume you're a recent immigrant and haven't the knowledge of the 'special rivalry' that exists between England and the other members of the union.

Scots people singing God Save The King?

 

[adidan]

So, didn't watch last night. Absolute waste of time after a qualifier.

Stop crying about Scottish bants, as if they wouldn't get the same or worse down in London.

Anyway, they are doing us a favour - Maguire hasn't earned his spot. "Oh he's done well for us in the past" (debatable), well so has Shearer - are we going to put him up front next match?

 

[Pigeon_Killer]

I’ve completely checked out of England now, didn’t watch the last two games and don’t care how well we do in future tournaments while Southgate’s in charge. Actually, don’t care full stop as long as no Liverpool players get injured.

 

[arctine]

England won't win anything.. unless we scrape a win coming from behind...

Last night was a perfect example.. dominate the first half, with some good possesion, but then an end result by passing forwards, and risking the ball to create an opportunity..

Cue second half, and we go completely negative, lots of possesion but going nowhere, the Scots start to feel more comfortable and get a bit more confidence, then they get back into the game, and probably should have got a second.. do this with a good team, and England are not going to win the game..

This mindset of we're winning so we need to just keep hold of the ball at all costs, must come from the manager. It was the same with our world cup quarter final and the euro final.

It's very depressing to see such good players with such a negative mindset when the team is winning. ( I literaly end up shouting at the screen with frustration! )

Luckily last night Scots didn't get a second, and their chances seemed to wake the players back up.

However the only way we're going to win a big tournament final, is if we go behind, and don't get in front until almost the final whistle.

R.

Serious question, do you actually watch football regularly?

It baffles me that people think any team can dominate a full 90 minutes every game. It is very rare that this happens even against much worse opposition.

Even if there’s a giant chasm in quality between two teams, it’s very rare that there aren’t periods where momentum switches side. This is especially true in international football.

 

[SimonRigga]

Serious question, do you actually watch football regularly?

It baffles me that people think any team can dominate a full 90 minutes every game. It is very rare that this happens even against much worse opposition.

Even if there’s a giant chasm in quality between two teams, it’s very rare that there aren’t periods where momentum switches side. This is especially true in international football.

Yes quite a lot..

I did not expect England to dominate for 90 mins.. did I even say that?..

It's about the players mindset, we had lots of the ball in the first half, not all and certainly not total domination, but lots of the ball ..

When we had the ball in the first half, we tried to play forward and break the lines, risking the ball to create opportunities.

Then when we were winning, we came out in the second half, had lots of the ball but we stopped trying to play forward, it's was all passes backwards and sideways with absolutely no intention of breaking the Scottish lines.

This lack of playing forward drew the Scots onto us, (if we're not going to pass it forward then there little reason not to press!), and gave them more confidence, then they would have had if we'd continued to have a positive intention.

Anyway, yes I watch lots of football, just a bit wierd that you took what I said to mean I thought we should dominate for 90mins, which I did not.

 

[HangTime]

They keep saying what england didnt have in previous generations without mentioning the teams they were up against. The Italy,Spain and Germanys of this gen arent a patch on anything previously. England should be winning a trophy with this bunch of players, they have to. Their only weakness is the manager.

I was actually thinking about this but from a related but different(?) angle, that basically it's assumed that if you have a good team that you should be winning things. When often there are other good teams around and/or the English media don't really pay any attention to that. The hype wagon gets going because there's a lack of understanding that what matters is not how good you are, but how good you are relative to the opposition.

To your point the foreign teams of 20 years ago were very good but that was overlooked at the time by the media / fans. So I expect the same happens again.
IMO England's team 20 years ago was better than it is today. So the opposition standard is worse but so is the English standard. When England were very good they lost out to very good teams. Now they are good, they could lose to good teams.
In terms of the manager I don't think you could say Southgate is better than Sven although I do think Sven should've tried different formations a bit more to try and exploit the talent we had.

Comparing the teams:

James was slightly worse than the keepers we have today.
Ashley Cole was better than everyone.
Centrebacks... Rio / JT / Sol / Woody / King.... versus Harry Maguire and co. I mean seriously.
Neville was slightly worse than Walker but the latter will be 34 before the Euros start.
Further forward is hard to compare due to differences in formation / playstyles these days but Scholes / Gerrard / Lampard / Beckham were top notch albeit not properly exploited. Rice is better than Hargreaves in a holding role.
I guess you could draw comparisons between Rooney and Bellingham (appreciating Rooney played further forward back then but that's because it was 2 up front, they are probably the closest to each other in terms of precocious talent / #10 type role), lets call that even and then Kane is better than Owen.

In summary the defence worries me, if you were picking a shortlist of top keepers and defenders across Europe Walker is the only one that would get a look in, whereas we used to have Campbell and Cole in team of the tournament etc. Generally it took penalties, a red card or a freak goal to knock England out back then, whereas nowadays the opposition must be licking their lips at the prospect of bearing down on our goal.

 

[Vandle]

I was actually thinking about this but from a related but different(?) angle, that basically it's assumed that if you have a good team that you should be winning things. When often there are other good teams around and/or the English media don't really pay any attention to that. The hype wagon gets going because there's a lack of understanding that what matters is not how good you are, but how good you are relative to the opposition.

To your point the foreign teams of 20 years ago were very good but that was overlooked at the time by the media / fans. So I expect the same happens again.
IMO England's team 20 years ago was better than it is today. So the opposition standard is worse but so is the English standard. When England were very good they lost out to very good teams. Now they are good, they could lose to good teams.
In terms of the manager I don't think you could say Southgate is better than Sven although I do think Sven should've tried different formations a bit more to try and exploit the talent we had.

Comparing the teams:

James was slightly worse than the keepers we have today.
Ashley Cole was better than everyone.
Centrebacks... Rio / JT / Sol / Woody / King.... versus Harry Maguire and co. I mean seriously.
Neville was slightly worse than Walker but the latter will be 34 before the Euros start.
Further forward is hard to compare due to differences in formation / playstyles these days but Scholes / Gerrard / Lampard / Beckham were top notch albeit not properly exploited. Rice is better than Hargreaves in a holding role.
I guess you could draw comparisons between Rooney and Bellingham (appreciating Rooney played further forward back then but that's because it was 2 up front, they are probably the closest to each other in terms of precocious talent / #10 type role), lets call that even and then Kane is better than Owen.

In summary the defence worries me, if you were picking a shortlist of top keepers and defenders across Europe Walker is the only one that would get a look in, whereas we used to have Campbell and Cole in team of the tournament etc. Generally it took penalties, a red card or a freak goal to knock England out back then, whereas nowadays the opposition must be licking their lips at the prospect of bearing down on our goal.

Good post. I do agree, I don't think this England team is all that great outside of a pair of worldies. Had far better over the last twenty years and still failed miserably. Quality of the opposition has dropped, when you look at some of our traditional old foes in Germany and Italy.