Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England

[mancunianfox]

13 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Best summary I read is that game was very England 2006 to 2016 rather than England 2018+ 

 

Played with fear rather than ambition 

Agreed, I think the approach to this tournament is very similar to that era. One of Southgates biggest successes has been picking a settled team where everyone knows their job and has experience. Picked players depending on what they had done for England rather than form.

 

We know seem to be back to looking at the most recently in form players and trying to shoehorn them in but the team has no balance/shape as a result and too many players in that squad havent played much for England. In a tight game his attacking options are Eze, Gordon, Palmer, Watkins and Toney who have very few caps and he doesn't know if he can trust them. Not a good recipe for success.

Edited 17 June by mancunianfox

[RowlattsFox]

11 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Best summary I read is that game was very England 2006 to 2016 rather than England 2018+ 

 

Played with fear rather than ambition 

Not sure that's entirely fair. First half hour, whilst it wasn't scintillating, we played like a top side, comfortable, confident and assured. I wouldn't say we played with fear at all, lack of quality maybe. 

 

The problem we had is Southgate is incapable tactically of wrestling back control once its lost. 

[RowlattsFox]

Serbian defenders did a good job on Kane, with a little help from a ref who let the holding go a lot of the time. They were very aggressive. A brave manager would realise this and make a change and bring on a striker to offer something different on the day. 

[purpleronnie]

Southgate does remind me a bit of Rodgers.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

[Dr Marco]

I know I'm a fanboy and I've always hated Kane but I would take Vardy aged 37 over Kane

[foxfanazer]

5 minutes ago, purpleronnie said:

Southgate does remind me a bit of Rodgers.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Has the same level of in game management too

[goose2010]

Wins a win but wasn't convincing although our record in first group games is terrible so will take it. 

 

Saka was the best of the front 3 you have to keep Jude in this position no other player in the squad scores that header as they wouldn't be where he was. 

 

 

[foxile5]

Return to type for England, in many respects.

 

We go into a tournament with a very, very good team and right up there with the favourites. The management structure can’t handle that and try to A) play defensively and B) put everyone very good on the pitch regardless of whether or not it works.

 

Alexander Arnold in midfield SEEMS a good idea to 12 year old lads and FM managers. He’s got passing 18 and pace 16! But the reality is that this is an international tournament. He’s played a handful of games in that position. It’s a triangle peg in an oblong hole and we know that doesn’t work.

 

Foden looked out of sorts and not with the pace of the play. It’s probably because we’re trying to shoe-horn that midfield together to work (Lampard and Gerrard anyone?) rather than looking at a balanced midfield.

 

We’ve ended up with the imperious Bellingham as the great hope to lead us to victory. It’s another Rooney of 2004. Yes, Bellingham is brilliant. Yes, he played well yesterday. No, he shouldn’t be the leader of the team.

 

A very, very cagey 1-0 win over Serbia has all the indicators of ‘Golden Generation’ England’s almost paralytic response to International success. I’ll watch on in interest to see how this develops.

[RowlattsFox]

Our wide options are definitely this generations Lampard/Scholes/Gerrard debate. 

 

Then it was because we had no left footed options, now every ****ers left footed but all want to play on the right. 

 

Hopefully if Shaw can miraculously keep himself fit then at least we have a left footer out there. 

[David Hankey]

England did enough, just. Nothing to write home about.

[foxfanazer]

3 minutes ago, David Hankey said:

England did enough, just. Nothing to write home about.

Perfect name for the tournament review dvd

[CosbehFox]

55 minutes ago, RowlattsFox said:

Not sure that's entirely fair. First half hour, whilst it wasn't scintillating, we played like a top side, comfortable, confident and assured. I wouldn't say we played with fear at all, lack of quality maybe. 

 

The problem we had is Southgate is incapable tactically of wrestling back control once its lost. 

The 60 minutes after we played twenty yards deeper, conceded a load of space, went into a mode of smashing the ball long. Until the subs, we were defending on our 18 yard line. 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

"And the Everton stopper was rewarded with a fifth consecutive clean sheet for the Three Lions in group stage matches at the Euros - the longest such run in the competition's history."

 

But we're weak at the back! 

[Babylon]

10 hours ago, foxes_rule1978 said:

Bellingham can play there and then you can have Foden in the 10 role… with Gordon out left it would be far better balanced. No need to shoehorn players into unnatural positions 

It seems so blindingly obvious... and yet here we are at a major tournament experimenting with Trent.  

 

 

[Babylon]

1 minute ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

"And the Everton stopper was rewarded with a fifth consecutive clean sheet for the Three Lions in group stage matches at the Euros - the longest such run in the competition's history."

 

But we're weak at the back! 

Thought we looked a bit better with the Palace lad in there, not quite so many gaps as usual when you have Maguire and Stones both wanting to push out. Although I wasn't convinced by our shape at all.

[Lionator]

Without Saka we would’ve created next to nothing. I worry even with a roving Bellingham, our midfield lacks creativity and the full backs are not of the level of 3-5 years ago to create chances themselves. 

[Spudulike]

Aren't we told that transport problems are a speciality of the UK and it's all so perfect on European mainland? Or are these problems just reserved for the English when we play away? Not hearing much about similar problems for other nations fans. Perhaps we're the only ones to complain?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/jun/16/fans-left-sidelined-and-with-nowhere-to-go-thanks-to-uefas-bumbling-genius

 

[The boy Linacre]

We have 3 Man City players in that team, they more than anybody should understand the importance/value of keeping the ball, we did it once in the last 30mins and really drew the sting.  But the worst culprit was Foden (and I'm a big fan).  He forced it/gave it away at least 3 times in the last 30 mins.  He is and does really struggle in an England shirt.  Everybody knows Bellingham was MOTM BUT Rice was monster too.

And Guehi aside from one mistake was a real bonus.

Focus on keeping the ball in the last 2 games, really work on that area.

[KFS]

2 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

Aren't we told that transport problems are a speciality of the UK and it's all so perfect on European mainland? Or are these problems just reserved for the English when we play away? Not hearing much about similar problems for other nations fans. Perhaps we're the only ones to complain?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/jun/16/fans-left-sidelined-and-with-nowhere-to-go-thanks-to-uefas-bumbling-genius

 

I mean, this is a unique case… but your point is largely right. I got stuck in Frankfurt earlier this year for work and would’ve missed a whole weekend of family time if I didn’t find someone willing to drive me out to Stuttgart. Nothing about the European travel system excels over the U.K. anymore.

[KFS]

This is my predicted route to the final:

 

Poland -> Italy -> France -> Germany 

 

Was fun while it lasted 

[lcfcsnow]

11 hours ago, Unabomber said:

Can’t jude play next to rice and we play Foden 10, palmer right and then Eze left. 

Because we've got a safety first manager who'll never win anything just like the loser up front as a player, look at his subs last night they're his go to options at the sign of the team needing a boost. Lots of goals so far in this tournament, it was a guarantee our match would have the fewest given how negative we set up. It's just looks like it'll never change no matter how much talent we have available.

[SkidsFox]

8 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Or Foden isn't half the player for England that he is for Man City.  Some players just don't work as well in a different environment.  He has literally played nowhere else has he?  No loans etc. 

This is perhaps the English problem. Our players have plenty of skill, but all too often they haven't experience of playing abroad. It's getting better with the likes of Trippier, Bellingham, and now Kane. 

[Durnerz]

I thought defensively we looked decent all night which of course was the worry going into the tournament.

 

Guehi,  Stones and Rice in particular were decent and looked composed.

 

Bellingham is a special player and definitely as the tournament goes on will get stronger and stronger, such a class act. 

 

Southgates tactics really are a hard watch though, still with PTSD from the Italy Euro final watching us sit back for an entire half. We've got such a good attack on paper but other than Saka none of them really turned up in the front 3. Kane is a goalscorer but not much else, he looked lazy out there in a mirror image of the France semi-final. 

 

Job done and hoping for a more exciting display in the next game but not holding my breath. 

[oxtonfox]

12 hours ago, trugerkem said:

Thought Fabregas talked a lot of sense 

Fabregas yes I agree, but we could have done with Neil Warnock or even Sam Allardyce. How I long for the no nonense grafting type managers who call a spade a shovel.

[foxes_rule1978]

56 minutes ago, Babylon said:

It seems so blindingly obvious... and yet here we are at a major tournament experimenting with Trent.  

 

 

The worst thing about it is you already have Trippier having to play on the left side, in an unfamiliar position so the whole side of that pitch doesn’t have any natural players. It’s unbalanced and doesn’t work. Southgate really does frustrate me, when we went 1 up for some reason we again started to sit back, thankfully rice guehi and stones looked composed enough for us to not really have major problems. Against better teams though we don’t get away with it