Group C: Slovenia, Denmark, Serbia, England

[shen]

21 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

You're assuming we're gonna win the group. Wouldn't bank on that right now. But yeah he's always been fortunate with draws

Of course, everyone assumes this. He also assumes Germany will get past Denmark 

[trabuch]

36 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

You're assuming we're gonna win the group. Wouldn't bank on that right now. But yeah he's always been fortunate with draws

We'll get the usual best ever tournament record England manager BS trotted out.

[ramboacdc]

11 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

I can't even get on to Southgate's interview. The Kyle Walker one proper wound me up

"We aren't told to sit back after we score, we are allowed to play how we want with free flowing attacking football."

That one? I nearly fell off my chair laughing at that one. 

[Parafox]

Listening to Southgate's post match interview, you'd never have thought he had the qualifiers and several friendlies to work out how to play attacking football and dominate the games.

 

It's like yesterday was a complete bewilderment to him.

[foxfanazer]

30 minutes ago, ramboacdc said:

"We aren't told to sit back after we score, we are allowed to play how we want with free flowing attacking football."

That one? I nearly fell off my chair laughing at that one. 

Yeah and the fans expect us to go and put 3 or 4 goals past every team and that's just not football 

 

Bellend

[Staffs Fox]

4 hours ago, wardyfox86 said:

You'd have Kane, Foden, Palmer and Bellingham all wanting to occupy the same areas.

 

Southgate can't coach a tactic. He picks 11 players, a bog standard formation and just tells every player to do what they do at club level. Works through qualifying purely on the basis that our players are just better.

 

This'll be another generation of great players going absolutely nowhere under inept management.

Yep! The only saving grace we have is that this will surely be Southgate’s tournament so most this generation will get to play the majority of their International career under different management. Saka, Bellingham, Foden, Rice, Trent, Palmer etc all have many tournaments ahead of them. 

Kane, Walker, Trippier and maybe one or two others are in last chance saloon but ah well. 
 

That said, who the FA get in is another matter……

Edited 21 June by Staffs Fox

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, shen said:

Of course, everyone assumes this. He also assumes Germany will get past Denmark 

 

Jeg beklager oprigtigt. Jeg vil sørge for ikke at begå denne fejl igen. 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Southgate and Cooper. We are truly still paying off 2016 aren't we.

[Finnegan]

9 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Southgate and Cooper. We are truly still paying off 2016 aren't we.

 

Try being Welsh and a Leicester fan. 

 

The duality of not thinking Cooper is good enough for Leicester but I'd give anything to have him replace Rob Page. 

 

[st albans fox]

45 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Try being Welsh and a Leicester fan. 

 

The duality of not thinking Cooper is good enough for Leicester but I'd give anything to have him replace Rob Page. 

 

how long can you hang on 

[The boy Linacre]

Anyway isn't watching England like watching Leicester over the last year years?  Don't City always sit back after going one up, they certainly have over much of the last 3 years.

Southgate has been lucky over the last 3 tournaments.

His cock is severely on the block now.  He has a great SQUAD of players, he has to find the 11-14 & formation to turn this around and no time to do it.  We have to hit the knockouts with everything sorted.

We're struggling without a left footed left back, the Trent experiment is a total failure, how do you get 3/4's as a minimum of the Man City Phil Foden to play for England in this tournament? How do you get this England side to keep pushing when they go 1-0 up?  How do you get Kane to stay up front and not pass to the opposition for their goals?

A lot to get an answer to in 90+ mins against Slovenia.

In the additional minutes ensure your players (Kyle) don't take the fans for mugs, and Gareth (waistcoat & all) don't mention Kalvin Phillips again, you picked the squad, you have Mainoo in there if you want another defensive midfielder.  Also being negative, pragmatic, defensive as a default has won you what so far as national manager...........NOTHING.  Go out guns blazing with a squad that has guns blazing players in it!!!!

If these lot click they can go close.

[foxfanazer]

53 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Try being Welsh and a Leicester fan. 

 

The duality of not thinking Cooper is good enough for Leicester but I'd give anything to have him replace Rob Page. 

 

So you're telling me if we'd waited a bit longer he might have taken the Wales job instead? 

[Foxy DK]

3 hours ago, shen said:

International football is a strange beast. Management at this level is 90% about fostering relations and having clear expectations and known systems, because the time you can train together naturally puts constrains.

 

Southgate, when he started, seemed to get a tune out of the England players and succesfully managed to reduce pressure. Big kudos there, because that was maybe the biggest hurdle for England (especially in hindsight with all the clique stuff from the late 90s and 00s).

 

He's also renewed the squad and gone for a lot of youth which so many were crying out for. He's also not been shy of selecting players from unfancied sides although you could well argue there still is a top 6 bias. 

He doesn't seem to trust players much beyond his first XI though, especially in forward areas.

 

But his results point to him actually doing a lot of things right, which shouldn't be ignored by the ever-critical fanbase and media.

Compare him to previous coaches like Hoddle, Venables, Capelli, Eriksson et al, his record holds up really well despite those coaches having similar talent pools to choose from.

 

Same goes for Hjulmand. 

After the Qatar debacle (I'm still not happy with the explanations given), I didn't want to pull the trigger, but the largely tepid, uninspiring qualification and the squandered opportunity in the Nations League after getting thise France wins made me doubt whether he still had it.

 

Whisper it quietly, but even our Euro 2020 performance was obviously galvanized by the Eriksen episode, a hugely favourable draw and results going our way. The first half against Finland was so toothless lest we forget.

Which leaves the outstanding qualification for the WC'22 as his standout achievement, which although commendable, is no improvement on Hareide.

 

I might be overly harsh and I really do like the guy - he's extremely sympathetic and seems a thoroughly good human being who has his priorities straight - but like with England, if you don't entertain (which is a main goal of his) and your results are so-so, then criticism is valid.

 

I really hope he proves me wrong against Serbia. The Slovenia draw was poor, the England draw was fine, but a defeat against Serbia should surely spell the end for Hjulmand.

I agree with much of it, but I do think you’re a bit harsh and miss some things. Most importantly we have played entertaining football under Hjulmand. Not so often the past two years, but in ‘21 and NL. We’ve also beaten both France and England without digging trenches as under Hareide (whom I like btw). Also, Hjulmand has shown excellent game management in these games, tactical flexibility and inspirational ambitions.

It’s also way harder to train the players to play like Hjulmand wants us to than Hareides style - especially in the NT where as you point out they don’t have a lot of time to do it, and the players aren’t hand picked. It requires so much more planning and detailed coaching and he’s extremely good at those core features of his profession.

 

Qatar was a failure because the top of the FA didn’t know what to do and let the team handle the public criticism - an impossible task. We should have boycotted it imo, but as we didn’t it shouldn’t be on Hjulmand or the players to explain. 

[Finnegan]

10 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

So you're telling me if we'd waited a bit longer he might have taken the Wales job instead? 

 

In reality I highly doubt it. 

 

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

On the subject of Wales, Michael Sheen must be kicking his heels about right now - he's got a horrible speech about being proud of soil ready to recite in front of twenty uncomfortable looking footballers. 

[Finnegan]

28 minutes ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

On the subject of Wales, Michael Sheen must be kicking his heels about right now - he's got a horrible speech about being proud of soil ready to recite in front of twenty uncomfortable looking footballers. 

 

God I hated that shit. Unbelievably cringe. 

 

Let the melodramatic sporting monologues die with Eddie Butler, god rest him. 

 

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

God I hated that shit. Unbelievably cringe. 

 

Let the melodramatic sporting monologues die with Eddie Butler, god rest him. 

 

Taken from us far too soon.

[Ely fox]

6 hours ago, Foxy DK said:

If I were English I’d join the choir criticizing Southgate, though it tends to get a little black and white.

 

That said, we (Denmark) always give bigger teams problems and very rarely lose by more than a goal. We beat France both home and away in the Nations’ League in 2022. In 2020 we drew and won against you in NL. Since 2018 I think only Belgium has won by two in non-friendlies.

 

We thrive in the underdog role and we have struggled as favorites the last few years after a magical first two years with Hjulmand as coach. I think we have better depth and a higher average quality of players than ever, but we sorely lack dribblers who are so important in the modern game. Contrary to popular opinion here I think we have one of the best coaches in international football and he showed that again yesterday in the way he set us up with Vesty in the middle and AC shadowing Saka, then switching at once when you subbed. Even though we’ve struggled for some time Hjulmand is probably the best coach in Denmark including his good friend Thomas Frank.

 

That’s not to absolve Southgate because there’s really no excuse for not playing attacking football with intensity with the players you have in attack. Had VK (who’s becoming very good I think) not allowed Walker to walk past him we might just have won and that’s not good enough from your perspective of course. 

Hi do you live in Denmark and support Leicester City then? Is that the Kasper Schmeichel link out of interest? 

[Ely fox]

7 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

They're all talking as if it's Southgate's first tournament. All of this "we're learning and we'll improve". 

There's no patterns of play other than meaningless 5 yard passes in midfield and Pickford hoofing it to Kane 

I agree. Southgate has been England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 manager for getting on a decade !!!! Why is it all this guff said that we are learning and we have a lot of young players etc etc??!! It is quite baffling the non stop excuses for showing no tactical areas was and the ability to pick the best in form players and the best attacking flare players. We are always learning and experimenting with Uselessgate. At this rate we will be experimenting and learning until the cows come home in 2030 !! 

[Ely fox]

5 hours ago, Daggers said:

 

£50,000 grand a week?!!? Your havin a laugh ain’t ya?!!? More like apples and pears 🍐 £150,000 per week for most of em. Corr blimey guv !! 

[Ely fox]

5 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

Yeah agree with that

 

I thought they all looked absolutely miserable from the off last night. We really don't handle pressure well 

I don’t really get why they can’t handle the expectations? Surely they are used to playing at big stadiums with big crowds and noise. They always bottle it for some strange reason. Not sure why France don’t have this problem and we do. 

[trabuch]

17 minutes ago, Ely fox said:

I don’t really get why they can’t handle the expectations? Surely they are used to playing at big stadiums with big crowds and noise. They always bottle it for some strange reason. Not sure why France don’t have this problem and we do. 

Premier League players for other countries don't look tired either.

[Ely fox]

1 minute ago, trabuch said:

Premier League players for other countries don't look tired either.

The French players play in the Champions League and their club matches and so must play the same amount of games as the Premier League players? Why does Stones look fatigued when he has hardly played football for Man City this season? He should be fresh and raring to go surely?!!? Surely it is the manager’s fault?!!? 

[Foxy DK]

47 minutes ago, Ely fox said:

Hi do you live in Denmark and support Leicester City then? Is that the Kasper Schmeichel link out of interest? 

Yes. Watching Kasper winning the PL like his dad was 🤯 I love when underdogs upset the bigger teams at tournaments, and this was that in steroids.

[FoxTimmy2]

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