EURO 2024 FINAL THREAD: SPAIN vs ENGLAND Sunday, July 14th, 8:00PM

[Stuntman_Mike]

I don't think I've ever known a team to deserve something so much. Spain were just a class above the whole tournament. To beat Croatia, the holders, the hosts, France and England is impressive. 

 

I've loved what Southgate has done with the squad unity but it's time to get someone in to really take the talent we've got forward.

[grobyfox1990]

Yeh agreed, it feels like I should be on Southgate’s side because, apart from his 1980s style of awful football, he must antagonise the ‘footballs gone mate shambles mate’ crowd with the squad unity, togetherness and fight. 

But imagine what these players would achieve playing a modern brand of football under a progressive manager. Well we can imagine that, they’re pretty much all highly decorated at club level 
 

[Dan LCFC]

5 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

It depends what levels you mean. Having him take up a starting spot has been a hindrance for the whole tournament and almost anybody else would've been a better alternative.

 

Southgate coming out after the final saying they struggled to get Kane up to speed is criminal 

 

He'll still be fine to stat pad in the qualifiers but surely he can't be considered our first choice striker for the next world cup

He obviously will be as well.

 

He doesn't deserve this sort of indulgence. Name his biggest goal for England that wasn't a penalty (and I'm not letting anyone say Denmark here either!)

[Fox92]

10 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

He obviously will be as well.

 

He doesn't deserve this sort of indulgence. Name his biggest goal for England that wasn't a penalty (and I'm not letting anyone say Denmark here either!)

Probably against Slovakia. That goal was the winner that took us to the semi-final (edit: sorry, I said Netherlands originally but realised you weren't counting penalties).

 

I don't disagree with the "stat pad" thing, the level of quality he is scoring against, but it can be said about every striker in the World because that many Countries end up at the finals nowadays.

Edited 15 July by Fox92

[Dan LCFC]

13 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Probably against Slovakia. That goal was the winner that took us to the semi-final (edit: sorry, I said Netherlands originally but realised you weren't counting penalties).

 

I don't disagree with the "stat pad" thing, the level of quality he is scoring against, but it can be said about every striker in the World because that many Countries end up at the finals nowadays.

Stat pad is fair when you're frequently found wanting in the big games. Kane didn't have a single good performance all tournament. But as usual we just plodded on and pretended everything was OK with him.

 

For all his obvious brilliance over his career it's a fair accusation of Ronaldo for Portugal as well.

Edited 15 July by Dan LCFC

[CosbehFox]

3 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

This squad is nowhere near as talented as the squads from 1996 - 2010.

Look at the 2006 World Cup for example, how many of this squad get into the starting 11?

Pickford maybe? And look how that turned out? Scraped past Trinidad and Tobago and Ecuador before going out with a whimper.

No one is saying Southgate is a great manager, and I think it’s time for him to pass over the reigns, but it’s wrong to say this is the most talented squad we’ve had or the easiest run we’ve had.

Let’s face it, England beating top teams in major tournaments just doesn’t happen and never has under any manager. So to say anyone could have taken this team to back to back finals and a World Cup semi is just wrong - they couldn’t and they haven’t.

 

Disagree. 

 

No England squad has collectively had La Liga Player of the year, cleaned up the PL personal awards and the Bundesliga top goal scorer. When you take those four players out, you have Foden 19 goals, Watkins 19 goals, Bowen & Saka 16 goals. 

 

Using 2006 by comparison - in the top ten goalscorers of PL, the highest English players selected for England were Lampard and Rooney with 16. They were four in total to the top ten (Darren Bent and Marlon Harewood the others) - this season they were 6. 

 

We have a tendency to over-rate that period - 7 English finalists in European Cup between 96-2010 over 14 years. We've managed 6 English finalists in the last six CL Finals.  

Edited 15 July by CosbehFox

[Scotch]

The thing is with Kane, for as much talk around his goal scoring and stat padding etc, that's just one part of it. 

 

It's ultimately what strikers are judged on but it's not the be all and end all. Some strikers play well and contribute to the team without scoring. Look at Morata. For all the coming deep and pissing about the half way line that Kane done in this tournament, how much of it actually contributed to England playing better? Not much. 

[Lionator]

Seems like Bellingham is the fall guy. Sources from within the squad and pundits seem to be going hard on him and his supposed ego.

[bovril]

20 minutes ago, Lionator said:

Seems like Bellingham is the fall guy. Sources from within the squad and pundits seem to be going hard on him and his supposed ego.

Source? 

[Lionator]

9 minutes ago, bovril said:

Source? 

https://x.com/RiicoBandzz/status/1812789495172866181

[Wymsey]

Think Kane, like with Trippier, at his stage of his career, should just focus on domestic football from now.

[ealingfox]

I know we wouldn't have scored but was pretty mental that the referee blew up bang on 94 minutes when there'd been little play during the 4 minutes added time.

Edited 15 July by ealingfox

[Guest Col city fan]

2 hours ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

I don't think I've ever known a team to deserve something so much. Spain were just a class above the whole tournament. To beat Croatia, the holders, the hosts, France and England is impressive. 

 

I've loved what Southgate has done with the squad unity but it's time to get someone in to really take the talent we've got forward.

I don’t think Spain were actually a great team. But you’re right, they set out to play exactly to their strengths (high press, getting forward quickly, using width) and absolutely stuck to it.

They played with adventure and took risks, thinking they could out score their opponents.

Hats off to them. The complete antithesis to how Southgate set up England 

[Guest Col city fan]

50 minutes ago, Scotch said:

The thing is with Kane, for as much talk around his goal scoring and stat padding etc, that's just one part of it. 

 

It's ultimately what strikers are judged on but it's not the be all and end all. Some strikers play well and contribute to the team without scoring. Look at Morata. For all the coming deep and pissing about the half way line that Kane done in this tournament, how much of it actually contributed to England playing better? Not much. 

Kane was well off the pace, BUT I think he suffers more than most playing for Southgate.

Kane is a great scorer of goals in the penalty area, when chances are made for him. He scored 37 goals last season for Bayern.

How many real chances were provided for Kane in this tournament?

The slow, ponderous build up of Englands style of play, with such little pace, is totally the opposite to what a striker like Kane needs to thrive on.

Put it this way. I’d not be at all surprised if Kane returns to the Bundesliga in a free-flowing team like Bayern are, and nets another 30 plus.

I firmly believe Southgate is the problem. Too rigid, too pragmatic, boring, and playing square pegs in round holes.

It would have been interesting to see how Kane did if he played for Spain.

[bovril]

4 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

I don’t think Spain were actually a great team. But you’re right, they set out to play exactly to their strengths (high press, getting forward quickly, using width) and absolutely stuck to it.

They played with adventure and took risks, thinking they could out score their opponents.

Hats off to them. The complete antithesis to how Southgate set up England 

They won every game which they didn't do in 2008 or 2012 if you exclude penalties. As stated above they beat pretty much every major contender for the title. In reality they could've won 3-0 yesterday. I don't think you can deny they are a 'great' team. 

[Guest Col city fan]

1 minute ago, bovril said:

They won every game which they didn't do in 2008 or 2012 if you exclude penalties. As stated above they beat pretty much every major contender for the title. In reality they could've won 3-0 yesterday. I don't think you can deny they are a 'great' team. 

Yes, you’re right. A great ‘team’.

I should have said, ‘not full of great players’. I’d swap relatively few of the England squad for the Spain squad tbh.

But they just had a go. We shit our pants and didn’t have a go. Aka Southgate 

[foxfanazer]

1 hour ago, Col city fan said:

Yes, you’re right. A great ‘team’.

I should have said, ‘not full of great players’. I’d swap relatively few of the England squad for the Spain squad tbh.

But they just had a go. We shit our pants and didn’t have a go. Aka Southgate 

We are guilty of overrating our own players though. The comparisons I've seen being made to Bellingham already have been laughable. Apart from a couple of moments he was largely anonymous. As were the likes of Rice, Foden and Kane etc. 

 

And I know a lot of it is Southgate but it certainly isn't the complete picture 

[Dr Marco]

Kane should have been dropped, Bellingham should have played deeper along Rice, and Palmer should have started instead of Mainoo

 

[Wymsey]

Southgate should've put Alexander-Arnold on to replace the poor Walker to try and offer more of a much-needed offensive threat.

[Phenom]

6 hours ago, StanSP said:

 

 

I think he underperformed but he was also set up to fail. He shouldn’t play on the left. Only way you can fit him, Jude and Saka in the side is to have Jude play as an 8. They want the golden boy scoring goals, though…

[DJ Barry Hammond]

2 hours ago, Col city fan said:

Kane was well off the pace, BUT I think he suffers more than most playing for Southgate.

Kane is a great scorer of goals in the penalty area, when chances are made for him. He scored 37 goals last season for Bayern.

How many real chances were provided for Kane in this tournament?

The slow, ponderous build up of Englands style of play, with such little pace, is totally the opposite to what a striker like Kane needs to thrive on.

Put it this way. I’d not be at all surprised if Kane returns to the Bundesliga in a free-flowing team like Bayern are, and nets another 30 plus.

I firmly believe Southgate is the problem. Too rigid, too pragmatic, boring, and playing square pegs in round holes.

It would have been interesting to see how Kane did if he played for Spain.

You have to be in the penalty area to score inside the penalty area.

 

The amount of times Kane was absent when crossing opportunities came was a telling sign.

But the biggest sign that Kane wasn’t fit - I don’t recall seeing him make a high intensity sprint throughout the tournament.

[KingsX]

One telling way to look at Southgate at this point -

 

When he finally washes out of the England setup, at what level could he be hired?

 

Even at the Championship or League 1 level, there would be open rebellion from any club’s fanbase the moment the first rumor hit Twitter.  And his brief club management record wouldn’t justify anything higher.

 

[RonnieTodger]

2 hours ago, ealingfox said:

I know we wouldn't have scored but was pretty mental that the referee blew up bang on 94 minutes when there'd been little play during the 4 minutes added time.

I absolutely hate this. Just rewards time wasting. 

[Super_horns]

So basically we played an unfit Kane .

Probably didn’t give much confidence or faith to the likes of Watkins and Toney then ?

[purpleronnie]

2 hours ago, Col city fan said:

Yes, you’re right. A great ‘team’.

I should have said, ‘not full of great players’. I’d swap relatively few of the England squad for the Spain squad tbh.

But they just had a go. We shit our pants and didn’t have a go. Aka Southgate 

Reallly?  They are a much better team than England.

 

This 'its all the managers fault' will never end will it?.

 

How many had heard of the spanish manager before the tournament?