I take your point but… england have for years been a top 15 international team. Our media paints them as sure fire winners of any tournaments they enter. I said before the euros any number of European teams could beat us and when there isn’t an outstanding team the Italians always win. I said this several times before the tournament started next World Cup the expectation of losing in a final on penalties will mean lots and lots of top 6 “supporting” fans will expect us to go one better. At best we will be top 4, I hope we can do it but we are still, as always naive especially defensively. There is a chance but if isn’t certain The odds and hype though… and people do buy into that. All I’m saying is beating San Marino is not the same as beating Italy I am sure you’ll disagree
I agree we probably won’t win but put up a decent showing . And the media plus fair weather fans will have us down to win without any real substance. But some fans ( not just top 6 ones ) and pundits too.
Disagree. I think we’re more than fine defensively, we have some of the best defenders in the world, just look at our right back situation, it’s a complete joke. in fact we’re more than fine in every area of the pitch. We really only have one problem and that is Southgate is unable to react, and/or doesn’t know what to do when the opposition manager changes things mid game. He’s great at setting teams up to play well against any given team from the 1st minute, but when the opposition manager inevitably reacts to this himself, Southgate has no clue where to go from there to regain control of the game. That’s really our only weakness at the moment, a manger who isn’t as tactically proficient as the other managers he’ll inevitably meet in the final stages of a tournament. We lost the Euro final because Mancini is a better manager, he changed things up when we were on top and then Southgate was clueless as to how to react, he himself could not do what Mancini did. Plus of course for some bizarre reason Southgate tried to massively overthink his penalty takers and it backfired horrifically, another sign of tactical naivety. Our players are more than good enough.
Someone on the radio the other day made the point that it's very easy to underestimate the way Southgate has brought the players together as a squad off the pitch, which has contributed in no small part to the success England have had under him. The likes of Capello, who was a highly regarded coach at the time, was a disaster in that regard. So there's a certain amount of 'swings and roundabouts' between tactical awareness and managing the players.
Oh there is absolutely no denying Southgate has done a number of excellent things for England, but equally you also cannot deny that when it has come to the absolute crunch, he’s been outthought tactically by his opposite number, and he’s not had the ability to react. Maybe he’ll learn and this will change. My point really though was that we aren’t defensively suspect, we have the playing staff, we’ve only ever come up short because the opposition manager has reacted to how we’ve set up and Southgate has then had no response.
This is pretty much the only flaw, in my view. It's a big one, of course, and has certainly cost us one trophy (I can't see we would have beaten France in the WC). Whether it justtifies the quite significant anti-Southgate sentiments of several posters on this forum is another question altogether.
