The Euros - Germany '24

I understand people disliking him but I really think it is a stretch to claim that he is the 'luckiest manager in international history to have lasted in his role for so long' when you see what he has achieved in major tournaments..

As for the second sentence, we may well find out soon!

 

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere (I have looked) - maybe even on this thread, but does anyone know which WFC players will be involved?
I'm fairly sure of Porteous and Chakvetadze, other than that perhaps Sema is on the Swedish bench? Is there anyone else?

 

Just those two. Sweden didn't qualify and Bachmann's not been picked for Austria's squad.

 

In fairness we were the better team against France in the world cup and you can't legislate for Kane missing a pen. Italy I admit was his fault as we didn't press home our advantage when we should have done. Maybe he's learning

 

He should never have got the job in the first place!!!

What did he do in football management to earn the job???

Sweet F A

 

To be honest with you I can't remember who else was on the scene when he got the job.

However, as I've said before he has wasted the unbelievable talent he has had at his disposal, and virtually any half decent manager would have won 3 or 4 major trophies with the players he has misused!!!

 

I think we will win the tournament. France are the only team who really worry me (maybe Portugal on their best day) of the other sides, and we battered France for 60 minutes at the World Cup.

Southgate is a much better manager than a lot of people give him credit for and I think he’s been unusually decisive (I accept he’s generally very conservative) with his squad selection. I think Wharton looks to be a cracking little player and could fill the gap left by Grealish’s omission for a tricky midfielder to win us yards and earn free kicks.

 

With Porteous in defence I can't see past Scotland winning the whole thing

 

Not if Ismael is in charge!

 

Not wanting to risk their star player ?

 

Just not sure I understand the blind optimism towards England. We do have a quality midfield, but the defence is average and the only quality forward we have is Kane. Think we should get out of the group and knocked out around the quarter final stage

 

It’s not ‘blind’ optimism though, is it, because as you concede, we have several very strong players by Euro standards, It was ‘blind’ optimism in something like 2014.

 

I would say blind in that we always big up our chances. It happens every single tournament, and we have no track record e.g never got beyond the QF outside of England. Happy to be proved wrong though

 

Perhaps overhyped but tbh I’m not really getting that vibe this time: have yet to see a single car with the flags…

 

Every manager we've had since Sir Alf has wasted talent. We only qualified for the World Cup once in 70's! I think GT probably had the worst selection of players. Southgate has got us to a semi final and a final. Nobody has ever done that. The problem is in this country we think we are better than everybody else and we simply are not.
We will win this tournament though

 

I know, I know. I just have a feeling about this one

 

As always we will play in a totally passionless way, play like 11 strangers, play hundreds of square balls across the back giving players and supporters kittens, go forward with absolutely zero pace and zero movement in the front line, struggle to score when we need to but score at will when we are already 2 up....etc

 

England didn’t qualify at all in the 1970s. In fact we either didn’t, or didn’t need to, qualify between the tournaments for 1962 and 1982.

 

I forgot we automatically qualified for 1970! That's a pretty horrendous record hence I actually think Southgate has done pretty well. Our defence is easily our weak area

 

If most of the Platinum nations are much of a muchness then it will come down to which
striker hits form and dare I say it . Set pieces .

 

Completely different times though. Euros used to be 8 teams, World Cup 16. I preferred it as it makes the qualifiers difficult and important and the finals have high quality groups.

 

TBF it was tough to qualify back then with only a 16 team tournament .
1978 for example either ourselves or Italy were going to miss out .
1974 we just could not score against Poland apart from a penalty. I don't know what the xg would have been
Something around the 4s or 5s I should imagine

As for Southgate I don't think he will be really appreciated until he is no longer boss much like Bobby Robson who received dogs abuse when he was manager but I do concede that against Croatia and Italy
he was out thought by the opposition's manager after we we had made bright starts.
As for France we were the better side unfortunately Kane blazed a penalty over and there was a foul
in the build up for one of their goals. S**t happens I suppose .

 

Unfortunately it is all about selling TV rights at the expense of quality

 

Very surprised Dunk got the callup over Tomori or even Branthwaite.

 

Certainly the Southgate way..f....ing useless

 

Not that much easier to qualify out of UEFA now tbf, there were 12 teams in 1994, in 2026 there will be 16. Think the last World Cup showed that the teams from continents apart from Europe and South America are not to be sniffed at (African qualifying in particular is highly competitive, none of the quarter-finalists at the most recent AFCON even made it to the World Cup, and there were some continental heavyweights who didn't even make it that far), but the new World Cup format, whether it's the original proposal of 3 team groups, or the Euros-like format of 12 groups of 4 and 8 3rd placed teams progressing, it's just not as exciting as the format from 1998-2022

 

I saw some poor sap driving around with England flags attached to the windows of his car today. When will people learn? Another national humiliation is about to unfold. We won't make it out of the group. Lose, draw, draw. Sack Southgate now and get 'arry Redknapp and Fat Sam in for a month while there's still time