What are the chances of Shaw being fit for the next game?
Get Luke and Gordon on that left hand side and ye will look a different team altogether.
Get Luke and Gordon on that left hand side and ye will look a different team altogether.
Day 12 | England v Slovenia + Denmark v Serbia | France v Poland + Netherlands v Austria
- Thread starter jojojo
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) are here to talk about United's dreadful home defeat at the hands of Big Ange's Tottenham Hotspur. Should this have been the end of Ten Hag? How long does he actually have left? And does Nik finally want ETH out?!
Southgate did.
Think it's not mentioned enough just how fecking awful we were from 2006 to 2018. We won about 3 matches at tournaments in 12 years.
Seems a dumb way to tie-break after many tie-breakers didn't manage. I'd say just flip a coin before using a ludicrous ranking system.
East European teams by group:
A: Hungary 3rd
B: Croatia 3rd
C: Slovania 3rd, Serbia 4th
D: Poland 4th
Group E has three East European teams, and so at least one will make it to the next round. Group F has two East European teams and maybe one will make it. However, this has been a bad tournament for teams from Eastern Europe. I didn’t see anything inspiring coming from that part of the continent.
A: Hungary 3rd
B: Croatia 3rd
C: Slovania 3rd, Serbia 4th
D: Poland 4th
Group E has three East European teams, and so at least one will make it to the next round. Group F has two East European teams and maybe one will make it. However, this has been a bad tournament for teams from Eastern Europe. I didn’t see anything inspiring coming from that part of the continent.
I don't buy into that. You always have amazing players who disappoint at international level. Every nation has lulls but on talent England is top tier. There is a continuous cycle of overrating in the press, but that doesn't mean they are not well able, and then the subsequent witch hunts. All cheered on by the press.
I'll look at the post 2008 squads when I have more time. I'm genuinely interested.
Even Gallagher got a 6.9
Meh. Uninspiring but fine. Right side of the draw, If we get the Dutch that's a minor worry but I think we make the final.
So, we will hear “Football is coming wherever” for two more weeks?! Please God, no.
I bet you were well disappointed when we were wasting time in the fa cup final. No difference in diving and feigning injury to any other football match. They were 30 seconds from matching England’s points total, if they’re wank, feck knows what that makes England.
Are opposition fans still rattled by this? It's barely been a thing this year either.
Grow up tbh.
Southgate has a fecking horseshoe up his ass for some of these brackets he's managed to find himself in. That 2020 one was a joke in particular
It's barely been a thing, and sure as feck stopped being a thing after that first half against Serbia
feck me are people still moaning about a song?
Plus the fact it's barely been fecking sang all tournament !
Pisses me off that they don’t update yearly. It’s a lot more than 30 years now.
We will probably hear it more if England stays in the tournament beyond the round of 16. I didn’t expect it at the Group stage.
Any way, just hoping this doesn’t happen and that England loses next match.
I think its more nuanced than that. The coaching and level of English football over the past 10-15 years has taken a huge step up. Its no coincidence that every single year in the PL another 2-3 top English players are emerging, its down to a fundamental shift in the country's approach to football.
You go and watch League 1-2 football from the year 2000 and it will be truly awful to watch, now almost every team gets it down and plays. I coach a number of grass roots teams. 20 years ago it was "play the big kids up front and get the ball up to them", now every coach I come across is trying to play football the right way.
I'm not saying we won't regress as a nation, but I am saying its not just a random cycle where we happened to have produced some good players, its the result of serious effort.
Not nailed on that we play Holland yet. It’s complicated by the looks of it
Netherlands, Austria and Italy are more than enough to eliminate England, if they keep playing the way they do.
You understimate how poor Group C was.
Last edited:
That sounds insanely unlikely bordering even impossible, given I am Danish
... But yeah group C has been absolutely shit
Oh, didn't pay attention to your location. I will edit my post.
Hehe no worries mate
tried to respond tongue in cheek but alcohol, smartphone and forums is not an easy combo!They appear to be really good pals off the pitch.
The amount of money, time and effort that must have gone into completely reworking coaching on a national scale makes it even more frustrating that the products of that enormous investment are stiill being managed by that clueless gimp.
They've been disappointing, but they've also been quite shit at times.
The starting line-up in the crunch qualifier against Croatia for Euro 2008 had Scott Carson in goal, a back four of Micah Richards, Portsmouth's Sol Campbell, Joleon Lescott and Wayne Bridge, and a front three that included Shaun Wright-Phillips and Peter Crouch.
The 23-man squad for the 2010 World Cup contained a 39-year-old David James, Rob Green and Birmingham City's Joe Hart as its goalkeeping options, Glen Johnson, Michael Dawson, Stephen Warnock, Matthew Upson, Jamie Carragher and perma-crock Ledley King as defensive options (John Terry and Ashley Cole being the only other two), with attacking options outside of Rooney being Defoe, Crouch, Wright-Phillips, Lennon, Milner and Heskey.
The 2012 Euros squad had Glen Johnson, Martin Kelly, Leighton Baines, Joleon Lescott, a 20-year-old Phil Jones and Phil Jagielka as defensive options, Scott Parker and a 21-year-old Jordan Henderson expected to pick up the slack in midfield, with Andy Carroll, a 21-year-old Danny Welbeck, a 19-year-old Oxlade-Chamberlain and Stewart Downing among the attacking options.
By the 2014 World Cup, the back four was Johnson, Cahill, Jagielka and Baines, the midfield was a 34-year-old Gerrard and a 35-year-old Lampard, while we banked on Sturridge, Welbeck, Wilshire, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Smalling, Jones, Lallana and Barkley to underpin the "new" generation.
The starting eleven for the side that lost to Iceland in Euro 2016 had Gary Cahill, Chris Smalling and Danny Rose in its back four, and a midfield of Eric Dier, Wayne Rooney and Dele Alli.
Denmark and Slovenia going through without winning a game between them. This format is so stupid.
Christ, that was a grim period.
Gambling related. Colombia went into that WC with so much hype, they were seen as a better team thab Brazil and many in SA saw them as favourites to win. Lots of people, quite a few with criminal inclinations, bet huge sums on them. A few of these happened to see him in a night club and decided to get "even"
That's very selective. For example Rio was made captain in 2008 and Cole, Terry and Neville were all available and all four playing in a CL final.
Edit - maybe Neville didn't but the 2008 squad was pretty good. 2010 it did drop a bit. I'm too tired to go digging properly.
Last edited:
Two teams going through without winning a game can happen in the old format too if every game in the group is a draw. I will agree that this format makes playing for draws a more viable strategy, but on the other hand, I think the lucky loser thing has made some of the minnows go for it against the weakest opponent in the group, knowing that winning just one game can be enough on its own. Some of the best games in this tournament have been Romania - Ukraine, Turkey - Georgia, Croatia - Albania and Austria - Poland. All of those teams probably felt like they could easily end up losing their other two games in the group and so it incentivises them to get forward and score goals.
We've been playing catch up with the other top nations with the coaching, but all nations go through some degree of talent cycles.
I think England are better set now for a "bad" generation than preciously, precisely because of the improvements and changes you've mentioned, but just look at how the Italian and Dutch sides (and even the Germans) have struggled in recent tournament cycles.
Slovenia is getting some of that Balkan energy that Croatia usually has on tournaments.
It's crazy that 1% of the country's population is attending football matches in Germany (20k out of 2 million). And now everyone from former Yugoslavia will support them going forward.
It's crazy that 1% of the country's population is attending football matches in Germany (20k out of 2 million). And now everyone from former Yugoslavia will support them going forward.
Right, but they weren’t always in the England side and their replacements were dross.
Neville missed basically the entirety of the 07/08 season and was very much on the run to retirement after that. Glen Johnson was the best option for years, and he was only ever alright.
Rio pulled out of the 2010 World Cup squad, promoting Upson to starter and handing Michael Dawson a spot in the squad. Ashley Cole regularly had injury issues, and until Shaw came along we were plugging the gap with Bridge, Baines and Rose, with the likes of Martin Kelly and Stephen Warnock as back-up.
The midfield continued to rely on Lampard and Gerrard well into their 30s, with Barry the preferred foil. By 2016 we were desperately hoping Rooney could do a job there. I'm not sure Carrick would have improved matters too much.
We ended up taking Andy Carroll and Rickie Lambert to international tournaments (as well as resurrecting Heskey in 2010).
The side from the qualifying campaign for Euro 2008 right through to the 2014 World Cup was relying on the decreasing number of available players from the "golden generation" to carry them, and by 2016, Rooney was basically the last man standing.
Portugal didn't win a game in normal time until the semi-final in 2016, which was actually their only win inside 90 minutes.
Drew all three games and finished third in a group containing Hungary, Iceland and Austria, qualifying with a goal difference of 0, and were the only third placed team to have not won a game.
Needed extra time to get past Croatia, penalties to get past Poland, beat Wales, then needed extra time to beat France in the final.
Beatable by whom?