Day 17: England vs Germany | Sweden vs Ukraine (Ro16 7&8)

you could see some of the swedish players celebrating there, so relieved that, that goal will mean the don’t have to play england.
 
Rajiztar said:
The same instantly bashed pep team selection wrong against chelsea because he played too many attackers.Now blamed Southgate for not playing attackers. He won the game and it's not even debate anymore.
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I don't like using City examples because of the City fan thing but exactly. Play with super attacking intent and lose on the break "idiot, fraud", play pragmatically and win "coward, ruining the competition, wasting players" I just can't fathom it, any other country in the world would be delighted at that result.
 
Fortitude said:
I think you're stretching pragmatic with the definition you're giving. There's a difference between pragmatic, tactical football and playing like a total underdog Greece-like team.

^^Greece played better football than England up to this point in their run and I'm actually doing them a disservice as they were an amazingly well organised and drilled side who executed a plan to perfection.

England have a literal wealth of talent at their disposal and could stretch their legs and win games. What Southgate is doing is all well and good until it backfires, then serious questions about under utilisation of the assets at his disposal would be asked.

If Southgate wins the whole thing playing as he is, then all detractors will eat crow, and perhaps rightfully so.
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THis is just rubbish sorry. We have a historically terrible record in knockouts and England were in control of that game vs Germany despite a pretty negative lineup. We are blessed with some great players who can play at CB and were operating like midfielders at times in the last game. Have to take my hat off to Southgate. Did think it rested on Rice upping the ante and moving the ball quicker and he did it and we mostly just nullified their midfield.

The thing I'd say about England is they look by far the most defensively solid team in the competition so far and that can only be a good thing even if it's not pretty to watch. The monkey off our backs in tournament records is worth any price, even Greece-ing it. But no way have England been as poor in possession as Greece were. We have either had more or even possession in all the games.
 
England likely won’t have much trouble with either of these. It’s Denmark/Czech Rep they have to worry about. Specifically Denmark.
 
padr81 said:
I don't like using City examples because of the City fan thing but exactly. Play with super attacking intent and lose on the break "idiot, fraud", play pragmatically and win "coward, ruining the competition, wasting players" I just can't fathom it, any other country in the world would be delighted at that result.
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Germany France Spain fans wanted it in style I could understand because they tasted recent success but England fans :lol:
 
KC91 said:
England likely won’t have much trouble with either of these. It’s Denmark/Czech Rep they have to worry about. Specifically Denmark.
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They'd be fine against the Czechs. Sweden could be tricky, they're set up quite well to face big teams but struggle when they have to take charge. Denmark easily the hardest though, they've been hugely impressive with their play and pressing this tournament.
 
RobinLFC said:
Yes because they played exactly like I thought they would before they brought on Grealish, mind-numbingly boring and that's not what I want to watch as a neutral. Of course England fans won't care about that but I do.

I'll give the players credit they won. They didn't win because of their manager, but because they're good players and they faced the worst Germany side in 25 years. But well done of course, never easy to beat them in a KO game during an international tournament.


As a manager you put the best team out to succeed, but he had to make a change first before he gave his team that chance. So unless you're gonna argue that it was his master plan all along to keep the Germans at 0-0 until after an hour and then bring on the people who could make a difference (fair enough), then he didn't get it right but got bailed out by his players.

A game of football is decided in fine margins, you can't just say he got it right because they won. Would he gotten it wrong if Muller scores his wide open chance and Germany goes on to win it, despite not doing anything differently than he did now?
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You can play manager and hypothesise what team would have worked all you like. The man with all the pressure on him however set his team up how he thought would get the win and got the win. He got it right.
 
At least IKEA will be happy if scores stay the same "...we're safe now"
 
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