England - Euro 2021 Discussion | FA chairman: Southgate to be offered new contract until Euro 2024

Southgate has his starting 11. The reason Foden didn’t play was because he was on a booking. The reason Mount didn’t play was covid. If Mount can play in the next game Grealish will go out again.

Pickford
Walker Stones Maguire Shaw
Henderson Rice
Foden Mount Sterling
Kane​

That’s his team for the next game.
 
Devil81 said:
If we adopt a defensive approach and win the thing like Greece did then we will all be lauding Southgate as a genius but I just don't see it myself.

There doesn't seem that desire to defend like the Greeks did. I don't actually think were playing conservative, we're just playing crap!
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The thing is, if results go your way in both groups E and F, a win in Ro16 game effectively guarantees you a place in the finals.

Just look at your potential opponents in the next few rounds - 2nd in group F in Ro16, winner of group E and Ukraine in QF and then one of Wales, Denmark, Netherlands and Czech in Semis.

The only thing you need to hope for today is a result in Slovakia - Spain game and a Sweden win/draw and I wouldn't be surprised to see you go very deep in the tournament
 
I think it’s looking good for England in terms of the draw, even if they haven’t played particularly well. Whoever ends up being second from group f is very much beatable, and from there on - it’s a clear path to the final.
 
Problem with Southgate seems to be he is coming into the tournament and doesn't seem to know what his best 11 is. At one stage Saka wasn't looking like making the squad now he's starting games (had a good first half) and Trippier playing LB.

The partnership of Rice and Phillips is asking for trouble against better teams, Southgate may think he is trying to win the midfield where in reality, it will invite pressure. None of those two can transition the team into attack so England will struggle. Just like they have done in the group games but this time against better opposition. One of them needs to play alongside a box to box player such as Bellingham or Henderson. Henderson probably would have started in that role but hasn't played for 6 months and it showed yesterday so Bellingham is the obvious choice having performed domestically and in the CL this season. This then allows probably one of Mount, Grealish or Foden to play alongside them whereas against Scotland and the Czech Republic, we probably could have been aggressive and played two of them in midfield however in the knockout, one should play.

Then play your pacemen on the wings so two of Sancho, Sterling, Saka or Rashford should play with Kane up top. Probably Sancho and Sterling would be favourites to start but Southgate doesn't prefer Sancho for some reason. Grealish could play there but against better teams, quicker players allow an outlet of attack on the counter.

A team like the following would in my opinion be their best shot. Its hard to pick between Mount and Grealish in that position but feel Mount just edges it. If England are behind or need a goal then the option is to remove Bellingham and bring on Grealish or Foden alongside Mount.

------------Pickford----------------

Walker--Stones--Maguire--Shaw

----------------Rice----------------

Bellingham-----Mount----------

Sancho--------------------------Sterling

------------------Kane-------------------


I feel however Southgate is set with Rice and Phillips and will play them whatever happens.
 
We are just not going to see good football under southgate period, even looking back at the last world cup, we struggled then to score from open play and relied heavily on set pieces.

It's the same old same old with england managers not being able to coach a team to play well in possession going back over a long time.
 
I suppose there's a chance we bore our way to glory but I just can't see it.

We never have the luck required for something like that.

There's always some daft keeper or defensive mistake waiting around the corner.
 
He'll go straight back to foden and mount in the knockout game.

No creativity or forward drive will see us pushed back, and if we play a team with a decent attack, we'll give up goals.
 
BigDunc9 said:
The Rice and Phillips partnership is by far the biggest problem. None of them two can take the ball on the turn so they have to play the way they face resulting in a lot of backwards passes to the defenders and Pickford. This means the four players in front of them have to come deep and try and carry the ball far to start attacking moves. The thing is I don't know which player would solve this problem as this as always been Henderson's weakness also and i haven't watched Bellingham enough to judge.
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It's a serious problem. I don't even think it's an exaggeration to say that Maguire and Stones are genuinely better on the ball than Phillips and Rice.
 
RobinLFC said:
2 goals in 3 games, couldn't get past Scotland, and don't look particularly inspiring. E.g. The Netherlands also didn't concede a goal but at least they've looked good going forward, yet no one bar @KirkDuyt thinks they're going to win the whole thing.

All true about pragmatism and stuff but even then this squad has so much more potential.
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Agree with the post but Netherlands conceded twice. Only Italy also went 3 games without conceding.

Sweden are currently the other other team to concede nothing so far still to play their third game. :D
 
RobinLFC said:
2 goals in 3 games, couldn't get past Scotland, and don't look particularly inspiring. E.g. The Netherlands also didn't concede a goal but at least they've looked good going forward, yet no one bar @KirkDuyt thinks they're going to win the whole thing.

All true about pragmatism and stuff but even then this squad has so much more potential.
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Netherlands conceded 2 vs Ukraine?
 
RobinLFC said:
2 goals in 3 games, couldn't get past Scotland, and don't look particularly inspiring. E.g. The Netherlands also didn't concede a goal but at least they've looked good going forward, yet no one bar @KirkDuyt thinks they're going to win the whole thing.

All true about pragmatism and stuff but even then this squad has so much more potential.
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Holland conceded twice to Ukraine.
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
Southgate has his starting 11. The reason Foden didn’t play was because he was on a booking. The reason Mount didn’t play was covid. If Mount can play in the next game Grealish will go out again.

Pickford
Walker Stones Maguire Shaw
Henderson Rice
Foden Mount Sterling
Kane​

That’s his team for the next game.
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Henderson hasn't played for 6 months and looked like it yesterday. Will be a mistake to play him and not a quicker play instead of Foden but Southgate seems to be set on his favourites rather than actually thinking about tactics.
 
sincher said:
You can be sure neutrals are nowhere near as negative about England as our fans are, especially going by the ridiculous comments on here. I genuinely think a lot of fans don't understand football sometimes. You can't go all guns blazing every game.
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I agree with you. People are looking at our squad with all this attacking talent and imagine that its impossible NOT to be attractive going forward, but we are really suffering from having such a pedestrian midfield combination. We are far too slow in transition and rely on our full-backs to move the ball forwards which makes us predictable. Its telling that our best line-breaking forward pass from a central position came from Maguire last night.

A Kroos or Modric, or even Carrick, type would quickly and significantly improve this team but we don't seem to have one available or coming through and its going to stop this team from being able to make the most of our forward talent. Southgate realises this and sets the team up to be difficult to beat (which we are), but the only way we are going to give anyone a whipping is if we have one of those rare everything goes right performances.
 
Who would England rather play? France or Germany? I'll never give England a chance against the old Germany given the historical record and the Germans are a tournament team and mental giants but it remains to be seen if they are back...as their results and performance from the 2018 World Cup and before the Euro 2020 tournament have been sub-par. I think this England team style is better suited to playing the Germans. Score a goal, and with Southgate's pragmatic style to sit deep, defend, I can see Germany struggling to chase a lead and concede another on the break. Whereas France can always seem to step up a gear and have known to come back to win matches.

With that being said, I think England will face France. I think France and Portugal will end a draw and Germany will beat Hungary to win the group.
 
Raredaredevil said:
Who would England rather play? France or Germany? I'll never give England a chance against the old Germany given the historical record and the Germans are a tournament team and mental giants but it remains to be seen if they are back...as their results and performance from the 2018 World Cup and before the Euro 2020 tournament have been sub-par. I think this England team style is better suited to playing the Germans. Score a goal, and with Southgate's pragmatic style to sit deep, defend, I can see Germany struggling to chase a lead and concede another on the break. Whereas France can always seem to step up a gear and have known to come back to win matches.

With that being said, I think England will face France. I think France and Portugal will end a draw and Germany will beat Hungary to win the group.
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England have the chance against germany not france in my opinion. Germany have slow midfield and defense with high line.England can attack the space behind them with quick counters.

I will say England have 20 % chance against france and 45% chance against germany.
 
Raredaredevil said:
Who would England rather play? France or Germany? I'll never give England a chance against the old Germany given the historical record and the Germans are a tournament team and mental giants but it remains to be seen if they are back...as their results and performance from the 2018 World Cup and before the Euro 2020 tournament have been sub-par. I think this England team style is better suited to playing the Germans. Score a goal, and with Southgate's pragmatic style to sit deep, defend, I can see Germany struggling to chase a lead and concede another on the break. Whereas France can always seem to step up a gear and have known to come back to win matches.

With that being said, I think England will face France. I think France and Portugal will end a draw and Germany will beat Hungary to win the group.
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I'm not bothered.

France haven't hit top gear yet, Germany are hit and miss, and Portugal look like they've got some weaknesses that could be easily exploited. England can beat all of them if they turn up.
 
TheGame said:
Henderson hasn't played for 6 months and looked like it yesterday. Will be a mistake to play him and not a quicker play instead of Foden but Southgate seems to be set on his favourites rather than actually thinking about tactics.
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I agree with you but that’s just what I think he’s gonna do.
 
Out next round - Southgate is totally out of his depth - another manager with decent resources managing to play the most passionless football on the planet. It would be nice to see England play with some pride, effort, bravery etc. Play like Wales - those welsh boys go up a level when they pull the shirt on. |England on the other hand turn into Championship players. And then the papers say Rampant England - what was rampant about them - they nearly feckinig drew!
 
Kind of a worrying performance from Kane last night. Shows his performances wasnt down to a made up injury so its a lot harder to solve
 
Think the expectations on England are so high that every manager we get is scared of losing because of the backlash. Maybe everybody needs to lower their expectations a bit and let a progressive manager have time to build a good attacking team. We won't though, we go into most tournaments as one of the favourites.
 
cyberman said:
Kind of a worrying performance from Kane last night. Shows his performances wasnt down to a made up injury so its a lot harder to solve
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I thought he looked a lot better than the first two matches. Hopefully he is working his way into the tournament.
 
Dante said:
Pickford

Walker--Stones--Maguire--Shaw

Phillips--Rice

Sterling---Mount---Grealish

Kane​

Should be the lineup against France.

One thing Southgate has got right so far is that he's playing in a way that won't require him to switch up to a plan B in the latter stages.

England's plan A might be boring against the easier teams, but it's the same strategy that will give them a chance as the harder sides. For instance, if Italy or The Netherlands try to take their group stage form into the knockouts, they're likely to go out.

Defence first is the best way to win tournaments. So far, England have the most momentum to do that out of everybody. They're difficult to score against, but always liable to nick a goal.
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I think what you’ve said about not needing to switch up against the stronger sides is definitely the thought process, and I get that within the context of a third game group game with nothing to play for. I think going with a more progressive expansive set up wouldn’t have given any great gains as I don’t think any it would have any chance of being replicated in the next game due to the opposition.

I think the defence first approach is fine, but I think Southgate’s comments about the lack of productivity from set pieces is a little uninspiring, in 2018 it was more understandable but with the group England have now I’d like to have seen more intent and proactive play from them. As a few other posters have alluded to if England go all the way it’ll be completely justified, but if they get knocked out in the next round it’s going to be a case of what if, as this is a very talented bunch playing with the handbrake on.

I like Saka a lot, I think his approach suits a wide range of football, and as you pointed out his off the ball work is great, I’d like to see him start but imagine there’s little chance. He might come off the bench though.
 
People will look at no goals conceded and think that is a positive, but it has clearly come at the cost of goal scoring. We scored 2 goals in the group (1 more than Scotland); that is absolutely shocking with the attacking talent we have.

People argue whether the players are overrated or not, but that is completely irrelevant. A squad like this should be scoring more than 2 goals against a very weak Croatia, Scotland (they are rubbish; I don't know why they were being built up so much before the match), and the Czech Republic.

We are playing so negatively that it is completely hindering the strongest area in the squad.

I guarantee had we played on the front foot (like we should be doing), we would have conceded almost the same amount of goals whilst scoring a whole lot more. This negativity is only hindering the team.
 
This really is all on Southgate.

He's had a ton of games since qualifying for the Euros to formulate a system to get the best out of this crop of players.

He could easily have used the Nations League to get this sorted by the the time the Euros started, but no, he still has no real idea what's his best system or starting 11.

He was even playing players that were not selected for the Euros in the warm up games for christ sakes ... were is the planning ?

Other sides have come into the Euros, and are pretty much drilled from the start.

Italy have a system that they have been perfecting since Mancini arrived, they can even rest most of their players against Wales and the players that come in already know the system and adapt accordingly.
 
Denis79 said:
Not impressive I'll give you that but worst? Not even close.
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He has a point, to be fair. Every team that has finished third and above has scored more than us apart from Finland. Somehow, England and Finland have the same number of goals scored (2). That is embarrassing.

Edit: My mistake. Finland have only scored 1, but the rest of what I said is true. England are the fourth lowest goal scorers of the 16 teams from the finished groups.
 
SteveCoppellFan said:
This really is all on Southgate.

He's had a ton of games since qualifying for the Euros to formulate a system to get the best out of this crop of players.

He could easily have used the Nations League to get this sorted by the the time the Euros started, but no, he still has no real idea what's his best system or starting 11.

He was even playing players that were not selected for the Euros in the warm up games for christ sakes ... were is the planning ?

Other sides have come into the Euros, and are pretty much drilled from the start.

Italy have a system that they have been perfecting since Mancini arrived, they can even rest most of their players against Wales and the players that come in already know the system and adapt accordingly.
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Exactly. This is all on Southgate.

He was more concerned with handing out charity caps to players.

I mean we played 2 friendlies before the tournament, none of the Chelsea / City players featured but 3/4 of our attack consisted of them when the tournament started.

He gave minutes to JWP, Lingard and the like when they are not in the squad, what for?

Poor management and preparation is actually showing on the pitch where the players have no idea what to do, we cannot get the ball forward or string an attack.
 
I think it's unfair to call Croatia poor. They may not be the team they were two years ago but they a clearly still a very good team. We just made them look average and credit where credit is due. The performance against Scotland and the Czechs was a shambles though and we looked to have gone backwards since that opening day performance. We should be putting these teams away more comfortably than we are.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Think the expectations on England are so high that every manager we get is scared of losing because of the backlash. Maybe everybody needs to lower their expectations a bit and let a progressive manager have time to build a good attacking team. We won't though, we go into most tournaments as one of the favourites.
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No surprise that England's best performance was the 2018 World Cup where the team made the semi-final, when there is no pressure and expectations at all. I know they got a piss easy draw but you saw that collectiveness, team spirit and passion you never see from past teams. A lot of people outside of England hates the English because they think the English is cocky and this is all down to the arrogant media.
 
Can we finally end this lazy narrative that England fans are cocky? Pretty much all of us think we're shite. You'd think being United fans, you could relate.
 
PoTMS said:
I think it's unfair to call Croatia poor. They may not be the team they were two years ago but they a clearly still a very good team. We just made them look average and credit where credit is due. The performance against Scotland and the Czechs was a shambles though and we looked to have gone backwards since that opening day performance. We should be putting these teams away more comfortably than we are.
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I actually thought Croatia were there for the taking. They are toothless up front (no real threat), and their defence isn't up to much either. I actually think we could have won that game by quite a few goals.

Their midfield is alright. Modric has no legs anymore; you can run him off the park now. He had a lot of difficulty playing against the sides in the Champion's League. Scoring a great goal against Scotland doesn't really change that. Kovacic and Brozovic are decent, but nothing special.

The performance was actually very similar to the games against Scotland and the Czech Republic. I think the only reason the Croatia game is seen as better is because they are being overrated; they just aren't that good anymore.
 
MU655 said:
I actually thought Croatia were there for the taking. They are toothless up front (no real threat), and their defence isn't up to much either. I actually think we could have won that game by quite a few goals.

Their midfield is alright. Modric has no legs anymore; you can run him off the park now. He had a lot of difficulty playing against the sides in the Champion's League. Scoring a great goal against Scotland doesn't really change that. Kovacic and Brozovic are decent, but nothing special.

The performance was actually very similar to the games against Scotland and the Czech Republic. I think the only reason the Croatia game is seen as better is because they are being overrated; they just aren't that good anymore.
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Brozovic-Kovacic-Modric is THE best midfield on this Euro. Modric has no legs anymore?? Did you watched him? He still runs the show.
 
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I think english fans here are being tough on their team. 2 wins, 1 draw, unbeaten, no goals conceded, 1st in their group. They're not playing an attractive brand of football, but they have results. Also it's the beginning of the tourney, most of the times the winner often starts slow, like Portugal who drew their way out to the title in 2016. I'm sure all english fans will forget and forgive the style of play if they end up winning, just like Portuguese fans in 2016 or us French fans in 2018 or this year if we win. Everybody on this forum points out how France is still the big favorite but we've played worse than other favorites, yet we stay confident because we know group stages dont matter as long as you go through.
Starting slow but solid like England screams future winner to me. I certainly hope not, since one of my main pleasures in international tournaments is teasing the english side of my family for their national team failures :D
 
PoTMS said:
Can we finally end this lazy narrative that England fans are cocky? Pretty much all of us think we're shite. You'd think being United fans, you could relate.
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Don't want to insult somebody now but from my point of view; nobody think you are cocky in a way "we are the best! feck you all". You are cocky in a way that you think that only top nations play football. You put huge respect to them but you underestimate smaller sides, both on NT and club level.
 
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