Is Southgate underrated by the CAF?

#07 said:
Spain were better. Morata simply misses too many chances. If Spain had David Villa instead of Alvaro Morata they cruise through the semi and the final.
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Spain were obviously not better because they couldn't hit a barn door to save their lives. Italy in comparison had the football, the defending and the potency upfront. I find it funny till now people try to pretend that Italy fluked their way to the final and were a weak team. Being at home too was never ever going to hide the inferiority in important personnel.
 
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SilentWitness said:
England didn't need to control the game in possession though. If they went 2-0 up they weren't losing that game. They had one shot in the first half. If they killed it early they'd have won.
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They were NEVER going to go 2 nil up. They caught Italy off guard with the first goal and Italy after rightly took over the midfield then the match. The idea they "sat back" rather than were forced back is simply quite laughable.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
No they were not. They were superior to England by far in midfield and had a world class center defensive unit behind that midfield. The idea England could have easily bested them is fanciful in the extreme.
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England were happy to surrender the midfield.

Their "world class defensive unit" contained two near-geriatric centre-backs and a full-back that had spent the previous three seasons warming Chelsea's bench.

They were there to be got at, but Southgate chose to immediately try and defend the lead; the exact mistake he made in Russia.
 
Southgate is one of the most uninspiring managers we could get, he’s done an ‘ok’ job with the England team but nothing a semi competent manager couldn’t do. Whenever we come up against a superior team we struggle. His record at club level is not good enough to get the United job.
 
Alex99 said:
England were happy to surrender the midfield.
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They didn't have a choice. Italy had by far the superior quality in that department and it showed for 90 mintues. Blaming it on tactics is just silly.

Alex99 said:
Their "world class defensive unit" contained two near-geriatric centre-backs and a full-back that had spent the previous three seasons warming Chelsea's bench.
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Firstly Bonucci and Chielini were in world class form all tournament long. So daring to call them "near geriatric" is the height of arrogant folly. Second and even funnier is attacking an utter straw man. I called their center defensive partnership world class. I didn't once give that label to the rest of their back 4.
 
The realization that INEOS are clueless would be absolutely gutting at this stage. It would be the worst feeling after hope for the first time in so long.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
They didn't have a choice. Italy had by far the superior quality in that department and it showed for 90 mintues. Blaming it on tactics is just silly.


Firstly Bonucci and Chielini were in world class form all tournament long. So daring to call them "near geriatric" is the height of arrogant folly. Second and even funnier is attacking an utter straw man. I called their center defensive partnership world class. I didn't once give that label to the rest of their back 4.
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In such world class form that one of them literally had to yank Saka back by his collar to stop him breaking through.
 
The press can't stand United fans being happy, so after beating Liverpool the Southgate links come out again to bring us all back down into a state of foreboding.
 
YouOnlyLiveTwice said:
Is this some brexit thing by ratcliffe? Why the feck would we go for Southgate. Hopefully bs.
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The thing that concerns me is that he's previously said something along the lines of having a British core in the squad. But they've hardly put a foot wrong so far, this was the only strange rumor.
 
SilentWitness said:
England didn't need to control the game in possession though. If they went 2-0 up they weren't losing that game. They had one shot in the first half. If they killed it early they'd have won.

I don't think Italy were a bad or terrible team, clearly not as they won it, but the game from 1-0 was set up for England to win as they were on a high, playing decent enough football with some good performances and they were at home. It was a perfect combination of factors for an international side really.
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...did you actually watch that game?
 
Alex99 said:
Just think Southgate is a shit manager and a better manager doesn't set up 5-3-2 in the first place.
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I can't take anything you say seriously when you come here implying it's only tactics that made Croatia in 2018 better than England. That level of delusion is why England fans are often in such shock when their national team gets kncoked out of tournaments.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
It isn't because Italy were hands down the best team in THAT tournament. England did very well to take them to penalties.
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I mean, we all watched it, they weren’t. Barely scraped past Austria, even game with Belgium, got dominated by Spain. Decent team but by no means favourites (they were the bookies 7th favourites to win behind England, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, France and Belgium)
 
Italy had a better midfield but England had their own trumps in the game. Pacy, talented attacking players that had enough to worry an aging Italian side.

The bottom line is it was a winnable game. At home, against a good side but not a great side. England fluffed their lines on the day and ultimately the manager is always going to be partly culpable.

The Pochettino of international management. He'll always be the bridesmaid no matter how talented the squad or what draws he gets that give him a fortuitous route full of opportunity. He's not a man that will finish a job because he's always likely to get outclassed on the day against a better manager and a good side. When he's supposed to win the games he'll win them, when it's up in the air and the opposition have some advantages he'll feck it up.
 
Whilst we are discussing the Euro Final, it takes a special kind of imbecile to sub on 3 borderline teenage penalty takers before they've even kicked the ball.

Really, Karl Pilkington level management.
 
VP89 said:
Whilst we are discussing the Euro Final, it takes a special kind of imbecile to sub on 3 borderline teenage penalty takers before they've even kicked the ball.

Really, Karl Pilkington level management.
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especially after he didn't use them all tournament. Rashford only came on as a sub late in games, Sancho played a single game (against Ukraine) apart from one very late sub. Then you throw them on after 119 minutes in the freaking final and be like "go on boys, time for penalties, have fun". Utterly bizarre management, to put it very mildly. Southgate has always been an idiot, but that was easily his finest moment.
 
Teja said:
The thing that concerns me is that he's previously said something along the lines of having a British core in the squad. But they've hardly put a foot wrong so far, this was the only strange rumor.
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Why would that concern you? I'm still baffled by people acting like buying British at this moment in time is a bad thing? England is producing some of the very best talent in the world currently, you'd think we were dog shit. English team having a core of quality English players is a negative to you? Weird.
 
Judas said:
Why would that concern you? I'm still baffled by people acting like buying British at this moment in time is a bad thing? England is producing some of the very best talent in the world currently, you'd think we were dog shit. English team having a core of quality English players is a negative to you? Weird.
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The players are fine. It's a bit of a concern if it extends to the management (Ashworth gets a pass, but not Southgate). Anyway, even the players, you just have to find the best bang for the buck. Nothing against signing English players but shouldn't be signing them just for the sake of it.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
I mean, we all watched it, they weren’t. Barely scraped past Austria, even game with Belgium, got dominated by Spain. Decent team but by no means favourites (they were the bookies 7th favourites to win behind England, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, France and Belgium)
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The bookies rankings were as bad as this post. No chance you actually watched the tournament and came out with "Italy struggled" against anyone that tournament. This is just world class revisionism
 
Losing to Italy on penalties is one thing but barely scraping past Denmark in the semifinals thanks to a questionable penalty is another. Would he even be managing today if Denmark had made it to penalties and won that day ?
 
Nope! Tactically inept, awful coach with limited ideas. He’s quite good with the whole squad harmony thing which I do find a valuable asset in international football but that’s where the acceptable qualities end. He’d probably make a decent assistant
 
Southgate seems to me to be a very good Director of Football type guy. But I am not convinced he is a particularly good tactician or first team coach. Primarily because he has been away from club football for so long.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
The bookies rankings were as bad as this post. No chance you actually watched the tournament and came out with "Italy struggled" against anyone that tournament. This is just world class revisionism
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Yeah I thought Italy absolutely dominated that final as well, after that hiccup with the early goal. I thought were a defensively solid outfit that didn’t score a lot, reminded me of the ‘06 Italy team.

England could have done a lot more in that final considering the quality they had imo.
 
Maluco said:
The realization that INEOS are clueless would be absolutely gutting at this stage. It would be the worst feeling after hope for the first time in so long.
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That is how I feel. With Ratcliffe coming in saying all the right things you allow yourself a small glimmer of hope that things might start progressing in the right direction but hiring Southgate would just highlight that nothing is going to change as the people at the top are clueless and things could actually get worse.
 
Buster15 said:
Southgate seems to me to be a very good Director of Football type guy. But I am not convinced he is a particularly good tactician or first team coach. Primarily because he has been away from club football for so long.
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I’d go along with that. And it’s not like he was pulling up trees as a club manager.

I think someone said it best in the transfers thread, the links to new managers just makes me want to keep ETH more. Very uninspiring (I’m not saying I’m pro ETH or anything, but surely you’d keep him over likes of southgate).
 
giorno said:
Because it's an isolated 7 games, happening every 4 years, played with whoever was available at the time. Spain can win a world cup in 2010, show up with the same players, manager, everything, 4 years later and lose 5-1 to the netherlands and then get dismantled by Chile, and they're out at the group stage. Nothing of what happened before those 2 games mattered as far as those 2 games went. There is no reliable data to gain from it. It's too few games, and the conditions too different.
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Exactly, so why are you trying to draw conclusions from data when there's so much statistical noise?


giorno said:
Why? It was a study aimed at identifying trends. It identified one, the last example of which were the winners of the last major tournament studied, 3 years before the Euros
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Because what happened decades ago is completely irrelevant for today's football as the fitness level, level of organization, professionalism, even the rules and the equipment have changed drastically. The dilemma is that if you only consider the relevant time period, you don't have enough data to draw any solid conclusions but if you go back further, the data you use becomes irrelevant. Basically the same dilemma you have when trying to train an ultra detailed xG model.


giorno said:
7 games. What kind of statistical model are you creating based on that small a sample? A worthless one.
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Exactly. It is simply not possible to analyse this quantitatively.


giorno said:
They were clearly better than Belgium, which they beat easily. Brazil? Went out to Belgium because Casemiro was suspended and Fernandinho, key player for 100 points Manchester City, had his usual disasterpiece for Brazil. Also they just couldn't fecking score to save their lives
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Tournament mode.
 
Buster15 said:
Southgate seems to me to be a very good Director of Football type guy. But I am not convinced he is a particularly good tactician or first team coach. Primarily because he has been away from club football for so long.
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It doesn't even make sense what qualities has he shown which could translate well into DOF job infact majority of skills coveted in any good DOF aren't even required at International football makes it a non starter .

This is not to say Southgate can't be good DOF it's just that his role as England's manager can't provide any definite pointers either way .
 
Judas said:
Why would that concern you? I'm still baffled by people acting like buying British at this moment in time is a bad thing? England is producing some of the very best talent in the world currently, you'd think we were dog shit. English team having a core of quality English players is a negative to you? Weird.
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It's even stranger being against a British team buying British, when the quality in talent is undeniably there.
 
gajender said:
It doesn't even make sense what qualities has he shown which could translate well into DOF job infact majority of skills coveted in any good DOF aren't even required at International football makes it a non starter .

This is not to say Southgate can't be good DOF it's just that his role as England's manager can't provide any definite pointers either way .
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Don't fully agree with this.
Southgate is pretty good at bringing in younger players through the England set up. And especially maximising the benefits of St George's by setting the style he wants them to play.

But where he seems to struggle most is optimising the in game tactics.

To be honest. The DoF role seems to be all things to all men.
And you may well understand it better than me.

But anyway. I don't see him as strong enough capabilities wise to be any better than Ten Hag.
 
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