The Official England Thread- The Team We All Support [Vol 3]

[GloverMart]

As someone that was brought up in England with Scottish grandparents and feeling more Scot than Anglo, I'm obviously sad Scotland have gone home, deservedly so of course as their performances warranted it.

Sunday night, I might just end up going out for a walk or something as I find the England games so dreadfully boring these days. Went to bed at half time of the Slovenia game; while I was tired after a 5.30am start, nowadays I don't fight the tiredness even if England are on. Feel like I'd won at life when I saw the score the following morning.

And thats from someone that absolutely loves their football and goes to 100 matches a season at least at all levels.

[S600BSB]

Legacywr said:

I predeict that, England will step up in the knock out games, they always seem to do this.

Of course they will! Bring it home boys.

[acer12]

Couldnt have asked for a better set of games. Hopefully the next few games will allow players to find form and push on. Its coming home

[Speed 3]

Well Gareth if you don't get us to the Final as minimum with that pathway consider yourself a failure. No excuses.

[Muzzer79]

Legacywr said:

I predeict that, England will step up in the knock out games, they always seem to do this.

What normally happens is that, faced with superior opposition, England will wake up and start playing a bit better in the knock out phases.

However, Slovakia aren't a top side so there's just as much chance that we'll continue sleeping and it'll be laboured.

Scary version?

2016 Euros - England play Iceland. England take the lead after 4 minutes but Iceland equalise after England can't capitalise on their lead.

Sound familiar?

Iceland, a nation of less than 500,000 people, eventually win 2-1.

Roy Hodgson was manager at the time and was criticised for England having a muddled system in the run up to the tournament with constant changes of personnel and lack of influence on the game. He was then criticised for waiting too long to make changes in the game in a bid to influence the result.

Sound familiar?

Slovakia, lest we forget, beat Belgium in their first game.

[TEKNOPUG]

"we all know how it ends, we just want to feel something in the meantime....."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/...

[epom]

Shadow boxing out of the way.. time for England to go all Tyson Fury.

[Flip Martian]

The England manager has been criticised and pilloried almost without exception for as long as I can remember, which is as far back as the last couple of years of Ramsey's reign. Nothing is ever good enough. Ever. Even if they win this tournament the manager will barely get any praise in most circles - it will be the players who win it, "despite the crap manager" and not because of.

No doubt the people who take on the job have thick skins and ignore most public opinion but it really is a good thing it pays well.

[redrabbit29]

England fans are often described as arrogant. The last week or two nicely demonstrates why this is completely true.

Social media is full of endless mocking of Gareth Southgate and the England team. I'm talking about memes, jokes, gifs, mocked up videos, etc. (Some are funny tbf).

We have many, including some "official accounts" talking about what may be our route to the final, and who they'd prefer in the Semi-Final.

The England team haven't performed well, it's been pretty poor and boring. But they've still topped the group, they've still got through, they're still finding their feet.

Year-after-year this kind of thing has happened. It goes right back to my childhood when the media would just pounce on players, and now it's social media.

Then we have boo'ing and things being thrown at Gareth Southgate on the pitch after their last game.

England fans deserve nothing but another quick exit from a competition, a new manager, and then another decade of moaning about them being incompetent.

[TEKNOPUG]

Flip Martian said:

The England manager has been criticised and pilloried almost without exception for as long as I can remember, which is as far back as the last couple of years of Ramsey's reign. Nothing is ever good enough. Ever. Even if they win this tournament the manager will barely get any praise in most circles - it will be the players who win it, "despite the crap manager" and not because of.

No doubt the people who take on the job have thick skins and ignore most public opinion but it really is a good thing it pays well.

I hear that the Spanish, Brazilian and Argentinian media are like a warm cuddle to the national manager, through thick & thin. Must be why they win tournaments so often....

[coldel]

I would disagree

There has always been good support for the England manager, of course there are moments when fans turn, but thats pretty much what you expect in football at national or club level. Southgate waistcoats were all the rage for a while we gave him all the backing he needed. The open attacking play that got us to a semi final in his first tournament he was lauded even though we got knocked out.

There is of course a difference in level of expectation, I dont expect my club team to win anything, but England, we would like to think they are in with a shout given the riches in players at their disposal.

What we are seeing here though is not some marginal players not getting games and only that players club support being partisan in their favour, there is widespread observations by the fan base that Southgates limitations are being exposed, the lack of cohesion in the team, the lack of proper build up to the tournament, players repeatedly played out of position, the condemnation is universal we ALL see the same issues.

And before saying we won the group, we won it, the easiest group, on 5 points, Ukraine finished bottom of theirs on 4.

[Xenoous]

I love all of the optimism. I wish I could be. We've been here tournament after tournament. It's slow, sideways football that lacks any creativity. We haven't produced anything of note in 3 games, aside from Foden with a couple of half decent shots. He's even managed to turn Bellingham into a potato.

Bring on Sunday!

[aeropilot]

TEKNOPUG said:

Flip Martian said:

The England manager has been criticised and pilloried almost without exception for as long as I can remember, which is as far back as the last couple of years of Ramsey's reign. Nothing is ever good enough. Ever. Even if they win this tournament the manager will barely get any praise in most circles - it will be the players who win it, "despite the crap manager" and not because of.

No doubt the people who take on the job have thick skins and ignore most public opinion but it really is a good thing it pays well.

I hear that the Spanish, Brazilian and Argentinian media are like a warm cuddle to the national manager, through thick & thin. Must be why they win tournaments so often....

Yeah, there's a recent interview on BBC website with Cesc Fabrigas about this, and he said, the England players and manager gets a much easier ride in the press (even the recent stuff) than the national team players/coach does in Spain, where they are far more critical and vociforous.

[coldel]

Yep I see the Spanish and Italian press are relentless with their criticisms!
England get it easy in comparison.

[Hants PHer]

I'd expect that all the managers of the so-called 'stronger' teams at Euro 2024 are receiving stick, with the possible exception of Spain (or have the Spanish media also been critical?).

• Germany - good start but a bit fortunate to get a draw with Switzerland
• Italy - feeble against Spain and so reliant on the brilliant Donnarumma in goal
• England - 'nuff said
• France - two goals in three games, couldn't beat Poland, perhaps they're a one man team (Mbappe)
• Netherlands - one narrow win then outplayed by Austria
• Belgium - even worse than England, I think, and finished second in their group
• Portugal - looked hopeless against spirited Georgia last night

So far, the smaller nations have looked better organised, more motivated and often more skilful than the big boys. England are not the only ones with problems, it seems.

[Muzzer79]

coldel said:

I would disagree

There has always been good support for the England manager

Only when he is successful, or right at the start when people look forward to a 'fresh start'

If ANY performance is considered weak then he is pilloried. Southgate was getting criticised in Euro 2021 and we got to the sodding final.

Big nations like Brazil/France/etc - we should beat them. Small nations? We should beat them 6-0. That's the rhetoric

coldel said:

I dont expect my club team to win anything, but England, we would like to think they are in with a shout given the riches in players at their disposal.

Another issue. You make it sound like we have a whole team of Messis and Peles. As ever with England, the reality is that we have one or two world class players, the rest are 'good'.

coldel said:

And before saying we won the group, we won it, the easiest group, on 5 points, Ukraine finished bottom of theirs on 4.

But we won the group.

Do we complain if our club team 'only' wins the league by 2 points?

Or gets to the FA Cup final, but it was a lucky draw so doesn't count?

[coldel]

Muzzer79 said:

coldel said:

I would disagree

There has always been good support for the England manager

Only when he is successful, or right at the start when people look forward to a 'fresh start'

If ANY performance is considered weak then he is pilloried. Southgate was getting criticised in Euro 2021 and we got to the sodding final.

Big nations like Brazil/France/etc - we should beat them. Small nations? We should beat them 6-0. That's the rhetoric

coldel said:

I dont expect my club team to win anything, but England, we would like to think they are in with a shout given the riches in players at their disposal.

Another issue. You make it sound like we have a whole team of Messis and Peles. As ever with England, the reality is that we have one or two world class players, the rest are 'good'.

coldel said:

And before saying we won the group, we won it, the easiest group, on 5 points, Ukraine finished bottom of theirs on 4.

But we won the group.

Do we complain if our club team 'only' wins the league by 2 points?

Or gets to the FA Cup final, but it was a lucky draw so doesn't count?

You are picking convenient text to cover up the clear issues.

Fans support team when successful, well yes, because they are successful. We are supporting England one of the top ranked teams in the world with the biggest professional league in the world. I think you are somewhat blind to football if you think the other nations are not doing the same barracking of the national manager when things don't go well.

No one said we should beat France every time, no one is saying we should beat small nations 6-0. You are, no one else is.

What everyone else is saying is that the team should be entering a tournament set up, practiced, drilled, players in formations they know, tactics prepared, so on and so forth. I didnt see Italy put their right back into centre mid as an experiment in the middle of a tournament. I dont see other teams bringing one left back, injured, to a tournament and playing right backs there instead. We should also be seeing some good old fashioned effort, the stats again make this a non subjective thing.

If you think Southgate is doing a good job then you are quite easily pleased! The rest of us, you can see some very obvious ways to improve the poor performances (this isnt even subjective, look at the on field stats etc) and improve Englands chances of going deeper into the tournament than relying on Serbia to scrape a clean sheet vs Denmark so we dont actually get anyone any good to play against.

[TEKNOPUG]

Muzzer79 said:

coldel said:

I would disagree

There has always been good support for the England manager

Only when he is successful, or right at the start when people look forward to a 'fresh start'

If ANY performance is considered weak then he is pilloried. Southgate was getting criticised in Euro 2021 and we got to the sodding final.

That will be the final when we were 1-0 up after 3mins and failed to have another shot on target in the following 120mins? And then lost on penalties to a very average Italy - who failed to qualify for the 2022 WC?

You can play dull, boring, defensive football as long as you win - see Mourinho or Conte. Getting to a final or semi-final and losing is still losing. Every tournament Southgate has enjoyed plenty of talented players to choose from, extremely fortuitous draws against teams well below England's ability and for the most part, the support of the nation and media. And each time has come up short the moment we play anyone decent. It's like managing a Prem team in the FA Cup and getting drawn against Championship and lower league teams all the way to the final, where you play another Prem team and lose. How can getting to the final be seen as a success if you didn't play anyone of note in the process and lost anyway?

And he's had 8 years and 4 tournaments to try and figure out how to beat another top 10 team in a tournament; including all games, he's played top 10 teams 24 times and won just 4! Given the amount of time in the job, by far the longest managerial reign of any other top 10 nation, we should be the most organised and disciplined side playing at the Euros. There should be well defined tactics and formations with everyone knowing their place and what to do and well rehearsed contingencies for every eventuality. Instead, it looks like he was parachuted in 3 months before the tournament began, with a squad that someone else picked and he's just making it up as he goes along.

But we are clearly expecting too much and should all cut him some slack because he beat some poor sides in previous tournaments and might even had won if we didn't actually have to play anyone good....

[Gargamel]

The expectation is I think fairly simple.

I honestly don't mind England losing a game of football. Provided, everyone tried, we did all we could and gave it everything. You get beat, outplayed it happens and I am OK with it.

But, when I see these players in the PL every week, they appear to put so much more effort in. England in the last three games have been plodding, we have never upped the tempo, played at pace, and on a few occasions when our opposition hasn't had ten men behind the ball, then don't worry we can't play a fast break because everyone is back waiting for Pickford to kick it long.

The safety first, possession football isn't the entertainment I want to watch, it might bring results (to a point) but don't whine when you play unlovely football and then people criticise you.

Play some passionate, entertaining flair football and if we get beat, then at least we can hold our heads up.

[Guvernator]

I've never been an advocate of the results being more important than the performance train of thought. I watch football to be entertained. Trophies are important of course but only really for bragging rights and if I have to watch hours of boring matches just to say we've won something, I'd rather not bother.

Now when you add in the combination of boring football and no trophies, that makes it ten times worse. You've put up with hours of crap football and still not won anything. This is where we are with Southgate.