Unfortunately even though it gave us all a lift to get to a final and dreaming of England success the simple fact is we failed to take advantage of a favourable draw and home advantage.
Truth be told we didn't use our flair players enough and played a mostly bang average style of football that bored our opponents into submission.
I can't see anything changing and Southgate will be rewarded by the FA with a contract extension and the media will completey go O. T. T licking his derriere and lauding him as a fantastic coach.
Putrid vomit Inducing celebrities and ex pro's will give their backing to nice chap Southgate and be complicit in this blind faith in a tactically dislexic individual who just does not have a pro active bone in his body and ensure England fail to fulfil their potential yet again after being graced with possibly the greatest set of young exxciting talent we have ever had but sadly not utilised by a very cautious negative thinking man.
Our only hope is Southgate is seduced by an overinflated salary from some other club daft enough to think Southgate will win them stuff.
I think he is a decent bloke and would be suitable for a bottom 6 Premier club wishing to survive but not the right man to win an International tournament with his overly defensive set ups.
Time will tell and if I'm wrong I will gladly eat humble pie but I think sadly we all know we are saddled with this guy for at least 3 or 4 more years and so 3 or 4 more years of disappointment and underachievement.
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Massive opportunity missed.
posted on 12/7/21
1-star. Cba even replying
posted on 12/7/21
I don't like cricket.... I love it!
Obviously on paper it seems brilliant we got to a semi in the world Cup and the final in the Euros narrowly losing on penalties.
In my lifetime having watched football and supported Leeds since 74/75 and played for my county for 5 years at schoolboy level, I am not saying I know everything about the sport I love but I think I have a pretty good grasp of what is a good positive approach and set up of a team and a negative defensive one.
OK sometimes if you are limited at what you have at your disposal talent wise then like Greece did in 2002 I think it was, they played to their defensive strengths, parked the bus and won the tournament.
Southgate had an abundance of game changers in the squad he didn't incorporate into the side enough and relyed on a strong defensive line up concentrating on stopping the opposition playing rather than being more pro active and playing more attack minded players while still having a solid back line. If Southgate had been more like Bielsa in his approach I think we would have, like Leeds, scored more than we conceded and won the tournament.
This is my opinion though and others will have their own opinion and be quite content with Southgate at the helm and let's hope he can learn from this and recognise that attack is the greatest form of defence and we grace another final with more than 35% possession.
posted on 12/7/21
comment by 🎤Mike drop🎤 (U15513)
posted 1 hour, 5 minutes ago
Starting a final with 5 at the back against a team of technically elite players is crazy. Having zero ball and chasing shadows is a direct result of sitting deep and that’s caused by a negative tactical approach.
By 60minutes we had dead legs up top. Italy’s aging defence showed in the Sakabinstance what pace and a sharp attack does to them, but instead of utilising Sancho and Rashford for the entirety of extra time, he brings them on with 2 mins to go totally cold smh.
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The 2 late subs had us all screaming at the TV to get them on. Really thought the Italians would manage to keep the ball, so we couldn't get them on anyway. As it turned out it didn't make the greatest difference.
But as an armchair fan I'd have liked to see those players introduced earlier in extra time, i just think it would have helped them settle more.
Still proud of the team, great effort.
As for Kalvin ............ just absolute class as a player and person.
posted on 12/7/21
Kalvin the only one who kissed his losers medal, the rest of them couldnot wait to get the medel off and throwing it in a bin, says how humble and modest our Kalvin is. Hope he does not leave Leeds, he's class as a person and player as VOF said above.
posted on 12/7/21
Agree fully with Macca's article, England barely scraped though beating Denmark, and if they had beaten Italy on the penalty shootout, they certainly would not have deserved it on the day - the best team won. Southgate needs replacing...tired of his overcautious goody 2 shoe attitude.
posted on 12/7/21
To all those who want Southgate out, I hear Roy Hodgson's available.
posted on 12/7/21
And pigs will fly...
posted on 12/7/21
If we make the subs earlier we lose in extra time with Rashford playing right back and Sancho in Henderson's role.
posted on 12/7/21
I was there last night
It hurt a lot
We have the right man. He gets international football.
I don’t mind the slightly negative approach. It is usually how tournaments are won internationally however I think we were too defensive. We sat back too much
I felt Phillips was exceptional. We have the base there for further development
Must add the situation at Wembley was a disgrace. Non ticket holders slamming through, people having to urinate all down Wembley way because of no toilets, no police, stewards not checking anyone
Chaos
posted on 12/7/21
I think Southgate deserves a lot of credit. Cautious football wins it at international level - you have a maximum of 7 games every 2 years, you can't afford to go gung-ho. Italy were cautious all tournament and won it.
They breezed through the group, beat Germany, smashed Ukraine, held their nerve in the semi-final (which was a good performance) and took Italy all the way to penalties to beat us. Conceded 2 goals all tournament - both set pieces and a bit lucky. No one beat England over 90-120 minutes.
Without a doubt he had a bad game last night. The game got away from England and he couldn't do anything to stop it. The management for the penalties was awful - bringing on two players who have barely kicked a ball all tournament to take a penalty was heaping so much pressure on them, no surprise they missed. Then having Saka as the fifth penalty was very harsh on a 19 year old.
But overall, he's taken us to a semi-final and a final in consecutive tournaments. And I'm not having this nonsense about it being an easy run, that is such a disrespect to the teams we played. People talk like Colombia, Denmark, Germany are pushovers - they are tough games.
France got put out by Switzerland and Spain were close to being as well. That's the sort of team that if England had drawn and beaten, everyone would say it was an easy draw.