Ukraine will love this "we're going to win the thing" because we beat an average German side attitude

comment by Sheriff JW Pepper (U1007)
posted 22 seconds ago
Ukraine will love this "we're going to win the thing" because we beat an average German side attitude
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Lucky we're putting out the football team, not the fans

I see no reason Mount and Foden shouldn't start next game either..both fresh and in form

Germany not even a good side anymore now England beat them, 'average' now apparently. Gone downhill massively since they beat Portugal 4-2 eleven days ago.

comment by JustYourAverageFan (U21016)
posted 7 minutes ago
Regarding Southgate, I know somebody who is involved in the FA at county level but has also gone on to do his coaching badges and they went to Harrogate to watch a training session when Southgate was the manager of the Under 21 side and this particular person said that they were shocked by what they were seeing.

Common phrases Southgate used were "yes", "well done" and "very nice" which they said did not entice or motivate players because, even poor bits of a training session, was always met with a positive mantra. Now of course this is good for building morale but the case in point was that, because the training session was so poor, you would have expected different phrases to be used or potential interventions to be addressed because the players ultimately were not doing what the purpose of the training session was, but were consistently met with positive phrases and were not told that certain aspects were being performed wrong.

Now I'm convinced that Southgate wasn't immune to this and probably did have a word with the group after the session ended and potentially behind closed doors, but I think it was the quality of the session that shocked the particular person that viewed the session and this person I know spoke to others at the time that were similarly underwhelmed with many people saying that England's issues come through too many people being "yes men" as well as being concerned about the youth of England coming through if that training session was the standard they were performing to.
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I'd question your mate here. Was he really 'shocked' that players were getting praise in training? Did he not ask why Southgate was doing that? There's almost certainly a good reason he doesn't understand.

While I take the point that endless praise is meaningless, is pretty clear the modern player is a different animal to even 10 years ago. You can't scream at them, kick boots etc. They'll just sulk and get you sacked.

Whether people like the set up or bot, I think one of the big things that Southgate’s succeeded in is getting everyone to buy into what he wants to do. This comes across as a very United England side, and we’ve had better squads that have struggled to achieve this and buy into the conservative set ups of the England manager.

I think we could strike a better balance between defence and attack, but ultimately the results are there so it’s hard to be too critical. They are all that matter at international tournaments, and we’ve kept clean sheets in our first four games at a tournament for the first time since 66.

He had a pretty poor squad to be fair to him at that time compared to the players that were then a lot younger and now in that age bracket.

It’s football for you. The majority of people that watch it even a considerable amount don’t really understand it, which becomes even more prevalent at international level. Happens with assessment of players too and who should play despite no-one seeing what anyone’s doing in training.

comment by JustYourAverageFan (U21016)
posted 5 minutes ago
Regarding Southgate, I know somebody who is involved in the FA at county level but has also gone on to do his coaching badges and they went to Harrogate to watch a training session when Southgate was the manager of the Under 21 side and this particular person said that they were shocked by what they were seeing.

Common phrases Southgate used were "yes", "well done" and "very nice" which they said did not entice or motivate players because, even poor bits of a training session, was always met with a positive mantra. Now of course this is good for building morale but the case in point was that, because the training session was so poor, you would have expected different phrases to be used or potential interventions to be addressed because the players ultimately were not doing what the purpose of the training session was, but were consistently met with positive phrases and were not told that certain aspects were being performed wrong.

Now I'm convinced that Southgate wasn't immune to this and probably did have a word with the group after the session ended and potentially behind closed doors, but I think it was the quality of the session that shocked the particular person that viewed the session and this person I know spoke to others at the time that were similarly underwhelmed with many people saying that England's issues come through too many people being "yes men" as well as being concerned about the youth of England coming through if that training session was the standard they were performing to.
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I think your source massively overestimates what coaches can do in training sessions - most experienced, successful managers and players talk about the very limited number of messages players can focus on and play properly with at any one time. Successful club managers like Guardiola get players to do what they want to do over the course of many training sessions focused on just one or two ideas, to teach players through habit what to do in certain situations.

If you think your job as a coach or manager is to stop and correct players every time they make a mistake, most of the training session will be composed of you stopping play and talking, and not of the players playing and practising. As a player I could not stand being coached by such self important blow-hards, even when I agreed with what they were saying, cos they were taking away my playing time.

Most of what Southgate has to work with, both at youth level and senior level, is based on what players have learnt from their clubs. He can only try and hone with a few key messages and tactics in the limited time he has with his team. The fact he understands that is why he is getting the most out of England's squad, rather than making the mistake that the likes of Deschamps and De Boer are making (in my opinion) of trying to take experienced professionals and micromanage them.

Besides if young players are anything like the rest of us they won't listen to coaches warnings about mistakes, they will have to learn from the experience of making them.

comment by Scott The King McTominay (U10026)
posted 1 minute ago
Whether people like the set up or bot, I think one of the big things that Southgate’s succeeded in is getting everyone to buy into what he wants to do. This comes across as a very United England side, and we’ve had better squads that have struggled to achieve this and buy into the conservative set ups of the England manager.

I think we could strike a better balance between defence and attack, but ultimately the results are there so it’s hard to be too critical. They are all that matter at international tournaments, and we’ve kept clean sheets in our first four games at a tournament for the first time since 66.

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Sums up how I feel with it. In a parallel universe, we could have an entirely different setup that had led to us having convincing wins in every game. I’m pretty content with this universe so far though.

comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 11 minutes ago
We won yesterday, and I think we can say we were the better side. However, it ultimately came down to us taking our chances. He matched Germany man for man to nullify their full backs, good move but not a tactical masterclass IMO. That German side were there for the taking.

We clearly don’t have the best defence or midfield in the competition so he has looked to sure that up in numbers and playing risk averse systems.

Cant complain at the results, maybe Gareth is simply getting the best out of what he has.
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Germany created a lot more chances against France (who were considered the most talented side in the competition) and eviscerated Portugal (who fielded more attacking and creative talent than us) than they did against England. So while it may not have been a tactical masterclass on Southgate's part, he certainly succeeded better than the managers of two of the most fancied teams in nullifying Germany's attack. We could certainly have taken a slightly more expansive approach to the game, which would have made us more entertaining and perhaps would have created more chances. However, that would have been at the expense of a certain amount of defensive control. As I see it, Southgate has looked at the risks vs rewards and concluded that if we minimise the chances of conceding goals, we have the tools to nick goals. Whereas if we open up to a greater extent, there are more variables: we might back ourselves in a shoot-out against a team that's not as good as us on paper, but then it comes down to the run of the ball, and you only need that to go against you once in a knock-out tournament.

melts

In terms of performance I don’t think the preparation for the tournament helped, and injuries to certain players has not helped with this either.

It was one of my biggest worries ahead of the tournament. But luckily it’s not cost us results.

I’m hoping that goal can give Kane a lift. His performances have been as much of a negative towards our performances as the more conservative approach from Southgate. He is our most important player but has yet to play like it. We aren’t the first or last international team that will suffer from their talisman not having a good tournament. And better players than Kane have flopped on the international stage.

comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 11 minutes ago
We won yesterday, and I think we can say we were the better side. However, it ultimately came down to us taking our chances. He matched Germany man for man to nullify their full backs, good move but not a tactical masterclass IMO. That German side were there for the taking.

We clearly don’t have the best defence or midfield in the competition so he has looked to sure that up in numbers and playing risk averse systems.

Cant complain at the results, maybe Gareth is simply getting the best out of what he has.
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Germany created a lot more chances against France (who were considered the most talented side in the competition) and eviscerated Portugal (who fielded more attacking and creative talent than us) than they did against England. So while it may not have been a tactical masterclass on Southgate's part, he certainly succeeded better than the managers of two of the most fancied teams in nullifying Germany's attack. We could certainly have taken a slightly more expansive approach to the game, which would have made us more entertaining and perhaps would have created more chances. However, that would have been at the expense of a certain amount of defensive control. As I see it, Southgate has looked at the risks vs rewards and concluded that if we minimise the chances of conceding goals, we have the tools to nick goals. Whereas if we open up to a greater extent, there are more variables: we might back ourselves in a shoot-out against a team that's not as good as us on paper, but then it comes down to the run of the ball, and you only need that to go against you once in a knock-out tournament.
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Basically you can't lose a game if you don't concede(unless it's 0-0 against Scotland),so keep it tight and rely on your forwards to nick a goal.

Thing is we have quite a few options up front,so deep into games you can bring on fresh quality forwards to potential wreak havoc on tired defenders.

comment by Scott The King McTominay (U10026)
posted 8 minutes ago
melts

In terms of performance I don’t think the preparation for the tournament helped, and injuries to certain players has not helped with this either.

It was one of my biggest worries ahead of the tournament. But luckily it’s not cost us results.

I’m hoping that goal can give Kane a lift. His performances have been as much of a negative towards our performances as the more conservative approach from Southgate. He is our most important player but has yet to play like it. We aren’t the first or last international team that will suffer from their talisman not having a good tournament. And better players than Kane have flopped on the international stage.
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Completely agree and I think we’ve got away with it a bit with how good the defence and Pickford have been. Not sure we can keep relying on both that and Sterling getting the breakthroughs though, hopefully he’ll kick ok now

*on now

comment by Dave The Jackal (U22179)
posted 56 minutes ago
Southgate deserves credit for overcoming a massive hurdle in Germany … fading force or not. That aside, you have to admit he’s been unbelievably fortunate with a tournament draw (plus home advantage) … again. Think he might have come unstuck by now if, say, he’d had Belgium’s horror route to winning it. Think his “success” needs to be set in that context.
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There can be a difference between on-paper and in experience. For instance, Portugal had their moments but overall looked much less than the sum of their parts. Belgium beat them while playing pretty badly. On paper there are more big sides on the other side of the draw, but that's based on reputations.

But even if we play things out on paper, if Spain for instance reach the final, they'll have played an ageing Croatia, Switzerland + Italy or Belgium. I don't think that's unarguably a tougher journey than Germany, Ukraine + Denmark or Czech Republic. That said, if Switzerland make it to the final, we can definitely say they'll be battle-hardened by that time!

comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 9 minutes ago
Germany created a lot more chances against France (who were considered the most talented side in the competition) and eviscerated Portugal (who fielded more attacking and creative talent than us) than they did against England. So while it may not have been a tactical masterclass on Southgate's part, he certainly succeeded better than the managers of two of the most fancied teams in nullifying Germany's attack. We could certainly have taken a slightly more expansive approach to the game, which would have made us more entertaining and perhaps would have created more chances. However, that would have been at the expense of a certain amount of defensive control. As I see it, Southgate has looked at the risks vs rewards and concluded that if we minimise the chances of conceding goals, we have the tools to nick goals. Whereas if we open up to a greater extent, there are more variables: we might back ourselves in a shoot-out against a team that's not as good as us on paper, but then it comes down to the run of the ball, and you only need that to go against you once in a knock-out tournament.
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Agree with this. Southgate got his tactics right for yesterday's game in playing a 3-5-2 to nullify Germany's biggest attacking threat (seen most against Portugal but also in evidence against France where they did create chances until they took Gnabry off).

There were issues with our execution of his approach - for the first half and first part of the second half Luke Shaw was playing too deep as if he was a left back rather than a midfielder, and not only was that allowing Germany an extra man in midfield it was also confusing our back line in who they were supposed to be marking.

When Grealish came on, Shaw suddenly seemed to realise where he was supposed to be (perhaps because he's been more used to playing with Grealish than Sterling/Saka in the tournament so far), and Shaw started closing down in midfield and overlapping the wide player which led to both goals.

Pickford’s form doesn’t surprise me, he’s good for England. But I’ve been surprised by the defence, they’ve looked very good. Maintain that and get Kane performing and we have a very good chance.

Southgate was continually giving instruction to Stones and before long we shut Havertz down as a result.

I think he managed that game from start to finish very well indeed myself.

comment by Flamini'sShirtSleeves (U8186)
posted 14 minutes ago
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 9 minutes ago
Germany created a lot more chances against France (who were considered the most talented side in the competition) and eviscerated Portugal (who fielded more attacking and creative talent than us) than they did against England. So while it may not have been a tactical masterclass on Southgate's part, he certainly succeeded better than the managers of two of the most fancied teams in nullifying Germany's attack. We could certainly have taken a slightly more expansive approach to the game, which would have made us more entertaining and perhaps would have created more chances. However, that would have been at the expense of a certain amount of defensive control. As I see it, Southgate has looked at the risks vs rewards and concluded that if we minimise the chances of conceding goals, we have the tools to nick goals. Whereas if we open up to a greater extent, there are more variables: we might back ourselves in a shoot-out against a team that's not as good as us on paper, but then it comes down to the run of the ball, and you only need that to go against you once in a knock-out tournament.
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There were issues with our execution of his approach - for the first half and first part of the second half Luke Shaw was playing too deep as if he was a left back rather than a midfielder, and not only was that allowing Germany an extra man in midfield it was also confusing our back line in who they were supposed to be marking.

When Grealish came on, Shaw suddenly seemed to realise where he was supposed to be (perhaps because he's been more used to playing with Grealish than Sterling/Saka in the tournament so far), and Shaw started closing down in midfield and overlapping the wide player which led to both goals.
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I've been wondering about this. There were maybe 3-4 occasions in the first half where Shaw ran forward on the overlap past Sterling, and the latter declined to pass to him, instead turning inside and 'starting again' or passing sideways toward the midfield. At the time I was berating Sterling, but I saw (football journalist) Carl Anka wondering whether the 'failure' of the Sterling-Shaw axis was down to the players not connecting or down to tactics. It's possible that Southgate initially wanted his wing backs to concentrate on neutralising Kimmich and Gosens as attacking forces (and a large proportion of Germany's chances in the previous games have come through those two), and deliberately released the handbrake in the final quarter of the game. Not only was Shaw advancing further towards the end of the game, but he was receiving the ball when he did.

No idea whether the masterplan explanation is right, or the 'Shaw gained in confidence / linked up better with Grealish' one. Hopefully someone will interview the relevant parties after the tournament and we'll get some insight into that.

comment by Scott The King McTominay (U10026)
posted 20 minutes ago
Pickford’s form doesn’t surprise me, he’s good for England. But I’ve been surprised by the defence, they’ve looked very good. Maintain that and get Kane performing and we have a very good chance.
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Maguire was excellent.

I was worried about him and Stones but they’ve been impressive.

I never got the worry about Stones going into this tournament. He was much improved last season.

comment by Bãles left boot (U22081)
posted 1 minute ago
I never got the worry about Stones going into this tournament. He was much improved last season.
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I think he looks a lot better next to Maguire than Mings though.

In fact if Mings never won another cap it would not make me unhappy.

Wow that seems harsh. Mings is what, 22? No he not at the top level yet but he's been decent in an England shirt from what I've seen.