Euro 2024 thread
Comments
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Have you ever been tested for autism? I'm not talking about style marks, but whether or not he's sprinting, reaching, moving off the ball, making himself available. I don't think he is, except for one half of football. The small sprints are where injuries happen. He looks to me like he's worried about that and really metering out those efforts.
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1986 was actually their year. Robson stumbled across a good balance when the other Robson was injured (or more injured than normal). In fact, I seem to recall that Wilkins got sent off, so the lost their supposedly best two midfielders and it made the tournament for them.
England were very close to equalizing against Argentina. If they had, I think they'd have gone on and won.
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He has no support and no creative players anywhere near him, but looks perfectly normal to me. His injury at the end of last season was not muscular and I don't recall him having any muscular injuries - he played 35/38 games last season.
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His injury was muscular, albeit purportedly minor.
For all we know he is flagged as having too much fatigue and at risk of muscle injury. He's barely missed any football in his whole career. You'd hope they were monitoring that sort of thing. I disagree about being isolated though. If you stand still there's nothing a creative player can do - although he has a lot of company in that regard.
What's a bit troubling is how often Kyle Walker overlaps Saka, Vs the times when Saka is available to receive from him. Walker is a great player but his delivery isn't the best. Plus he's 34, so how come he's so comparatively energetic?
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Yes, it appears that the advertising board incident was not the reason he missed the last game. Nonetheless, I suspect you don't watch him play that much. He's not a player who sprints into space all the time as he can create space once he has the ball in his possession. He is also used to being able to play 1-2s with players like Odegaard and having some other players in the vicinity.
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Closet Arsenal fan.
No, I don't watch him much, so can only really compare highlights and his better England oerformances. To my eye he's playing like he is wearing hiking boots.
The absence of 1-2s is Foden's issue as well. Similar club level overcoaching style that doesn't translate well to internationals. Foden suffers more, though, from playing blind and assuming someone will be there.
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That's different to my memory. I recall that Engerland didn't get going until those 2 buffties ruled themselves out.
1 point after 2 group games? The court of public opinion would have demanded a sacking mid-tournament in the current environment.
Agree that they could easily have progressed in times of VAR (and Robson would probably have prevented Maradonna from scoring the 2nd).
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Cake is just weakness entering the body0 -
Only conceding one from 3 games, and that was a pretty stellar strike, is pretty good going.
You'll always be in the hunt if you're stingy like that. The worry is more if England have to come back from behind, but I think it's fair to say if they keep it as tight as they have, they will probably make it fairly deep.
I get we all want attacking football, and god help me it was ridiculously boring, almost unbearably so, but tournament football is about surviving the group stage, getting a good seed and **NOT CONCEDING**.
You could be like the Netherlands. Play relatively entertaining football, certainly play with more urgency, and what does that get you? Win, draw, loss and getting lucky the format is soft to finishing 3rd place.
Would you rather that? Ultimately we're in it to win it, not entertain....right?
Italy has won plenty of tournaments playing that way.
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True, but I don't think the defence has been tested that much so it's hard to say if they could turgid their way through against a decent attacking team.
I don't rate Pickford, personally, but the rest have been pretty solid. We are really playing pretty much 5 at the back anyway, the way Rice is playing.
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Problem is that only one of the three has been against a team that tried to get the ball back, and they kept giving it away against them.
If they just moved around a bit and tried to create a little bit of chaos, they could be really good. They just want to be safety first, which allows the opposition to be perfectly organised.
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Yeah but then you're out of position when you do concede the ball - like the Dutch were against Austria.
Playing conservative in tournaments is sensible moneyball behaviour. Alas.
In league games you need to go for the win if you want to compete. In tournament football all you need to do is not lose. Look at how Croatia has been about as successful as England - world cup semis and a final. They just were super stingy.
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This is about right from my point of view - we've also played three teams who stick ten men behind the ball and I don't think the format of best third place teams helps in delivering exciting football (cf France, Italy, Netherlands) in the group stages.
I thought there was a big improvement in England's game last night. Patient, accurate, assured possession football, albeit with no end product, is way better than we played against Denmark
Top of the group and safely through to the next round is as good as anyone could have hoped for at this stage - play the exciting stuff when you have to.
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
I'd say you're lucky to be going top of the group after only winning one game. Also as good as the defensive record is, I don't feel it reflects how shaky they can look under pressure. Nor does it account for the fact that Slovenia didn't really appear to want to score against them yesterday.
Also, if you aren't going to score, then you are reliant on penalties, and England are shit at them.
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Yep, if we were Italians everyone would be waxing lyrical about progress so far.
I am in the let's win a tournament camp, couldn't care less how we do it. As discussed before, I don't understand the baffling sense of entitlement of many of my fellow England fans. The expectation we should be winning each game with ease is ludicrous.
I accept we haven't played well, but we have been solid and there is plenty of scope to improve. Playing against more open and attacking teams in the knockouts will also change (and hopefully improve) our performances.
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That last point is salient.
Last night was ruined by England already qualifying and Slovenia figuring out that a draw was enough.
There's a sliver of an argument that they showed enough in the second half of the second half to suggest there is more there if needed, and that it would have been a waste of energy to do much else.
I tend instead towards the view that teams can't just change the form they are in. This England team is in poor form and has been for a while. Southgate is smart enough to resign after the tournament even if the FA are stupid enough to make him another offer.
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"Patient, accurate, assured possession football, albeit with no end product" is less easy when the opposition tries to play against you, as Denmark showed.
Playing like that against Austria would be a bad idea. England v Netherlands could be a beautiful chaotic match that England can win and I'm here for it.
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Not being able to change form is a valid point. Not having played any top level sport myself, it is impossible to know, but I suspect a big part of the form issue for England is psychological at present. Therefore, I am leaning towards the potential for them to turn it around. I am not saying they will suddenly find some attacking brilliance, but will improve enough to create and score more, giving us the opportunity to get towards the final stages.
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They will go out in the next round, I suspect.
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That was one of the easiest groups you could possibly hope for at a major tournament, so as one of the pre-tournament favourites it is reasonably to expect England to have been undefeated, and to have won at least 2 matches, probably comfortably.
It looks to me like the players neither believe in Southgate's game plan, or trust each other.
They need to improve significantly, even on the easy side of the draw.
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What is the game plan? The players say it isn't to sit back, but that's what they are doing.
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If you're happy to rely on a coin flip to go the right way four times in a row...
Especially given that without trying to sound like an entitled England fan, there is a reasonable amount of talent in the squad.
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England have won three and lost six penalty shootouts.
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Look don't get me wrong, England can play a lot better, and have in this iteration of a team.
I just think that non conceding is wildly underrated, and with a team with Kane in it, I would be pretty happy basing an entire tournament around not conceding and relying on Kane to nick a goal here or win and score a penalty there.
Top of the group only one conceded is pretty good AFAIK. It's just miserable to watch.
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It's just the nature of international football. Players don't want to make mistakes and be criticised. They also don't know that the rest of the team will cover for them. For example, Rice can bomb forwards for Arsenal, because (a) he will have been asked to by the manager (b) he knows if he does a full back will cover his position (c) if it goes wrong, he won't be all over the back pages. You are asking about the status of (a), but the others are significant influences.
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Phil Foden has temporarlily left the England camp for a "pressing family matter"
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
. . . update - it's to attend the birth of his third child
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
If the game plan is to sit back, then great, the plan is to not lose and hope to nick a goal at some point when the opposition fall asleep through boredom. If they win the tournament, it's been worth it I guess.
If that isn't the plan, then England are paying £5m for a manager who can't get the players to do what he wants.
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For me the most worrying thing isn't struggling to break down Serbia and Slovenia it's the way we just lost control of the game against Denmark. That wasn't a team sitting back and frustrating us it was us being outplayed by a side I doubt anyone would have as contenders.
Anyway it seems likely that we will face the dutch - that's a fifa top 10 ranked team - beat them and whatever the performance the criticism will melt away - lose and presumably Gareth steps down.
[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0
