Football

Exactly.

But if they were still winning and playing more attractive football people might be a bit more forgiving.

It's the reason why we keep getting underwhelming managers though - who would actually want such a thankless job?

The memes have started.

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Saka a bright spot but two goals in three games with loads of attacking talent in the side isn’t really good enough.

In all fairness, it’s a young England side and probably two-to-four years too early to expect a great deal from them.

They won’t thrive under Southgate. I’ve nothing against the guy (other than his blandness) but he’s simply not got the experience.

England set up is too defense minded, safety first nonsense. I prefer gegenpressing style we see from German clubs and managers, not this poor mans version of tiki-taka football. It’s very obvious that Southgate is not in the same league as other national coaches. And if he thinks that playing for 0-0 or 1-0 victories is enough over 90 - 120 minutes, is worth the energy and commitment from this young squad, then England are doomed to failure.

Have we had this yet?

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We'll batter Portugal in the last 16. Nailed on.

Ah.

my 2 pence:
England are not a club team. The team do not have the advantage of playing together in a coherent fashion week in week out.
The World and European champions are built on a stable defence, with a fairly fucking sharp point (Mbappe and Him).

Tournament football isn't about "sexeh sexeh wow!" otherwise, Brazil wouldn't have jacked it all in after 82 and become the boring force they became. Oh wait. Stable defence, razor sharp point, other worldly talent (el fenom).

We've had 3 games (W2 D1) where the defence hasn't looked too bothered (mind you, who have we played? Scotland were good, Croatia were old, Czech - I didn't see the whole game) and the middle has looked stodgy. Raheem looked ok, apart from his running style, Henderson was back, we've seen that wonderboy Jack isn't such a risky player to have on, Bukayo looked good as well. Sancho came on against a tired team and hey, who knew, pace and fresh legs hurts tired players.

The set up here is:
You have to have a solid defence, we've played three games, we look ok, we've got room to improve. There's no point being the flat track bully all the way through the league stage only to get smashed up in the knockouts.

tl;dr : it's Kane's fault. If he wasn't carrying Spurs and England ALL the time, he might be a bit fresher and be able to be the sharp point the team focuses on.

Why not both? Tight at the back and not conceding is fine and props to the defence for that but to win a tournament you need to be able to score goals as well and we've barely looked like doing that against pretty average competition so far. Southgate's defensive tactics (and squad) are not balanced - they are at the cost of stifling what should be an exciting attacking force.

If he was doing it with style it would be a great job.
@tbc - 'if' doing a lot of heavy lifting there!

If we go any further in the tournament with this approach I will happily be proved wrong, but can't see us beating anyone else like this.

rather be a glorious failure and have a great time doing it than go through whatever miserable self-flagellating pish england goes through every tournament.

scotland were woeful last night imo - chasing shadows in the midfield all night. modric bossed the game. played well and with purpose in the czech and england games though and it's a young team, so the future could be bright.

I agree with all this.

Also, France qualified from their group at the world cup with a 2-1 win over Australia, a 1-0 win over Peru, and a 0-0 draw with Denmark.

^This^. Top of the group, no goals conceded. Looking solid if not spectacular. Would’ve taken that before the tournament started. If we get to the quarter finals and give someone a game then great. So much angst when if another country was doing what we are doing you’d think they’re doing well and would give anyone a game with loads of attacking options on the bench. Will see who we’re playing next week but think Germany or Portugal would suit either stodgy England (Portugal) or attack spaces behind Germany’s wingbacks with Sterling/Sako.

I mean, compare and contrast to the capello/keegan/mclaren/hodgson years for some perspective on how shit it can really get.

Portugal route to winning 2o16

Group: 1-1 Iceland, 0-0 Austria, 3-3 Hungary
L16: 0-0 Croatia (0-1 aet)
QF: 1-1 (POR on pens)
SF: 2-0 Wales
Fin: 0-0 (1-0 aet)

Completely acceptable...if you win the whole thing

Kane is so bland he makes overcooked turkey seem like a deep and rich flavour. If a player is so "talismanic" then why aren't the rest of the team looking for him when in possession mid pitch, rather than passing backwards.

Bit like watching toddlers chase the ball around at points.

Not sure how it came across on the TV last night but Kane was complete shit.

Slow (obviously unfit) but more importantly, for the majority of the game his positional play was terrible. His attempts to get into goal scoring positions when Saka / Sterling etc were on the ball often added more defenders between him and the ball than if he'd just stood still. If we wasn't running into positions where he had no chance of receiving the ball, he was running towards our other players, dragging more defenders into the mix and losing all the space we create.

At Spurs, and with Son on the team, he gets goals because of their counter attacking power. In this England team, he's a waste of space.

The alternative argument to international teams just being pragmatic is Italy. entertaining, coherent style, clean sheets and playing very much like a club team. I do think they may have peaked to early though. So will go out next round.

Southgate and England are doing fine, 7 points from a medium level group is fine, no goals conceded is great, 2 scored is poor. Then again we've hit the woodwork 3 times, and our main striker is completely out of sorts. You don't get any extra points for 5-0 wins anyway.
The modern parlance is 'Game Management' Pep and Klopp are lauded for it when they see out a tight 1-0 win, and Southgate should be too.
5 years ago we'd have had a desperate last 20 min rearguard action with the likes of John fucking Terry and Phil fucking Jones trying to head clearances when the ball is on the ground.

^ all of what he said just there.

Phil fucking Jones trying to head clearances when the ball is on the ground.

For posterity.

If we go on to win, grinding out 1-0 wins then I will grudgingly accept the means to an end, but I don't think we've got it in the team as it is being set up at the moment. As soon as we face a decent team we'll concede and then have no idea how to outscore them.
Kane's form and fitness is a big part of the problem as the team is set up for him and he's currently appalling. And we don't have many other options up front.
There were glimpses in the first half of what the team could be like with Saka and Grealish coming in. I'd put Sterling through the middle, Foden (Sancho to sub on) and Saka either side, Jack as 10 and Mount with Rice. Still plenty of defenders but could actually pass forward through the midfield instead of back to Pickford every time.

If Kane's not going to improve, Southgate needs to bite the bullet and drop him. Play a false 9 or Calvert-Lewin. Rashford's a great guy, but he's bang average player. We'll see on Tuesday when we get to play a really good team. Portugal are very beatable, France less so, Germany somewhere inbetween.

#armchairenglandmanager gold

England are an average team that really don't look like they have a goal in them, I felt like this during the last world cup as well, three quarters of our goals came from set pieces.. clearly not sustainable as we havn't matched it this time round.

The only teams to have had fewer attempts on goal have a game in hand, apart from Finland.

I hope we do well - but we are definitely an outside chance.

It's coming home etc

Haven't England won 8 of their last 9 or something?

Edit: just checked. They did.

Don’t forget that England are either the best team in the world, or the worst team in the world.

There is no middle ground.

Iceland
San Marino
Albania
Poland
Austria
Romania
Croatia
Czech Republic

I know you can only beat what's in front of you but the last team we lost to was Belgium. We haven't beaten a good side in ages. Maybe Netherlands in 2018 but that was a friendly.