In all seriousness, who would you like as England manager, Lewis?
In all seriousness, who would you like as England manager, Lewis?
He'd probably want fucking Mourinho.
Isnt this the point you were arguing against with Greece? Italy aren't the best side on paper, but they were the best side over this seven games.Originally Posted by Lewis
I go the other way. I don't think France will go out easily twice. If they'd walked it here, then I'd have them going out early, but I don't see it. I don't think Germany will be nearly as bad either.
Italy should still be in the mix as well. Chiesa is only going to get better. The big question will be whether Spinazzola will be fit in time.
Iran have got the easier draw in the AFC qualifiers so I wouldn't overlook us. Our strikeforce would fucking shit on this anti-football set of percy pigs.
No. Italy were the best side, but people are making out that they are much better on paper and it was always some uphill task for us, which it wasn't and shouldn't have been.
No idea. Maybe he is the best manager we can have (no more foreign managers). But let's not make excuses for him, because he might actually learn from this one if enough people blame him for it.
If he's going to learn any lesson it should be that Harry Kane isn't the chosen one. He was mostly crap in 2018 too other than all the penalties.
I thought Kane was great tonight when they actually got the ball into him.
I agree with this. I think Italy were a shade better even on paper, mostly due to their midfield and defenders (with Spinazzola, at least). But England are a very good side, and could beat anyone if things go right. More dangerous near the goal than Italy, as well.
Any difference in quality was a sliver, rather than a gulf.
Next England manager market looks like this
5/1 Dean Smith
5/1 Sean Dyche (fucking lol)
7/1 Eddie Howe
12/1 Frank Lampard
12/1 Steven Gerrard
12/1 Graham Potter
16/1 Brendan Rodgers
16/1 Aidy Boothroyd
Then 20/1 and out is just things that aren't going to happen, like Arsene Wenger, Zinedine Zidane, Roy Hodgson, Michael Owen, and Sir Rafa Benitez.
I'm taking none of them over Southgate.
Surely Adrian Boothroyd doesn't still go by 'Aidy' now he must be a middle aged man.
Hitting 40 (or whatever) and going "Sorry lads, it's Adrian now" is worse
It would just happen organically if he was a man of sufficient stature, and if it hasn't then that probably means he isn't up to being England manager.
Wasn't he one of about 10 "mini Mounrinhos"? He was dead in the water then.
Him and Billy Reid.
The punch on the kid
Probably deserved for breaking in without tickets
Not Billy Reid. Who was the Derby one?
Franklin Lampard.
EDIT: Turns out his birth name is Frank. I didn't even know you could do that. He should lean into "Franklin" anyway.
So I've been doing my scapegoat math
I've decided that its Pickfords fault because we thought we were good at penalties but actually Jordan Pickford wasn't training the boys well enough.
this.
england practically set up to isolate him.
edit: probably could've been set up twice if sterling knew how to run
Last edited by Panda Bear; 12-07-2021 at 12:54 AM.
so many fucking cowards in that video from the guys punching to the complete inaction
Footballs coming home, its coming, its coming
Footballs coming home, its coming, its coming hoooome
I was undecided on who to support before today but i chose Italy because the English fans are the fucking worst people and my god I am having a good day
Similar experience here. (Highlight was a jumped-up little ginger cunt, who didn't even have an English accent, telling a 40-year old Italian-Canadian that he was going to eat him alive.) TTH really has the cream of the crop.
Other thoughts:
- Donnarumma and Luke Shaw two best players of the tournament.
- In terms of 'on paper' superiority, Italy's midfield is just boss and they controlled every game through it (except Spain bc Busquets). However their forwards were pretty horrific except for Chiesa turning into Hulk. And then the center backs are proper, proper legends but the back 4 as a whole isn't significantly better than England's. They just won because they dominated the football completely.
- In general it was a great tournament for teams rather than star players. Maybe except for Harry Kane, none of the semifinalists had a single star they had build their team around (except for Eriksen lol - but it's actually a good example because I doubt they go so far with him in the team.) And the teams which tried to awkwardly pigeonhole multiple stars into the same lineup (Belgium, Portugal) tended to fail - reminiscent of England ten years ago.
- You just knew Rashford was going to miss before he stepped up. Same thing with Mbappe against Switzerland.
- It was a really great tournament and a really good final too, one of those which really felt like a final yet wasn't a shit game at the same time. The format and even the bizarre hosted-in-11-countries thing all somehow worked out. Maybe it was just coming out of COVID and actually having crowds but I can't imagine a better competition from a neutral perspective.
Oh yeah
- The Pickford save on Jorginho is unreal. If Saka scores and England goes on to win I think it goes down as one of your best ever, legendary individual sporting moments.
With no stand-out candidates I'd just make Grealish player-manager as at least you ensure he starts. The rest isn't that complicated with this team.
I feel like Southgate has been on a mission to make up for that penalty miss, but amidst all that determination it clouded the fact that he's just a bit shit and should step aside.
For what it's worth, I think it's a very different game if Spinazzola (likely our best player until he was injured) plays rather than Emerson. Obviously there's always ifs and buts, but Italy are much strong with him on the pitch.
That was mostly on Southgate for being happy with 1-0 and even 1-1.
Some of the players need to take responsibility though. Nobody decided to stay up top to give us someone to look for. Kane always went deep, Sterling and Mount/Saka, Grealish, Walker were always pegged back in defensive positions. Credit to the Italians for making it so but nobody really decided to chance it. And, let's be clear, the Italians are the best side in this tournament. They pressed well, controlled the midfield and really limited England's chances after a shaky first half. It still took a scramble to breach our defence.
I can't be mad at that. Especially when you saw the heads drop. They hung on til penalties and shat it at the last possible moment. That moment used to be against Iceland. It used to be two/three rounds ago or in winnable group stage. We backed up a fortnute semi-final World Cup run with a run to a major final. We haven't had that kind of sustained form since the sixties.
Kane not staying up top was surely just him following orders as he was doing it a lot against Denmark too.
As for penalties, has bringing players off the bench to take them ever worked?
Oh and Southgate is basically playing Sven ball, without Beckham. We will never win anything playing like this.
Our best chance has come and gone.
And we did just enough to lose on penalties. Again.
English fans mauling Italian fans at Wembley is pretty grim viewing.
What can I say? Between this and successfully predicting a players death, I am undisputed football champion (if you completely ignore the rest of my predictions.)
I'm a twit
Best possible start for England. Aside from the goal, the formation nullified Italy, save for Chiesa. Fair few chances to counter had someone played the right pass. This is where Mancini being a better manager kicked in.
He managed to get it fixed by about 30 mins. After the break when he made changes, Italy were completely dominant on the ball but Southgate left it to long to respond with changes of his own. Italy scoring got their tails up but even so, I don't recall them ever making a decent chance in the game. What they did do though is cut out the counter attacks. Quick fouls or blatantly pulling someone down by the collar, they all work well.
The England changes did help, but once it hit extra time the Italians looked more than happy for penalties and shut up shop. Once it hit penalties it was only really going one way. Pickford did really well to did out that Jorginho penalty, but that's way too much pressure to put on a 19 year old who has never taken a professional penalty before, never mind one that big.
Sir Brendan.
I'm a twit
It's disgusting and it's why we can't have nice things. Absolute worst of our society was on display all day yesterday and there are thousands of them.
We were a shit Rashford penalty from winning something playing like this.
Which is as close as we'll ever get. And we only got that close because we had the easiest draw in all of human history. You can't 'beat' enough good teams with good managers playing this way and we won't.
But your response is also why we'll never sack Sir Gareth now too.
I'm not sure we have the midfield stocks to play to tournament-wining level on the front foot.
Told you so yev out in force.
You've seen me post before, right? No chance this is 'out in force'.
Any talk of Southgate going is mental.
Just enjoy it then you miserable sod. I lean more towards Jimmy's we have a chance at the world cup rather than this is the best it's ever going to be. We've got some cracking young players who will have learnt a lot from this tournament.
Southgate is also still learning and I imagine this will have taught him alot.
"The easiest draw in all of human history" is complete and utter bollocks too. All this talk of Germany not being that they were ignores the fact they matched France and fisted Portugal before getting to us. Ukraine looked decent in their opener against Holland but admittedly was an easy game for that stage of a tournament but then we had Denmark who had playing out of their skins before that. I suspect we could have faced France followed by Spain and then Italy to get to the final and still been told it was easy if they all bottled it.
Any run England go on is by default the easiest until it isn't and we bottled it.
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