Absolutely delighted that Scotland are out. Real spring in my step.
Too many groups
All those shit teams
England
VAR
Taz's predictions
Nothing. International tournaments are the best.
Absolutely delighted that Scotland are out. Real spring in my step.
The hate the English have for the Scots is what Giggles thinks/wishes we had for the Irish.
Scotland's alreet. They did well to make it here but they're clearly just barely better than the Irish at the minute. Actually, I'll give them more credit. The Irish are royally knackered.
Luka Modric with the best finish since Braveheart there.
Ireland are about to have the same barren 20 years Scotland have suffered. Zero talent. At least the Jocks have some quality.Originally Posted by Shindig
England, on the other hand, are the dreariest team in existence. Southgate probably think it's been a triumph.
Yeah, there definitely seems a proper drain on talent in Ireland. And they've picked some truly ghastly managers.
The rest of the British Isles do seem to go from 0 to whatever the mph equivalent of a group stage elimination is in tandem. At least we're consistently beige.
Two goals in a group full of 'tired good' at best.
It's just absolute dog shit.
If we're still 5th in James' ranking I'm going to lose my shit.
I would actually put that group forward as one of the worst ever at a major tournament. England scored two goals and created zero excitement for their seven points. Czech Republic looked bang average. Croatia are old, tired and will go out in their next match. Scotland are a perennially atrocious side only notable because their fans are all alcoholics. It was just six games of utter shite.
I suppose it had the Schick goal, but even that was down to the Scotland goalkeeper being a totally incompetent clown.
Looks like about the 5th best goal difference in the tournament.
Southgate is clearly just trying to Mourinho-ball the tournament because he thinks that sort of thing wins it. I don't like it either fwiw and it obviously makes him look awful if/when it goes wrong.
Main takeaway from tonight is do ITV have some SAP style alternative minority coverage for their games? If not, why do they have an entire alternate presenting crew pitchside to throw over to for a 3 minute segment post-game?
"Don't get me wrong, Mason Mount is the first name on the teamsheet if . . ."
Yeah, thanks Andros, maybe we don't need any more pearls from you.
Grealish has to start the next game. Saka give or take, although he does a prodigious amount of work off the ball/in defence so that's a feather in his Southgate cap. Can he not go back to playing leftback as Fatty Shaw is bilge? Thought Henderson was much better with the ball than Rice (christ, what an indictment that is) but maybe that's not what England are going to need going forward.
Talk of a back 5 for the next game? Managing to shit their way through the tournament with a series of dour 1-0s would be very ballsy.
Scotland are a good side and will be back, I think. Players hitting their primes and a couple of the problem positions look like they're on their way to being solved. Apart from the England game their games were pretty entertaining as well. Much more enjoyable being a Scotland fan than an England fan this past 10 days anyway lol.
Also, 5pm next Tuesday for the last 16 match? Get fucked with that.
If only shitting your way to 1-0 victories over bang average teams translated to shitting your way to 1-0 victories over good ones.
Toggle Spoiler
I can't work out who it's going to be. A France win over Portugal will give them an oh so exciting tie vs Switzerland. Would they rather that than England?
England v Switzerland is what the tournament needs to properly kill it off.
May I direct you to Portugal 2016 and France 2018.
Have we really looked under threat from the matches? I guess that's encouraging?
France beat every other good team in 2018.
We've been through this before. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in England's performances so far that puts them on a par with a Portugal team that actually did it through an entire tournament.
As for France, you mean the France that scored 14 goals?
Yeah England's attack looks absolute dogshit. As I said I'm not really a fan of it. Might work though.
Under threat? The teams we've faced so far had no threat. None whatsoever.
Look, I don't expect us to win this and I know we won't. We're an average to good group of players with a manager who gets more out of his depth with every passing day, but in the absence of being a contender I'd at least like some enjoyment from watching my national team. I don't think that's too much to ask for given the calibre of league we have and there just isn't any. It's utterly unacceptable.
2-1 v Australia
1-0 v Peru
0-0 v Denmark
4-3 v Argentina
2-0 v Uruguay
1-0 v Belgium
4-2 v Croatia
I'm a big believer in the winning teams growing into tournaments. The Argentina game was daft, I recall the Belgium one being a little bland and then they smashed the final. These things don't really start until the knockouts.
Watching England's not meant to be enjoyable if you're English. It's like me saying I enjoy watching Newcastle.
Last edited by Shindig; 22-06-2021 at 10:34 PM.
Portugal weren't stoic and workmanlike in the groups in 2016, were they?
Have England hit the post in the first 10 minutes of all their games so far? Given how things usually go for them after early goals I can't work out if that's a good thing or not.
Why are you directing me to France 2018 then? Do you think one of our players is going to turn into Mbappe?
No but in the absence of Mbappe I think not conceding is a decent start. There's enough talent there to hope for a goal from nothing when needed, that's basically what France do too.
England's group stage here is no way worse than France's in 2018 is my point really.
I must be mistaken, for a minute there I thought you'd mapped out a World Cup winning team's (and best group of players in the world) results to suggest that England could be on course to do likewise.
And you didn't enjoy watching Newcastle under Keegan?
Yev really building himself up for a TOLD YOU SO rant this time next week. Why bother lad.
Which is insane when you consider the players France have vs. the ones we do.
I've already won the I told you so rant. I told you all we'd be shit and not to get our hopes up and oh, look, we've been shit.
Exactly the same happened in 2018 when people were claiming it was alright to throw games as it gives us an 'easy' route. It wasn't and we couldn't even beat Croatia.
I'd love to be wrong, but either way, the delusion England fans have is absolutely astounding.
As an England fan, I'm holding out hope that we will play more expansively in the knockouts. I doubt this will happen, as Italy and Holland to name two (with comparable squads to us) have played well already. If we had a dogshit squad then I could understand playing like this. However, we don't have a dogshit squad, especially up front (our strength), so Southgate is actively choosing to make us boring and bad, for which he needs the sack.
England are shit because Southgate is shit, but what manager at this tournament is getting a club job of any note whatsoever? It looks like it's going to kick-start Mancini's career and it's no coincidence Italy are the only side Yev would approve of. The problem is applying club football standards to international football.
Nah. Not in the moment. The stakes became so much higher. I went from being pleasantly surprised to the cold fear of them blowing a once in a lifetime chance. Now I can watch that stuff with glee but not back then.
We aren't going to be more expansive in any other way than maybe having the opposition coming onto us and leaving space . . .
Have I heard or thought this before?
Does this round of death tie leave us with a better looking quarter final or do we then play the winner or Belgium versus Brazil 1970?
I had a look just then and it looks like Italy on course to play Belgium in the quarters, we would play winner E or Ukraine/Czech.
I probably approve of over half the teams in the tournament. I don't approve of us playing like this. It's just not acceptable. If I thought there was any chance we were just getting into our stride then I'd cool it, but we're not and the signs were so obvious from the first game alone. "Leave Harry Kane and the setup alone, it's only one game" were the accusations IIRC. Well it's three now and we have one of the best strikers in the world who could be replaced with me for all the difference it would make.
Is that in Baku?
Sporting integrity FTW!
Harry Kane's turn for that first half chance was worrying. Yes, he makes the turn and gets the shot away, but it was all so slow. First the upper body goes, then the hips, then the feet, and you've lost that split second. It was how Lampard used to turn in his 30s.
No, the Holland shitfest bracket is the one heading to Baku. Italy v Belgium would be in Munich, because why wouldn't it be. Our QF would be in Rome and then back to Wembley (not 'London', ffs).Is that in Baku?
Sporting integrity FTW!
Over half? How many are going to be in the knockout stages? Wales, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Croatia, Czech, Spain, Sweden, Slovakia, France and probably Germany are all varying degrees of awful to watch. Netherlands looked alright in the joke group.
That's just prime vintage Harry Kane, I wouldn't critique him based off his lack of agility. No one knows how he does it but by God is it effective, if not graceful.
I just hope no upset happens and England do come crashing on Tuesday so I can soak up the scenes properly as I'll be in Wales for the quarters.
You're including a team who've scored 7 goals in their games and two teams who scored 4 in one game (as well as a handful of others who have little choice other than to play that way) as 'awful to watch'. Would you say anything to justify England's performances? At this stage I fear so.
And to respond to the Netherlands edit, our group was a joke as well. How can you not see that?
With the exception of France and Spain those teams are still getting the best out of what they have. We aren't.
That Denmark game yesterday was one of the best in a very long time but remove the context (home game against a side desperately chasing qualification from a losing position against the backdrop of your star player nearly dying) and it's not remotely predictive of their next game. They do have way less attacking talent than England tbf so you can't blame them.
I've said plenty on England. They've done the job fairly comfortably. I was watching the interesting game tonight so I haven't had the same exposure tbf.
I hope one day Yev can enjoy watching England and have some BELIEF and PASSION and wait for the appropriate time to burn his Luke Shaw England shirt.
It's been nice to have some tournament games where we didn't turn even games against the shit into exercises in unbearable tension but it is a very weak group and for all that we've had a few bursts of decent player usually nearer the start of games there's not much to suggest we won't just go out to the first half decent team we face as per.
Strong England, Great Tactics
Strong England, Great Tactics
Strong England, Great Tactics
Strong England, Great Ta-a-ctics.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
