England matches discussion.

It's games like that that I'm glad I care nowhere near as much about England as City, didn't really care tbh. Tuchel is just another Southgate. England have been crap all tournament, other than a 30-minute spell against an aged Croatia. If it wasn't for a nice run of teams, it would have never been a semi-final appearance. I keep hearing how good this England era is because we've had 3 semi finals in 8 years, but Germany is the only big nation we've beaten in that time and had home advantage. The 'golden generation' would have loved to play teams like Norway, Denmark and Sweden to secure places in finals and semi-finals.

 

Yes mate it was tongue in cheek, I really didn't fancy us but was pleasantly surprised to see the way we tackled Argentina, and when Gordon scored I believed we could score another on the break, I thought we delt with the little guy very well then for some reason Tuchel thinks he's Alexander , once you offer a team like Argentina to have the ball and basically say break us down you walking a very dodgy road, Messi should never have been given that type of space, we go 2 - 1 down and then Tuchel slings on Rashford and Toney hoping we snatch one back.
Ah well looking forward to the coming season and getting down to the real business.

 

I always go into a tournament not caring, then somehow they reel me in, they do it every time. Our pundits don't help, most of the ex pro’s go totally over the top and make us sound way better than we are. The disappointment from last night for me was feeling like we surrendered the game. Oh well roll on August.

 

Last time I looked making political statements on here were also banned so I'll leave you to your faux outrage and hand wringing.

 

I thought he was more Hughes v Carlisle away

 

Tuchel like Southgate will have us competetive but will also lack the tactical nous and mentality to get us over the line when it really counts.

 

More positive managers would have won at least one major honour over the last 5 tournaments sadly for us we ended up with negative types

 

It's the mentality the managers decisions bring. When you see Konsa for Gordon in the 72nd minute, the entire team will naturally sit deeper because our teams only outlet is going off for a central defender. It got even worse when Burn & O'Reilly came on for James and Rice. You cant have 6 defenders on the field and expect your team to do anything other than invite pressure, Tuchel brought that mindset in when he made those changes. He needed to be braver.

We went 1-0 up, and from that goal until the Argies 2nd, we had 12% possesion..... 12!!! For some daft reason against the team who score more late goals than anyone, we thought 1-0 with 40+ mins to go was a good time to fold. Stupidity. When they went 1-0 down, the game was naturally going to open up, if anything he should have brought Saka or Madueke on and just told Gordon and the right winger to stay high for the counter but instead we went all 11 behind the ball, they pushed everyone up and we paid for it. I just wish we were braver.

 

Although that ref, i dont have a clue what he saw. Simeone committed 5 fouls in the first half hour, two for clearly just clipping the legs and didnt get any card or even a telling off... Anderson first tackle, yellow card. They swarmed the ref everytime there was a tackle they didn't like, which they are supposed to get carded for any nothing happened. Enzo forcefully shoving his forearm into Andersons neck, nothing. So many decisions were just really clueless.

But their winner, i have no idea how VAR didnt even check for a foul on Spence. They have overturned loads of decisions for far lesser contact than that. It seemed really weird to me that they didnt even check it.

 

He took Mainoo and he got zero minutes. Surely he's a perfectly good replacement for either or at least a better choice than versatile players like James and O' Reilly.

We knew Saka wasn't fit. We knew James was injury prone and we knew Stones wasn't even close to match sharpness yet we still took them all with a completely lopsided squad which is all 100% the managers decisions/fault.

 

You'd think if your going to try and hold onto a lead you would have a man to man on Messi the two goals coming from him where he had yards to deliver the cross and the cut back was shocking, giving possibly still even at his age the best creative player in the world room to weave his magic, suicide.

 

It was just like GA's approach on several occasions last year. Bring on loads of central defenders, no one knows who's marking who and someone gets a free header for the winner in stoppage time. A carbon copy of Reading away.

 

If we want to play like that why not give Hughes the job?

 

When you have 30 mins plus to play and hope to defend to see out the game with virtually no attacking outlet on the pitch then you deserve to get beat. Tuchel tactics cost us we got lucky against the mexicans and Norwegians because we did the defensive subs far later.

 

I expect these posts will be moved at some point or other, but yeah, I agree.

They've touted Tuchel's "phases of the game" philosophy like it's something revolutionary - but he just does the same basic crap low level managers do. "Oh, winning, quick, get 9 defenders on", then later "Oh, losing now, quick, get 5 strikers on".

It also kinda falls down when Tuchel does the exact same thing no matter who he's playing.

We've just watched Argentina rattle teams late, late on in game after game, so Tuchel invites them on because it worked against Norway?

Yeah, nah. That was paint-by-numbers crap, and ultimately, we deserved to go out.

 

My thoughts entirely, invite pressure and inevitably concede, just because you sometimes get away with it doesn't make it a logical move.
The best place for the ball is in the opposition half, it's not rocket science.

 

It may be an old and outdated true saying
But
ATTACK IS THE BEST FORM OF DEFENCE

 

No

its about mentality if we hadn’t scored we would have continued going toe to toe with them. Instead we gave up competing and paid the price and the way we played made the result inevitable