England matches discussion.

Some are blaming Argentina's dark arts, some are blaming the officials, some are blaming a FIFA conspiracy and some are blaming the 'German' manager. But who, apart from Kane and Bellingham has actually given us anything to believe the squad was good enough. OK Gordon has a had 3 assists and Saka a couple but neither has pulled up any trees. Players like O'Reilly, Rodgers, James, Rice, Saka, Manukahoney and Anderson either carrying injuries or illness or just downright average and don't start me on the defenders. Who here thought we played well enough throughout the tournament to really deserve a semi-final place. A good second half performance against Croatia and a backs to the wall defensive achievement in the Azteca doesn't cover up the cracks for me. We should have been out to Norway in all fairness and last nights shitshow was the cherry on the cake. Well, at least the embarrassment came in the semi and not in the final as it surely would.
As far as the bronze medal game is concerned.. they can stuff it, I've booked a meal out for me and the missus.
Roll on the new season.

 

Totally agree. I still feel upset, you can’t defend against a very good team for 35 minute total madness. After our goal he should have been shoring up the attack.

 

So why are we so poor? There is more money available at the elit level. We have that all singing and dancing training place down south somewhere. Questions need to be asked. As for FIFA, well the sooner every nation comes to their senses the better!

 

Worked a few times didn’t work once.

 

Views from a Polish female supporting England on my behalf - “referee wasn’t strong enough early on” / “the first half was increasingly horrible to watch because of Argentina’s tactics” / “Argentina had tried the short corner routine at least 3 or 4 times before the first goal, why wasn’t anybody wise to it and closing Messi down earlier before he had time to decide what to do”.

Maybe I’ve missed it but I’m Surprised the comment about the corner routine hasn’t been mentioned in media anywhere - Messi got the ball back and had plenty of time to decide whether to pass, cross from a better angle or run at a player - quite a basic miss from the entire England coaching team in my opinion.

 

There's footage of multiple games where they play that exact drill. Messi gets it short and waits for his marker to face him up, and because it's Messi, always a second player goes to him. Then when that second player goes, it's always Enzo who stays still and waits on the edge of the box for a hit. Every. Single. Time. They've ran the drill so many times, it should have been picked up by the coaches.

This video shows it perfectly. We have 1 on 1 marking with Spence on Messi and Anderson on Enzo. Every other man we have is in and around the 6 yard box set in shape for the cross. Anderson charging out to Messi ruins the plan of letting them cross it in and our bigger men head it out. He needed to stay where he was and force Messi or De Paul to cross it in. Even still, Pickford shouldnt be beaten in the middle of his goal from there. All i can think is he caught sight of it late, because he was so flat footed.

 

I said this earlier in the tournament. Messi is given far too much respect. Have teams, coaches, managers, players not learnt over the past 20+ years, you give him any space, he punishes you! That's how he got his hattrick in the Group stage, given two much time and space and was able to control the game.

Bitterly disappointed because I called the result to my mate as soon as Gordon scored, I said we will sit deep and try and play on the counter as they push for an equaliser. Low and behold Argentina had more quality than Mexico, Norway and Dr Congo and punished us in the way we deserved!

And I hate to say that as somebody who is about to spend 4 months in the Falklands at the end of September.

 

Exactly what my lad said
Defeatist management

 

Micah Richards brought it up about 4 times last night and said the same thing about the short corners and Rooney blamed the manager full stop.

 

This was 100% on Tuchel. I noticed it the second we scored. We fell at least 20 yards down the pitch. Kane was playing defensive Midfield. It's counter productive, I still say it when having everyone in the box. If you leave someone out of the box you have two advantages, 1 an out ball so it doesn't just come straight back, and 2 you have one of their team who now can't be in the box because they have to cover. This is not just a frustration with England but also with City. Bobby is about 5 ft 2. What is the point in him being in the box marking someone when he could be stood on half way occupying two men. Same for England, they retreated so deep Romero was playing as a utility Centre Forward as there were no need for him to be in defence. What's even more criminal is both their centre backs were on yellow cards. Get Watkins, Rashford or Saka on and run at them.

I'm still furious with how we handled the last 30min of the game last night, if we had kept attacking them we keep them honest, if we let one of the best footballers the world has ever seen have time and space it's no surprise you get punished.

 

To summarise. England played like Bradford, but with better players. Same tactics though and inevitably the same outcome. Bottling it at the final hurdle

 

Your statements certainly feel pretty political and I'm sure if we had any Argentinians on the board that they'd also agree.

 

not read all the comments on this but here's my 2p's worth. I've been broadly supportive of Tuchel during the tournament but that was entirely on him - he sh!t the bed to put it crudely.

It's one thing going backs to the wall everyone in defense for 10 minutes against Mexico. You can't use that tactic for 40 minutes against an Argentina side renowned for leaving it late and a never give up attitude.

We had zero outlet in attack, what's kane supposed to do surrounded by opposing players and no one anywhere nearby to relieve the pressure.

It's so frustrating as I think they were beatable.

All that said I don't think we could've beaten Spain even on a good day and I expect (and hope cos Argentina are 10 thugs + Messi) they will win on Sunday.

But what a missed chance by going so negative and trying to see out the slimmest of advantages when pushing on and getting a second could have sealed it for us.

It's never 'coming home' let's be honest (and banish that bl00dy song whilst we're at it - it is a millstone round our neck makes us so open to ridicule!)

 

god grief i came to this thread to get away from comments about the England game!!

Think I need to go football cold turkey for a few weeks!

 

They played like Bradford against Carlisle at VP. They were winning that game then TT said to a footballing genius "I'm giving you the park for 30 minutes just to see if you can do anything"

 

I don't think we do so badly when you compare population size with those we come up against, it's more just a boring and poor eye factor at play, as to us playing crap, England as a nation isn't massive, and Britain as a whole does excel at a number of sports. Places like Germany, Argentina and Brazil don't have the quality across the board we have in Cricket, rugby, and even now the Olympics. I also think our domestic game has been the best in the world, which can work against us, as there are probably far fewer English players playing at the elite level domestically than 60 years ago.

 

Semi-final hurdle