England v Denmark

Outstanding to be in a final. What an occasion it'll be.

Sadly, I can't see us having enough to beat Italy though

 

It'll be a tough game for sure and Italy will rightly be favourites but we'll have the Wembley crowd so if we perform to our maximum and don't make any sloppy mistakes we've certainly got enough to score goals.

 

Italy are a good side but they were fortunate against Spain if we keep it tight we can score goals against them

 

Hopefully, a proper home advantage might just swing it our way. And there's talk of the crowd limit being upped from 60k to 90k - I bloody hope so!

 

I'd rather be facing Italy than Spain. We'd struggle to get any of the ball against Spain.

 

I agree.I think the crowd will play an even bigger part than normal.Southgate and Kane both said after the Germany game how loud the 45000 sounded.And that was just the quarters.
We’ve had no proper live footy for 18 months.
This is the final with another 20000 added to that.
There was a mixture of a bit of poor finishing and decent saves last night.
Can’t miss those good chances against the Italians as there won’t be as many created as last night.
Tight tight game with not much between them.
Italy obviously slight favourites but England won’t fear them.

 

We’re the bookies favourites although it doesn’t feel like it to me, I don’t particularly rate Southgate but in international football it is more about the players at your disposal and I think we have the better attacking options. He went with 7 defensive minded players against Germany I hope he just sticks with the 6 as he has the rest of the tournament and doesn’t go over board and play 8.

 

It's not really 7 defensive minded players though, is it? When we play with wing backs they spend as much, if not more time in the opposition half than our own. Shaw has been one of our biggest attacking threats and goal providers and when he plays as wing back rather than fullback it gives him even more licence to attack. Against teams that have good wingbacks, like Germany, that keeps them occupied defensively rather than threatening our flanks.
Having said that, Italy generally play 433 so I can't see Southgate going with a back three. I think it'll be 4231 as yesterday.

 

Yes it is and obviously the pundits agree as they’ve pointed it out all tournament.

 

As good as chiellini and bonnucci are can they legally handle the pace of sterling?

 

He’s been player of the tournament for me, and has carried us at times. I didn’t used to be his biggest fan but we wouldn’t be in the final without him not a chance. Think they’ll struggle if we play balls in behind just don’t try take them head on.

 

Did you watch the Germany game? Our wingbacks were forcing their German equivalents back into their own half for large parts of the game. Rice and Phillips also pressed their central midfielders into their own half a lot.
I think it's too simplistic to view the back 3 plus wingbacks as simply 'defence-minded'. It's a strategy that allows us to keep more possession of the ball, wear down opponents and nullify their attacking wingbacks by making them defend against ours. And it also allows us to press up knowing that we have Walker's pace in a more central position to counter any opposition breakaway attacks.

 

So fullbacks aren’t defenders good to know, better tell the pros. All modern full backs get forward it doesn’t stop them being defensive, by your logic we’ll be 2 at the back next game…

 

Anyone found out who the ref will be for the Final,

Luhoz(spain), Kuipers(dutch)?

 

Darren Drysdale...?

 

Hopefully it’ll be that German Dr Felix he’s been the best ref by far, wasn’t that Spanish ref the one people were calling Spanish Mike Dean? If so he was appalling no thanks.

 

That German ref we had was a decent one...contrary to what most of us thought beforehand he was very fair and kept the game running well.

 

I did follow my post up with this comment :

https://bantamtalk.com/index.php?threads/england-v-ukraine.5194/page-2#post-520671