England v Italy

In whose place?

 

Mate, Henderson is a leader and has more to his game then both Phillips and Rice. We didn’t need to play two defensive midfielders.

Look, massive game in which we needed to attack you start with players that can handle the big matches players that play for Liverpool & Utd etc.

Southgate messed up and we won’t get anywhere under him until he understands attack is the best policy of England.

 

What? Are you actually being serious?

Firstly, Luke Shaw was probably our player of the tournament.

Secondly Henderson has been out injured and clearly wasn't fully fit. Add to that Phillips and Rice were ticking along nicely and building a decent understanding.

Thirdly, Rashford has also been injured, had a massive loss of form and is rightly no where near the starting 11. Perhaps he's been distracted by his admirable charity work but there's definitely been a drop in performance levels to the point where he's probably now 3rd or 4th choice for the left forward slot.

 

Before the match I favoured Henderson to start but Rice along with Philips was outstanding. Bringing on players with seconds to go to take penalties was another mistake. Henderson is a regular penalty taker and experience is needed in pressurised situations. Having said that the Italian keeper is a man mountain.As for the game itself after the first twenty minutes or so we gradually played deeper and deeper and once that sets in it is very difficult to turn round. But this was a very young Squad and difficult as it is to take at the moment the future is bright

 

Shaw was 100% our player of the tournament. Sterling did well too, but he should've stepped up to take a pen rather that leave it to a kid.

My biggest issue with his selection last night was the change back to 5 in defence, and the lack of pace up top. Sancho or Saka should have started.

 

I thought we were far too deep. In a way, the early goal worked against us. We never looked like threatening their centre backs, Kane was completely isolated.

 

I thought Rice was the better of the two CDMs all tournament except against Croatia, yet every time it was him who made way and our performances declined when he went off. As for the penalties if the players got to choose the Grealish and Sterling need to have a look at themselves and say why they let a kid who’s never taken a senior penalty and two subs who hadn’t touched the ball go before them. And they’re supposed to be leaders, not leadership behaviour in the slightest. It felt like men v boys in that shootout and one stage it zoomed in on the Italy team and they were smiling and laughing then it zoomed in to Shaw who had sweat dripping off him and looked like he was about to shit himself. Chiellini did a pre match interview and said losing in the final is failure, our lot were just grateful to be there and that includes the managers.

 

Just seen Grealishes tweet, he wanted to take one but manager decided on what he saw in training, entirely on the manager then.

 

Terrible management.

 

I share the frustration, but you could easily make a case if we’d been more open and ‘all out attack’, Italy could have been out of sight come full time. That could have suited them even more. I think sometimes we have to accept the opposition’s ability, yes we could have done some things differently, but there’s no guarantee we’d have got a different outcome.

 

Wouldn't have needed to be all out attack, just a touch more dynamic, and minded towards exposing their lack of pace at the back.

 

All is not lost, we are bound to win the Golden Knee Award...

 

i get it, we started very well, and you wanted us to kick on a bit, the first half was where we were on top and needed to get a second. Sterling showed he could cause them problems going at them but with him and Kane the service dried up, too many misplaced passes, but we can often struggle a bit imo when we are pressed quickly and give it away cheaply. Any amount of pace won’t patch over how sometimes we give it away too easily. Kane also was very quiet, maybe they kept him on with pens in mind. Maybe at Qatar we’ll get to see more of Grealish, Sancho etc, they have some time between now and then to get more club experience, same with Saka who for his age, I’ve been very impressed with. They all did well though, plenty of reasons to be optimistic, though I’ll admit I am as gutted as anyone else that we couldn’t quite take what was a great opportunity, albeit it was against a very good team.

 

Fully Agree
Rice along with Shaw were definitely our men of the match
Not easy for Sancho/ Rashford to come into a pressure cooker atmosphere and be expected to score a penalty with virtually their 1st kick of the match and under no circumstances should sakho been anywhere near taking a penalty that miss could seriously hamper an outstanding career prospect
I blame Southgate and some of his senior professionals Henderson should have stayed on the pitch to take one Sterling (our tournament leading scorer) should have been told to take one and Shaw has scored penalties in big games before
Scoring penalties in training bears no resemblance to taking one of that magnitude The so called senior pros should have been on at Southgate to take them not left to young kids undoubtedly talented but not experienced enough for that kind of pressure

 

Can’t blame the senior players, Southgate decided the players who would take a penalty. Confirmed by Grealish, terrible idea imo as it should be who wants to take one as no point someone being great at them in training then a complete wreck when push comes to shove.

 

I think Captain Kane would have had some input at some point whether Southgate took any notice is another point
In my opinion Grealish Henderson and Shaw would have been the part of the first five but strangely enough Maguire who took the best penalty of the night wouldn't it's all about the opinions
Hopefully we will give the likes of Sakha Sancho Grealish and Calvert Lewin more responsibility at the world cup
Certainly more than adequate in their positions