2024 Euros

wanderlust wrote:I thought it wasn't a penalty but as someone put it "Maradona's was handball, Beckham's was never a sending off and Campbell's goal should have counted in '04 so we'll take it."

Not much point having VAR then is there?

VAR was intended to stop the bad decisions not ADD to them!

It shouldn't have been a penalty, in the same way that VAR has contrived utterly ridiculous decisions as I've listed in my post above.

We do however live in the VAR world now - so it is what it is.

I guess we will all happily just accept when its VAR's turn to rule against us, (when in the 'real' world of football it again contrives to make another ridiculous decision) - but somehow I doubt we all will.

Anyway it's coming home and we've got Southgate football for the next four years!


(God help us!).

The Tories must be dreading England winning it.
Posing outside Downing Street with the PM. Nationwide parties.
'England wins under Labour'.
'It's Starmer wot won it'.

Not coming home then...

I think we all should sue Gareth Southgate and the England team for emotional distress!

I’m just going to say that we first need to consider a realistic replacement (Klopp please) before we want Southgate gone. He took us as far as realistically possible again and we ran into a far better team in the final. I don’t blame him for that.

terenceanne wrote:I am not jumping on the get rid of Southgate bandwagon - I have said for years he is useless going all the way back to his Boro days.  Way Back then I said England would never win anything with him in charge. Although he has come close recently.  Now most are on board to get rid. The problem is that he has always been a defensive type of coach and of course picks his favorites whether in form of out of form. Right now, we have Luke Shaw, Trent - before that Mcguire - And not to mention this rubbish about Kalvin Phillips - Players who have barely kicked a ball for their clubs.

Nowt changes - players worked hard but Spain were the better team in the end.  Not to moan but Good ol Gareth strikes again. Not just this game but for the last year or so. Win, lose or draw, pick the same 11.
Foden continues to show he's not international class - Mainoo not ready - Shaw not kicked a ball since February........could go on........all good players for their clubs.
The pundits will have their own opinions once the pain passes. I think Southgate will pack it in.

I'm not a Southgate fan.

Did he do well to getting us to final?

Well consider this...

To qualify we played -

Italy
Ukraine
Malta
North Macedonia

We topped the group but drew with both Ukraine and Malta away.

Italy and Ukraine made the finals - Ukraine finished bottom of their group and Italy went out in the last 16 stage.

Our group in Germany contained -

Denmark - drew
Slovenia - drew
Serbia - won

Last 16

Slovakia - won (in extra time) (Kane scored equaliser in the 96th minute!)

Last 8

Switzerland - won (penalties)

Last 4

Netherland - won (Watkins goal 90th minute)



If you look at who we had to play to get to the final from the very first prequalifying game we started off from - then I suggest it may be the EASIEST route that ANY national team have had the good fortune to receive in modern footballing history for either the World Cup or the Euros.

Italy are not the team they once where and the Netherlands possibly the strongest team we had to face and even they aren't the power they used to be (they finished THIRD in their group and only got into the last 16 as one of the best four third team finishers!)

If you chuck in the fact that we drew away against Malta and needed the last kick of the ball to draw against Slovakia, instead of going out of the competition, then I strongly suggest that Southgate had the EASIEST EVER route any manager could ever had to get to a major international final AND was extremely lucky not to have gone out of the competition to Slovakia.

I suggest that any competent, experience manager of an international side (and I don't mean mickey mouse teams such as the Cook Islands or the Faroe Islands for instance) would have all (with the squad we have) got to the final too!


I don't know if you watched the match but we all KNEW Spain's threat was down the wings so what did Southgate do - he played Saka as a wingback.

Saka is a fantastic attacking footballer.

However both of Spain's goals were made from from a completely unmarked player running down the flank (with Walker having picked up the second runner on the first goal and just failing to get across from his centre back position to stop the free man that Saka should have been covering) where a 'proper' wingback should have been both times but sadly where Saka was not.

I can't blame Saka for not being where he should (it isn't his defending that he's in the team for) but if even I can spot the blindingly obvious flaw in our defensive set up, then what does it say about Southgate when we ALL KNEW to be aware and well drilled for the primary danger and goal threat of Spain???

Southgate might get the plaudits and even a knighthood but he really isn't the best manager we could have had.

Fwiw I wouldn't go for Klopp either - there's a massive difference between being a day to day manager at a club and manager who only has his players at odd times over a season for a dozen days at a time - and gel them into a team.

Klopp might well be able to do it but I suspect he is more suited to the day to day club manager/around players all the time stuff.

Southgate and the winning Spanish manager both came through as their national Under 23 managers (or whatever they now are) and have bonded and know their players intimately from coaching them from their early school boy days right through to them becoming capped for their country - they trust their players from years of working with them and the players know and trust them and their methods.

This trait is also picked up in some of the other teams we have just watched such as Switzerland and Georgia, where everyone knows everyone and plays for each other and the manager.

With the players we had, we really did have an easy draw right the way through to the final.

Would we have won the final under another manager - well who knows but I very much doubt they would have left our right flank open by selecting Saka to play there.

That really was the fatal, school boy, error that cost us the game.

I don’t think anyone can deny we had the least difficult route in this competition nor that we made exceedingly hard work of it but let’s be honest, Spain were head and shoulders better than any other team in the competition yet to be fair they only just beat us. For me Southgate is arguably the most decent, honest and patriotic manager we’ve probably ever had and whilst he certainly does have weaknesses he also has strengths. When he first came in we were a shambles and the first thing he did was ditch the cartel players from the United, Liverpools and Arsenals who clearly carried club loyalties into the England set up and brought in an array of young talent, often from less fashionable clubs and garnered a huge amount of respect from them. I personally don’t want to go back to the BIG clubs taking over the England squad and I feel a top league manager would do that. 

They say you learn most from your mistakes and knock backs so despite all the criticism of him I wouldn’t be disappointed to see him continue into the World Cup. I accept that will be a minority view but my big problem is who will replace him because frankly I can’t see an obvious and clearly better alternative at this moment. I’d love Big Sam back but I accept that’s a complete non starter but being an International manager is hugely different to club level. It might be interesting to note that Spains manager is a 61 year old nobody in the scale of things yet has done an incredible job. Of course it has to be said that he has has some prodigious talent to work with but he still has to set them up and blend a team out of it. I suspect Southgate will go but using the old “be careful what you wish for” saying I’d personally stick with the devil I know for now and hope yesterday makes him think? 🫣

Southgate seems like a decent bloke but he's taken them as far as he can for me. No disgrace in getting to 2 major finals but his mentality is all wrong. 

Last night was a prime example, he made good subs at the right time and we scored. Instead of using that momentum and going for the winner we went back in our shell again and it cost us.

Not sure who would replace him though? No one English jumps out at me so do we go for a foreign manager again? I would love it to be Klopp but it won't happen.

Whitesince63 wrote:...the first thing he did was ditch the cartel players from the United, Liverpools and Arsenals who clearly carried club loyalties into the England set up and brought in an array of young talent, often from less fashionable clubs and garnered a huge amount of respect from them. I personally don’t want to go back to the BIG clubs taking over the England squad and I feel a top league manager would do that. 

This has always been to me just complete bollocks - let me explain.

Yes I don't doubt that players from the same teams stayed in their own groups - that's only natural - I'm not disputing that such things happen - it's the next bit that is bollocks.

Think about it, any manager would pick the best players available to him no matter what club team they play for - yes?

If you are taking over the national team and your goal is to win the Euro or World Cup in two years time, you are bound to end the international careers of England stalwarts who simply will be too old to be competitive at international level then and bring in prospects who hopefully will.

These new bloods will mostly not be in the BIG clubs first teams at the time, they will likely be in the Everton's (Pickford), Crystal Palace's (Guehi) or Brentford (Toney) type clubs.  You will of course have some from the BIG clubs loaned out to smaller clubs for playing time they would not get at the time from their own clubs.

I would contended that whoever is the new England manager had been, it would only have been natural to pick the best ENGLISH players he could, that fits with his task of being the best team he could put out to win the next major competition we play in our next 'two year cycle'.

I emphasise ENGLISH because of course we can only pick players elidable to play for England and if at the time they aren't considered good enough for the BIG clubs that have world stars playing in their first teams - Salah (Egypt) Van Dijk (Ned) Alisson (Brazil), Rodri (Spain), Ederson (Brazil), Haaland (Norway), Doku, (Belgium) and so on - then obviously they won't be in the BIG club cliques in the England team at the time - will they?

It wouldn't surprise me that some of the players we've just seen at the Euros do indeed end up at the BIG clubs - Eze, Toney and even Wharton (who never even got on the pitch) all have BIG clubs sniffing around after them.

Maybe in a few years time as the team grows older club 'cliques' may once again appear (because the Eze, Toney, and Wharton's have now been signed by the BIG clubs and joined the Foden, Mainoo and Saka's who are already there) but even that I would suggest is unlikely as these group of players would have already 'bonded' away from BIG club influences.

I therefore suggest Southgate simply didn't 'break' the BIG club cliques as he seems to be widely praised for but that it really was that the new generation of England talent simply had not been trawled up at the ages of 8 and 9 year olds by the BIG clubs and simply developed and are current first teamers in the Crystal Palace's of the world - waiting perhaps to be signed at some point in the next season or two by the BIG clubs IF they can't find a better 'world' player to sign instead.

I'm giving up for good if they so much as interview Lampard or Gerrard for the role. I can't believe their names are even being mentioned by the bookies.

Does Eddie Howe not fit the bill?

Now Southgate has resigned I believe the FA needs to take its time and carefully think about who to pick next. Given the near certainty the manager will be English I have a slightly left field suggestion. Personally I'd take a really good look at Graham Potter.