England - the future....

[Sutekh]

Well done Channel 4. Nice to see football on a different channel other than the useless ITV and the government's propaganda machine. Hope your pundits are up to the mark.

Haven’t the majority of England games been on C4 recently?

Also, government propaganda machine? got enough tin foil for the rest of us?

Just fyi, Sutekh is an absolute f/cking moron.

Thankyou fans

[WestYorksRoyal]

Crikey people like to overreact to a bad England performance. It was a tricky game, we were way below our best, we still didn't lose. Move on. It's very rare for any team to have a 100% record in qualifying.

Henderson can't continue though. The opening goal was in the space he should be covering, and he will obviously lose an edge now he's not training with and competing against top quality players.

[Franchise FC]

Crikey people like to overreact to a bad England performance. It was a tricky game, we were way below our best, we still didn't lose. Move on. It's very rare for any team to have a 100% record in qualifying.

Henderson can't continue though. The opening goal was in the space he should be covering, and he will obviously lose an edge now he's not training with and competing against top quality players.

I don’t think Henderson should be in the team, but quite how someone that played in a position on the right centre of the midfield could be accused of not covering that opening goal is officially escapegoating

If anyone, it was Rice that lost his position

[South Coast Royal]

Crikey people like to overreact to a bad England performance. It was a tricky game, we were way below our best, we still didn't lose. Move on. It's very rare for any team to have a 100% record in qualifying.

Henderson can't continue though. The opening goal was in the space he should be covering, and he will obviously lose an edge now he's not training with and competing against top quality players.

I don’t think Henderson should be in the team, but quite how someone that played in a position on the right centre of the midfield could be accused of not covering that opening goal is officially escapegoating

If anyone, it was Rice that lost his position

It certainly was Rice who should have dealt with it.
Henderson seems to be the scapegoat when in fact so many of our much vaunted players failed to perform.

Prior to the game so many pundits had been building our players up all over again as being world class, Bellingham can walk on water, Saka is wonderful etc. and Dion Dublin on commentary showed why he should stick to dealing with auctioned properties.

What I always feel about England is that some of the players look better than they are because playing for Real Madrid, City or Liverpool they are surrounded by players and are in teams that are better than England.

Southgate is no doubt defensively minded and so often restricts 2 midfielders to more defensive roles but I have some sympathy with him.
Whatever back 4 we put out is never that strong:-

Walker-terrible at keeping his position (as per Pep he is defensively often unaware) and it is only his pace that gets him out of trouble most of the time.
Chilwell/Shaw both ok going forward but defensively weak
Maguire-can't even get in Man Utd's team unless at least 3 other centre-backs are injured
Stones-very good on the ball (that's why Pep has introduced a new role for him as Klopp has done with TAA) but never the strongest in the air nor defensively in general.

It seems as though Southgate knows all of this and continues to set teams up the way he does and people will argue that in doing so we have reached the latter stages of tournaments ,so it is successful.
What is needed to go that final step?

A bit of luck perhaps whereby the best opposition gets knocked out.?
A more adventurous style that could mean that we don't even make the later stages but if we do we might actually win?
Have even more tournaments in England as we are better at home?

IMHO it rests more with us producing better defenders who don't need to be propped up by the midfield but unfortunately the best defenders in our domestic game currently are not English.
We have never in this country regarded defending as an art (unlike for example Italy) and until we do and encourage young players in that art we may continue to just produce loads of decent midfielders and attackers because the attacking side of the game is much more glamorous and it is where the money is as well.

One last thought is that we won in 1966 amongst other things because Brazil were physically kicked out of the tournament (the luck mentioned above) and we were playing at home (as mentioned above).
In 1996 and more recently we came close when playing at home so maybe we need to wait until the next tournament when we play all of our games at Wembley and by then we might have a good enough back four to give us a real chance of winning.
Until then.................................

[WestYorksRoyal]

Crikey people like to overreact to a bad England performance. It was a tricky game, we were way below our best, we still didn't lose. Move on. It's very rare for any team to have a 100% record in qualifying.

Henderson can't continue though. The opening goal was in the space he should be covering, and he will obviously lose an edge now he's not training with and competing against top quality players.

I don’t think Henderson should be in the team, but quite how someone that played in a position on the right centre of the midfield could be accused of not covering that opening goal is officially escapegoating

If anyone, it was Rice that lost his position

It certainly was Rice who should have dealt with it.
Henderson seems to be the scapegoat when in fact so many of our much vaunted players failed to perform.

Prior to the game so many pundits had been building our players up all over again as being world class, Bellingham can walk on water, Saka is wonderful etc. and Dion Dublin on commentary showed why he should stick to dealing with auctioned properties.

What I always feel about England is that some of the players look better than they are because playing for Real Madrid, City or Liverpool they are surrounded by players and are in teams that are better than England.

Southgate is no doubt defensively minded and so often restricts 2 midfielders to more defensive roles but I have some sympathy with him.
Whatever back 4 we put out is never that strong:-

Walker-terrible at keeping his position (as per Pep he is defensively often unaware) and it is only his pace that gets him out of trouble most of the time.
Chilwell/Shaw both ok going forward but defensively weak
Maguire-can't even get in Man Utd's team unless at least 3 other centre-backs are injured
Stones-very good on the ball (that's why Pep has introduced a new role for him as Klopp has done with TAA) but never the strongest in the air nor defensively in general.

It seems as though Southgate knows all of this and continues to set teams up the way he does and people will argue that in doing so we have reached the latter stages of tournaments ,so it is successful.
What is needed to go that final step?

A bit of luck perhaps whereby the best opposition gets knocked out.?
A more adventurous style that could mean that we don't even make the later stages but if we do we might actually win?
Have even more tournaments in England as we are better at home?

IMHO it rests more with us producing better defenders who don't need to be propped up by the midfield but unfortunately the best defenders in our domestic game currently are not English.
We have never in this country regarded defending as an art (unlike for example Italy) and until we do and encourage young players in that art we may continue to just produce loads of decent midfielders and attackers because the attacking side of the game is much more glamorous and it is where the money is as well.

One last thought is that we won in 1966 amongst other things because Brazil were physically kicked out of the tournament (the luck mentioned above) and we were playing at home (as mentioned above).
In 1996 and more recently we came close when playing at home so maybe we need to wait until the next tournament when we play all of our games at Wembley and by then we might have a good enough back four to give us a real chance of winning.
Until then.................................

I have little sympathy for the "players aren't good enough argument". In international football where you can't simply dip into the transfer market, teams that are world class throughout are exceptionally rare. The vast majority of tournament winners manage limitations. 2010 - 2018 or so we were well short so fair enough as an excuse, but most of the time since 96 we've had enough talent to put us there or there abouts. It's fine margins at the top and Southgate is the only one to have got us close (a couple of penalty kicks).

Walker is a world class right back - players who take him on are made to look foolish. None of our other defenders are in that bracket, hence Southgate plays 2 DMs which I agree with. But there is still enough attacking talent to make an impact and get a goal if we keep it tight. And Maguire at least should at least be dropped when Stones is back.

We'll never take the handbrake off under Southgate whether you agree with that or not, but we lacked fluency in the attacking players we had last night. We definitely have more in our locker, but I'm not going to overreact to one flat game.

[URZZZZ]

Crikey people like to overreact to a bad England performance. It was a tricky game, we were way below our best, we still didn't lose. Move on. It's very rare for any team to have a 100% record in qualifying.

Henderson can't continue though. The opening goal was in the space he should be covering, and he will obviously lose an edge now he's not training with and competing against top quality players.

I don’t think Henderson should be in the team, but quite how someone that played in a position on the right centre of the midfield could be accused of not covering that opening goal is officially escapegoating

If anyone, it was Rice that lost his position

It certainly was Rice who should have dealt with it.
Henderson seems to be the scapegoat when in fact so many of our much vaunted players failed to perform.

Prior to the game so many pundits had been building our players up all over again as being world class, Bellingham can walk on water, Saka is wonderful etc. and Dion Dublin on commentary showed why he should stick to dealing with auctioned properties.

What I always feel about England is that some of the players look better than they are because playing for Real Madrid, City or Liverpool they are surrounded by players and are in teams that are better than England.

Southgate is no doubt defensively minded and so often restricts 2 midfielders to more defensive roles but I have some sympathy with him.
Whatever back 4 we put out is never that strong:-

Walker-terrible at keeping his position (as per Pep he is defensively often unaware) and it is only his pace that gets him out of trouble most of the time.
Chilwell/Shaw both ok going forward but defensively weak
Maguire-can't even get in Man Utd's team unless at least 3 other centre-backs are injured
Stones-very good on the ball (that's why Pep has introduced a new role for him as Klopp has done with TAA) but never the strongest in the air nor defensively in general.

It seems as though Southgate knows all of this and continues to set teams up the way he does and people will argue that in doing so we have reached the latter stages of tournaments ,so it is successful.
What is needed to go that final step?

A bit of luck perhaps whereby the best opposition gets knocked out.?
A more adventurous style that could mean that we don't even make the later stages but if we do we might actually win?
Have even more tournaments in England as we are better at home?

IMHO it rests more with us producing better defenders who don't need to be propped up by the midfield but unfortunately the best defenders in our domestic game currently are not English.
We have never in this country regarded defending as an art (unlike for example Italy) and until we do and encourage young players in that art we may continue to just produce loads of decent midfielders and attackers because the attacking side of the game is much more glamorous and it is where the money is as well.

One last thought is that we won in 1966 amongst other things because Brazil were physically kicked out of the tournament (the luck mentioned above) and we were playing at home (as mentioned above).
In 1996 and more recently we came close when playing at home so maybe we need to wait until the next tournament when we play all of our games at Wembley and by then we might have a good enough back four to give us a real chance of winning.
Until then.................................

Good post - agree with most of that

This fascination people have on measuring abilities to the extremes is odd

Maguire, for example, is still a fairly solid Prem defender. Struggles with keeping a high line with his lack of pace and isn’t the best with the ball at his feet but put him in a team like West Ham (who generally defend with a low block) and he’d be perfectly fine. Not being suited to a team like United doesn’t equate to being an awful defender

Lot of football is about utilising the resources at your disposal to the greatest effect. Never been a huge fan of Southgate but that’s exactly what he does and is why we’ve performed consistently strongly in major tournaments under him. The one thing I can’t quite seem to grasp is his reluctance to use JWP in the squad, given his abilities at dead ball situations and given the proportion of goals we score from set plays. Seems odd - especially given the dearth of options we have for the defensively minded midfield roles (would have him above Phillips, for example)

[Snowflake Royal]

My biggest complaint wasn’t that we were bad. It's that we were more boring than watching paint dry.

Ukraine obviously had inferior players. But they played much better football, and to be honest, I found myself repeatedly wanting them to win rather than that tedious snoozefest England served up.

[Royal Rother]

My biggest complaint wasn’t that we were bad. It's that we were more boring than watching paint dry.

Ukraine obviously had inferior players. But they played much better football, and to be honest, I found myself repeatedly wanting them to win rather than that tedious snoozefest England served up.

I had exactly the same thoughts in the last 10 mins.

[Sutekh]

My biggest complaint wasn’t that we were bad. It's that we were more boring than watching paint dry.

Ukraine obviously had inferior players. But they played much better football, and to be honest, I found myself repeatedly wanting them to win rather than that tedious snoozefest England served up.

It's a Southgate team, what else would you expect other than safety first (& second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.)?

[Franchise FC]

My biggest complaint wasn’t that we were bad. It's that we were more boring than watching paint dry.

Ukraine obviously had inferior players. But they played much better football, and to be honest, I found myself repeatedly wanting them to win rather than that tedious snoozefest England served up.

It's a Southgate team, what else would you expect other than safety first (& second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.)?

I'm increasingly finding myself justifying the Southgate approach, even though I'm not a great fan.

His choices at the back are so severely limited that I don't think he has a great deal of choice but to set up to protect themselves.
If he set up to be more adventurous we MAY be able to roll some teams, but we would absolutely get ripped a new one by anyone half decent.
Walker is decent but, as someone has already pointed out, his speed gets him out of a lot of trouble.
Chilwell/Shaw are Marmite in that they can be brilliant but defensively suspect
There's not a long list of international standard centre backs begging to play with the result being that Maguire is almost a certainty, particularly if Stones is out injured.
Tomori's rave reviews seem to have petered out, Dunk (is he really any better than Maguire ?)

I'd be only too pleased to be completely wrong but, when the front four have a collective off day, it's no wonder we look turgid.

[Snowflake Royal]

My biggest complaint wasn’t that we were bad. It's that we were more boring than watching paint dry.

Ukraine obviously had inferior players. But they played much better football, and to be honest, I found myself repeatedly wanting them to win rather than that tedious snoozefest England served up.

It's a Southgate team, what else would you expect other than safety first (& second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.)?

Having watched plenty of Southgate's England, not some shite Spain bollox.

[Snowflake Royal]

My biggest complaint wasn’t that we were bad. It's that we were more boring than watching paint dry.

Ukraine obviously had inferior players. But they played much better football, and to be honest, I found myself repeatedly wanting them to win rather than that tedious snoozefest England served up.

It's a Southgate team, what else would you expect other than safety first (& second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.)?

I'm increasingly finding myself justifying the Southgate approach, even though I'm not a great fan.

His choices at the back are so severely limited that I don't think he has a great deal of choice but to set up to protect themselves.
If he set up to be more adventurous we MAY be able to roll some teams, but we would absolutely get ripped a new one by anyone half decent.
Walker is decent but, as someone has already pointed out, his speed gets him out of a lot of trouble.
Chilwell/Shaw are Marmite in that they can be brilliant but defensively suspect
There's not a long list of international standard centre backs begging to play with the result being that Maguire is almost a certainty, particularly if Stones is out injured.
Tomori's rave reviews seem to have petered out, Dunk (is he really any better than Maguire ?)

I'd be only too pleased to be completely wrong but, when the front four have a collective off day, it's no wonder we look turgid.

No problem with being cautious and defensive, even in games against lesser opposition... you can't turn up to a tournament and expect to switch to a more defensive style against the big boys without having worked on it in games.


It's the unbelievably tedious belief that possession of the ball for the sake of possession is somehow virtuous. It isn't. It's shit to watch and its ineffective.

What that team needed to do was stop playing incredibly safe passes and take risks. Risk a turnover for Ukraine because they'd try to break and chances are we could win it quickly and catch them out. Risks that might pay off without a turnover.

Instead we compressed the pitch down into the smallest amount possible, playing in an area you could cover with a parachute whilst the entire Ukraine team were set and ready to defend it. And the number of times there was an opportunity top zip the ball across the back, missing out an England player to stretch things that wasn’t taken. And the number of times our players took 3/4 touches before passing whilst Ukraine did 0/1, was just depressing.

I don't believe that was Southgate's instruction.

[Royal Rother]

The underhit slow rolling passes did my nut in.

Hit it with some zip, it makes things happen a split second faster, more difficult to defend against, and if the players can’t control a pinged pass they shouldn’t be playing in a top international team.

There is certain opposition I can just about see the merit of playing 2 defensive midfielders but not against (with all due respect) 2nd rate opposition.

[Snowflake Royal]

The underhit slow rolling passes did my nut in.

Hit it with some zip, it makes things happen a split second faster, more difficult to defend against, and if the players can’t control a pinged pass they shouldn’t be playing in a top international team.

There is certain opposition I can just about see the merit of playing 2 defensive midfielders but not against (with all due respect) 2nd rate opposition.

I'm actually fine with it, because against the weaker teams the attacking talent we have shouldn't need an extra creative body to score and win.

Another attacker against Ukraine would have just made the final third even more congested.

[Sanguine]

Re Southgate's supposed 'safety first' approach, it is noteworthy that he has the second highest win percentage of any England manager except Fabio Capello. And at 2.2 goals per game, we score more than under any England manager except Walter Winterbottom, who left the role in 1963. And excluding McClaren's 18 games in charge, we have a better defensive record under Southgate than at any point since Glenn Hoddle departed the job in 1999.

In short, I reckon he is getting much more right than he is wrong.

[Sutekh]

Re Southgate's supposed 'safety first' approach, it is noteworthy that he has the second highest win percentage of any England manager except Fabio Capello. And at 2.2 goals per game, we score more than under any England manager except Walter Winterbottom, who left the role in 1963. And excluding McClaren's 18 games in charge, we have a better defensive record under Southgate than at any point since Glenn Hoddle departed the job in 1999.

In short, I reckon he is getting much more right than he is wrong.

Think that's a safe bet but international football has changed so much that it's difficult to compare managers on anything other than performances in finals of tournaments given there are so many pointless qualifieres against the "no hopers" these days.

[Sanguine]

Wider international football - the future....

The USA are slowly building a very talented young side indeed. In the last few years they have convinced the likes of Sergino Dest (Netherlands), Yunus Musah (England), Malik Tillman (Germany), Folarin Balogun (England) and now it seems Burnley's Luca Koleosho (Italy) to switch allegiance to the US having played age group football for other countries. Captain Pulisic is somehow still only 25 next week, and they have the likes of Weah, Reyna, Norwich's Josh Sargent, and the brilliant Jesus Ferreira to call on too, all under 25 years of age. Wouldn't surprise me if they made a World Cup QF in the next couple of cycles, at least.

[Hendo]

Re Southgate's supposed 'safety first' approach, it is noteworthy that he has the second highest win percentage of any England manager except Fabio Capello. And at 2.2 goals per game, we score more than under any England manager except Walter Winterbottom, who left the role in 1963. And excluding McClaren's 18 games in charge, we have a better defensive record under Southgate than at any point since Glenn Hoddle departed the job in 1999.

In short, I reckon he is getting much more right than he is wrong.

Think that's a safe bet but international football has changed so much that it's difficult to compare managers on anything other than performances in finals of tournaments given there are so many pointless qualifieres against the "no hopers" these days.

I don't think England's recent record in major tournaments is the right stick to bash Southgate with...

[Sanguine]

Re Southgate's supposed 'safety first' approach, it is noteworthy that he has the second highest win percentage of any England manager except Fabio Capello. And at 2.2 goals per game, we score more than under any England manager except Walter Winterbottom, who left the role in 1963. And excluding McClaren's 18 games in charge, we have a better defensive record under Southgate than at any point since Glenn Hoddle departed the job in 1999.

In short, I reckon he is getting much more right than he is wrong.

Think that's a safe bet but international football has changed so much that it's difficult to compare managers on anything other than performances in finals of tournaments given there are so many pointless qualifieres against the "no hopers" these days.

I did a thing before where I showed that there aren't really more 'no hopers' doing the rounds these days than before. Can't be bothered to do it again, but the goalscoring records of Charlton and Lineker are worth a look.

Anyway, Southgate's tournament record is almost peerless too.

[Franchise FC]

Re Southgate's supposed 'safety first' approach, it is noteworthy that he has the second highest win percentage of any England manager except Fabio Capello. And at 2.2 goals per game, we score more than under any England manager except Walter Winterbottom, who left the role in 1963. And excluding McClaren's 18 games in charge, we have a better defensive record under Southgate than at any point since Glenn Hoddle departed the job in 1999.

In short, I reckon he is getting much more right than he is wrong.

Think that's a safe bet but international football has changed so much that it's difficult to compare managers on anything other than performances in finals of tournaments given there are so many pointless qualifieres against the "no hopers" these days.

I did a thing before where I showed that there aren't really more 'no hopers' doing the rounds these days than before. Can't be bothered to do it again, but the goalscoring records of Charlton and Lineker are worth a look.

Anyway, Southgate's tournament record is almost peerless too.

The only real competition formSouthgate is Ramsey

Imagine the fallout for Southgate if we’d been 2-0 up against one of the top half dozen in the world and he’d substituted our two best players ….. and lost