The general Euro2024 chit chat thread

[Snowflake Royal]

The players really need to take blame, at least as much as Southgate.

I refuse to believe any manager tells his team to drop deep, play long ball and keep making shit passes, when the setup from the start is to play slow tedious possession football around their box and wait for an error.

They got cocky, and failed to respond to Serbia improving in anyway. That's on the players too.

Foden had a bad game, but equally, he was one of a few trying to make runs into space and behind, and every single time he was ignored in favour of a sideways pass. We so rarely look to make something happen. Only really Saka did it.

Give me the Germans every time.

[Franchise FC]

Portugal for me. Got a really decent starting 11. I think England might bomb, They just look a bit fragile at the back and if they go a goal behind the plan B of TAA just throwing balls in the box won't work.....

It's not just the fragile defence, the whole team of talented players seem clueless how to play as a team or with any sort of system. Compare that to Germany, who arguably player for player aren't as good yet each player knows their system and as a result they play a lot better.

They might as well play an open game and try to score as many as possible as I can't see them hanging on to any lead.

That hasn’t aged well

[Franchise FC]

England made very hard work of that, lucky to win.

Could you just clarify for me how that ranks as lucky, please ?

According to the stats, Serbia had just one shot on target (not convinced the Pickford save was on target but he clearly couldn’t have left it) although I’ll give you that should be two as for some inexplicable reason the stats only count a shot on target if the keeper saves it (as opposed to Kane heading one)
Serbia had a lot of the ball second half but were rarely, if ever, looking dangerous
Indeed, the Pickford save was from an incident where there didn’t seem to be much danger and the shot came from nowhere

[Orion1871]

England were lucky. Lucky that they played a team who had a lot of the ball in the second half, but weren't good enough to create clear cut chances.

[LUX]

England made very hard work of that, lucky to win.

Could you just clarify for me how that ranks as lucky, please ?

According to the stats, Serbia had just one shot on target (not convinced the Pickford save was on target but he clearly couldn’t have left it) although I’ll give you that should be two as for some inexplicable reason the stats only count a shot on target if the keeper saves it (as opposed to Kane heading one)
Serbia had a lot of the ball second half but were rarely, if ever, looking dangerous
Indeed, the Pickford save was from an incident where there didn’t seem to be much danger and the shot came from nowhere

Bit lost here.

The Kane header was saved. And what was the second Serbian on target shot?

[Franchise FC]

England made very hard work of that, lucky to win.

Could you just clarify for me how that ranks as lucky, please ?

According to the stats, Serbia had just one shot on target (not convinced the Pickford save was on target but he clearly couldn’t have left it) although I’ll give you that should be two as for some inexplicable reason the stats only count a shot on target if the keeper saves it (as opposed to Kane heading one)
Serbia had a lot of the ball second half but were rarely, if ever, looking dangerous
Indeed, the Pickford save was from an incident where there didn’t seem to be much danger and the shot came from nowhere

Bit lost here.

The Kane header was saved. And what was the second Serbian on target shot?

Kane headed a Serbian shot away that was goalbound, albeit Pickford would probably have saved it anyway
If Kanes’s clearing header was saved it was a far better header than I thought at the tine

[LUX]

Ok, clear now. I thought you meant the Kane header at the other end.

[Franchise FC]

Ok, clear now. I thought you meant the Kane header at the other end.

No, that clearly was a save, and a fantastic one

[tulip]

England made very hard work of that, lucky to win.

Could you just clarify for me how that ranks as lucky, please ?

According to the stats, Serbia had just one shot on target (not convinced the Pickford save was on target but he clearly couldn’t have left it) although I’ll give you that should be two as for some inexplicable reason the stats only count a shot on target if the keeper saves it (as opposed to Kane heading one)
Serbia had a lot of the ball second half but were rarely, if ever, looking dangerous
Indeed, the Pickford save was from an incident where there didn’t seem to be much danger and the shot came from nowhere

They were lucky to hold on for the win. They were under enormous pressure in the second half, a better team would have beaten them. I'm unconvinced by that performance.

[Stranded]

England made very hard work of that, lucky to win.

Could you just clarify for me how that ranks as lucky, please ?

According to the stats, Serbia had just one shot on target (not convinced the Pickford save was on target but he clearly couldn’t have left it) although I’ll give you that should be two as for some inexplicable reason the stats only count a shot on target if the keeper saves it (as opposed to Kane heading one)
Serbia had a lot of the ball second half but were rarely, if ever, looking dangerous
Indeed, the Pickford save was from an incident where there didn’t seem to be much danger and the shot came from nowhere

They were lucky to hold on for the win. They were under enormous pressure in the second half, a better team would have beaten them. I'm unconvinced by that performance.

Could of course be argued that England knew they had enough about them defensively to avoid Serbia being able to create any big chances, and they didn't. So were happy to be on the backfoot and potentially conserve energy for bigger challenges ahead. Would prefer they get 2 or 3 ahead quickly like Germany on Friday and then coast.

Many ways to win a football match and England did that, it was incredibly dull to watch from the 30 minute mark but it's 3 points and realistically leaves England needing just a draw to progress - though am sure they will win at least 1 of the next 2.

Possibly the dullest game of the tournament to date but we've only had 3 days.

[Winston Biscuit]

If Trent Alexander-Arnold was called Ian Alexander-Arnold, there is no way co-commentators would just call him 'Ian'

saw that^ this morning and it made me chuckle

[bcubed]

As has been said, so many positives about Southgate - and he IS very good at the first 30 minutes in big games!

Steve Holland has probably done a very good job, but after previous near misses, maybe there needed to be a different / better No 2 to challenge the established thinking. Somebody who sees things a little differently and could help tactically during games.

As it is, it is pretty clear Southgate will be out-thought yet again in the latter stages. Some things never change.

Yeh good shout

No idea if it's right or not. Although Holland might be saying let's try this and Southgate is saying No let's bring on more defensive midfielders

But that game just reinforced my feeling that we haven't learned anything and will be leaving early, well before the final at any rate.

[Stranded]

Not game related but spent the afternoon at the Frankfurt Fan Zone yesterday.

Absolutely fantastic what they have put together over a two mile stretch of the river bank. 10 big screens showing the games (incl one floating on the river), a floating football pitch that was hosting a kids 5 a side tournament yesterday. Tons of events for the kids and more than enough bars that you barely had to queue - and beer was a very respectable €6 for 0.5l at most bars (was a Euro more by the main screen).

Did feel like every 5th person was Scottish. At least felt that way, and given Scotland aren't scheduled to play here at all, felt rather random.

City Centre filling up with Belgians and Slovakians aheads of the first game here today.

[RG30]

Serbia managed a xG of 0.17. It was quite comfortable for England.

[Hendo]

Thought we were decent in the first half, dominated the game and didn't really give them a sniff.

They obviously got an absolute bollocking at half time and we didn't react - was like watching Reading over the last couple of seasons.

Bellingham, Rice, Saka, Walker, Pickford, Stones and Guéhi all decent. Kane a bit unlucky with his header, amazing save from the 'keeper - 9/10 that goes in, game finishes 2-0 and everyone goes home happy.

Not super impressed with Foden or Trent - might look at doing something different for the next game. Hard to rate Trippier, playing out of position - thought he did fine.

Always going to be a meh performance in the group stages:

2018 - could argue that both Tunisia and Belgium were meh games.
2020(1) - could argue that all group games were a bit meh, Scotland being the most meh.
2022 - USA

[Royal Rother]

Serbia managed a xG of 0.17. It was quite comfortable for England.

Phew. I hadn't realised that.

[Winston Biscuit]

It was quite comfortable for England.

I disagree

[St Pauli]

Isn’t it very rare for England to win their opening game?

Seems like it was an ok but boring result.

I think people are too worried.

[Snowflake Royal]

England made very hard work of that, lucky to win.

Could you just clarify for me how that ranks as lucky, please ?

According to the stats, Serbia had just one shot on target (not convinced the Pickford save was on target but he clearly couldn’t have left it) although I’ll give you that should be two as for some inexplicable reason the stats only count a shot on target if the keeper saves it (as opposed to Kane heading one)
Serbia had a lot of the ball second half but were rarely, if ever, looking dangerous
Indeed, the Pickford save was from an incident where there didn’t seem to be much danger and the shot came from nowhere

They were lucky to hold on for the win. They were under enormous pressure in the second half, a better team would have beaten them. I'm unconvinced by that performance.

I can see where both of you are coming from.

England had the two best chances, and Serbia didn't actually threaten our goal much. So job done.

But England really only created two good scoring chances, and conpletely let the game get away from them, with Serbia controlling most of the game in the end. A deflected cross basically decided the game. Very unconvincing.

[Sutekh]

The players really need to take blame, at least as much as Southgate.

I refuse to believe any manager tells his team to drop deep, play long ball and keep making shit passes, when the setup from the start is to play slow tedious possession football around their box and wait for an error.

They got cocky, and failed to respond to Serbia improving in anyway. That's on the players too.

Foden had a bad game, but equally, he was one of a few trying to make runs into space and behind, and every single time he was ignored in favour of a sideways pass. We so rarely look to make something happen. Only really Saka did it.

Give me the Germans every time.

But someone must be instilling in them to look for the safe pass and to keep possession rather than adding the caveat "only when a forward pass isn't on". If they're never going to look for a forward pass then it makes it easy for any half decent opposition to fill midfield and push their lines up and this is what we see over and over again.

Hoping to be proved wrong, but this is why GS is a poor man's Jurgen Klopp and will never win anything. Ideally he should be an assistant that drives the morale and "social side" of the squad, which is obviously something at which he excels, while someone else takes the responsibility for the matchday formation, tactics and team selections.