England v Switzerland

[genome]

+1

England fans are never happy…

Also not forgetting - Switzerland are a much better side that your Slovakias and your Slovenias and your Serbias and your Denmarks

We were better for sure.

To be fair the people who are saying we were bad don't carry much weight. It's a bitter Welshman who doesn't know a lot about football and Sutekh who hasn't written anything positive about anything ever.

I actually genuinely don't think I've ever seen Sutekh experience a positive emotion

[WestYorksRoyal]

+1

England fans are never happy…

Also not forgetting - Switzerland are a much better side that your Slovakias and your Slovenias and your Serbias and your Denmarks

We were better for sure.

To be fair the people who are saying we were bad don't carry much weight. It's a bitter Welshman who doesn't know a lot about football and Sutekh who hasn't written anything positive about anything ever.

First half was better, but we lost control around the 60th minute or so. Southgate waited until we were 1-0 down to make changes, when it was clear momentum was against us.

But overall, an improvement. And we live to fight another day.

[Snowflake Royal]

Absolutely massive credit to the England players in that shootout. 5 faultless penalties, body language spot on

Southgate's approach makes a lot more sense now.

Don't lose, see if a moment of magic can win you a game or get out of jail, and be absolutely confident of winning a shootout because you have a manager who has skied one to lose a semi, so planned for them, prepared for them, and trained for them.

For all the criticism Southgate rightly or wrongly gets, that shootout was faultless.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

I think Kane is such a “big” player that GS fears not starting him and losing and being slated for this being the reason why we lost

Kane has been great and in a way still is but I’d like to see him start someone else, Toney, or Watkins along side him at least or be brave enough to drop him and maybe bring him on, but he won’t

Amazing penalties, all were flawless I thought am I watching England

[SouthDownsRoyal]

Absolutely massive credit to the England players in that shootout. 5 faultless penalties, body language spot on

Southgate's approach makes a lot more sense now.

Don't lose, see if a moment of magic can win you a game or get out of jail, and be absolutely confident of winning a shootout because you have a manager who has skied one to lose a semi, so planned for them, prepared for them, and trained for them.

For all the criticism Southgate rightly or wrongly gets, that shootout was faultless.

I agree, risky strategy if that moment if magic never comes though

[Brogue]

Pickfords water bottle

[Royal Rother]

5 games played (2 with ET) - 35 shots, 15 on target.

[Royal Rother]

I think Kane is such a “big” player that GS fears not starting him and losing and being slated for this being the reason why we lost

You think he cares about criticism?

I don’t think anything that anyone says before, during, or after a game has any impact on his selections and tactics whatsoever.

Despite the fact that he is contributing nothing, he will of course continue playing Kane because it would be bold NOT to and, good Lord no, we can’t have that.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

I think Kane is such a “big” player that GS fears not starting him and losing and being slated for this being the reason why we lost

You think he cares about criticism?

I don’t think anything that anyone says before, during, or after a game has any impact on his selections and tactics whatsoever.

Despite the fact that he is contributing nothing, he will of course continue playing Kane because it would be bold NOT to and, good Lord no, we can’t have that.

I do, he is so Uber cautious he fears dropping him

[Snowflake Royal]

Pickfords water bottle

If that's real it shows a level of tounament management we've never seen before

[Franchise FC]

Pickfords water bottle

If that's real it shows a level of tounament management we've never seen before

Not since the last time

[URZZZZ]

I think Kane is such a “big” player that GS fears not starting him and losing and being slated for this being the reason why we lost

You think he cares about criticism?

I don’t think anything that anyone says before, during, or after a game has any impact on his selections and tactics whatsoever.

Despite the fact that he is contributing nothing, he will of course continue playing Kane because it would be bold NOT to and, good Lord no, we can’t have that.

I do sort of see SDR’s point

To continue to persist with Kane, Foden, Bellingham and Saka (although of course, he was much better yesterday), given the depth in attack we have is utterly bizarre

Do think there’s an element of it where Southgate doesn’t want to drop any of those four “star” names and hence why the subs we make are so delayed for the same reason

Seeing a lot of opinions around saying yesterday was “much” improved but thought it was poor again. I suppose we did well to nullify their attacking threat but our attacking has really flattered

[bcubed]

If he accidentally stumbles on a formation that works he will elevate himself even further into the lead in the luckiest manager ever table!

Some England fans don't deserve to see us win a tournament.

If in any doubt about this, watch The Final, Attack on Wembley

Not aimed at you RR, as I'm of a similar view

[Hendo]

Pickfords water bottle

If that's real it shows a level of tounament management we've never seen before

Not since the last time

I was going to say, doesn’t JP do this at every tournament?

[Loafer]

If that's real it shows a level of tounament management we've never seen before

Not since the last time

I was going to say, doesn’t JP do this at every tournament?

Yeah so do loads of other keepers

Ian showing his stunning lack of knowledge about football yet again

[Stranded]

I think Kane is such a “big” player that GS fears not starting him and losing and being slated for this being the reason why we lost

You think he cares about criticism?

I don’t think anything that anyone says before, during, or after a game has any impact on his selections and tactics whatsoever.

Despite the fact that he is contributing nothing, he will of course continue playing Kane because it would be bold NOT to and, good Lord no, we can’t have that.

I do, he is so Uber cautious he fears dropping him

Of course, he may not be dropping certain players because they haven't lost a game yet and have progressed to the semi finals of a major tournament. Again.

Yes, it has been insipid to watch at times but the job of these players is to go as far as possible and potentially do something no England side has managed ever. Win a tournament outside England - or even make a final outside England - they are 1 game away from making history.

Southgate's decision to move to 3-4-2-1 paid off in mainly nullifying Switzerland whilst allowing England to get more numbers forward, the only issue was the lack of belief/confidence to take on a man at times, the few times they did, they caused problems.

I hope England win the think mainly so Southgate can walk off into the sunset with a big fcuk you to the constant critics.

People say he has got lucky with draws but lets look at the tournaments pre-Southgate to see how different it really has been:

2016 Euros - 2nd to Wales in group, lost to Iceland
2014 WC - Out in Group stage
2012 Euros - Won group (incl France) - lost on pens in 1st knock round to Italy
2010 WC - Failed to win group of US, Slovenia, Algeria - lost to Germany in 2nd round
2008 Euros - Failed to Qualify
2006 WC - Won group, beat Ecuador lost in QFs
2004 Euros - 2nd in group, out in first knock out round
2002 WC - Failed to win group, beat Denmark - out in QFs
2000 Euros - Out in group stage

So not exactly a cavalcade of excellence and played against a similar standard of opposition a lot of the time.

Compare to 2018 onwards

2018 WC: 2nd in group to Belgium after playing a "B" side in the last game having already qualified - finished 4th
2020 Euros: Won group, finished as Runners Up
2022 WC: Won group, bear Senegal, lost in QF to France
2024 Euros: Won group, semi final at worst.

But yep, Southgate is terrible. His football may be pretty poor in this tournament but he has been the best England manager in my lifetime at managing tournaments - which as an international manager, is pretty much your only job.

[Silver Fox]

Yeah well, you can prove anything with facts!

[Dirk Gently]

...

But yep, Southgate is terrible. His football may be pretty poor in this tournament but he has been the best England manager in my lifetime at managing tournaments - which as an international manager, is pretty much your only job.

And, by all accounts, the best for many years in forging a unified unit among the team, getting rid of all the old rivalries and diversions that used to plague the England team.

And getting to grips with the psychology of penalty-taking.

It's clear that he learnt a lot from the master, Sir Steve Coppell - I can see a lot of Coppell's philosophy in him, except that SSC was a winger so naturally tended to attack-minded, whereas Southgate was a defender...

[South Coast Royal]

Much has been made of our penalties v Switzerland (which were all good).

These takers weren't defenders like Pearce and Southgate as in the cases of Palmer, Saka, Bellingham
and Toney they are successful first choice penalty takers for their clubs and in Trent one of the best dead ball strikers in world football.

The Swiss penalties were good , apart for Man City centre-back Akanji who would be about 7th or 8th choice for his club and in the end that was the difference and very welcome to see from an England side.

Other countries tend to regard penalties as a tap-in but thank goodness at last we won't have a hang-up about them any more.
The success of those kicks has however rather overshadowed yet another dreadful performance during the 120 minutes.

[Snowflake Royal]

I think this deep in a tournament, you're on a hiding to nothing dropping your stars.

You know that Kane and Bellingham aren't performing and are damaging the team cohesion, but they're also the ones you would bank on to score or produce a moment of magic if needed. And they're your joint top scorers in the tournament. Foden is the only one consistently moving and trying to make things happen. Toney and Watkins are clearly substantially inferior players to Kane. Palmer, Mainoo, Gallagher etc are clearly inferior to Foden and Bellingham. Less the case with Palmer, but he's now in and Saka wasn't the problem.

So you trust them to do enough, knowing that you won't get much praise if you drop them and get through, but you'll be absolutely hammered if you drop them and fail.

Southgate has proved that a conservative approach gets you deep. He's not going to change the approach that has got him to 1 QF, 2 SFs and 1 Final so far. No one should really expect him to.

So we continue playing with Foden, Bellingham and Kane all trying to occupy the same space and hope. Itway too late to ring in the changes in a SF.