CB Fry

St Kitts and Nevis?

It's fascinating that on this forum the people moaning that Southgate is not up to it and can't ever win a major tournament and would never get an elite level club job and he's an average manager are the same people moaning that James Ward Prowse wasn't in the squad and if only he was there he'd be better than Champions League winning Jordan Henderson and Manchester United's Marcus Rashford. The same JWP who is the dictionary definition of an average, non-elite level run of the mill player. If you could rank him in terms of middling, non elite averageness he would be right up there with, er, Gareth Southgate. Get your story straight lads.

I think this is widely accepted.

I reckon we should bring in someone with international high profile calibre to sort this out. Someone like Fabio Capello or Sven Goren Ericsson. Or someone with boatloads of International management experience like Roy Hodgson. Or maybe the most exciting passionate manager of his generation like Kevin Keegan. Southgate has created the conditions that has got us to a major semi and a major final. None of that lot even got particularly close to it. Now dismantle Euro 96 in the same way you have dismantled WC18 and EURO2020 - just two wins, and one was against crappy old Scotland. Couldn't beat the Swiss. Couldn’t score against a poor Spain team. Didn't make a single substitution (not one) in a 120 minute semi. What a load of shit. Any tournament can be dismantled and downgraded. I could do Italia 90 too if you like. The difference is Southgate has done it. Better than any manager for 50 years. Through people management, attention to detail, a bit of ruthlessness, making us hard to beat in a way I have never seen. I think we should focus on the achievement rather than the failure. Next tournament we could be home after the group stage. Which would be our normal level. Thanks for the memories Gareth.

England didn't have a better squad. They didn't have a better squad than Belgium or France either. I don't get this strawman argument. We've never got to a tournament final for half a century. It was a huge achievement to get that far. Let's not pretend that it was some nailed on thing and then just a case of turning it on in the final.

Jesus wept. Maybe the lad is a bit of a prick. Adam Blackmore is not "briefing against" some teenager who barely ever played for us, and when he did he couldn't handle the occasion. He's not the Secretary of State for the Environment, he's some kid footballer. And has he gone to Arsenal or Juventus because he is such a red-hot prospect? No, he's gone back to the comfort blanket of home. He's gone to the club we bought Mayuka from. So let's not pretend any uptick in form playing in his home, in a lower standard league immediately equates to "that's what we let go, look how brilliant he is". He couldn't hack the UK, he couldn't hack the Premier League. Good luck to him but whether he does well or not is not something any Saints fan should ever care about ever again.

Being that the absolute best Sako could have done was get us into a situation that we would have had to take another penalty, whoever was down as number 6 (Sterling, surely?) should have stepped in. Oh well, it's done now, but I am amazed that the thing Southgate really, really screwed up was the penalties. Of all the things.

Good luck at the Wankdorf, Alex.

What does this even mean?

My scapegoat is Cafe Guisseppe just down the road from me. I've just come back from posting a fresh turd through his letterbox. It's the least he deserves.

Didn't Michael Owen score of the most memorable goals in England history that night? It's not quite comparable to Sako's contribution tonight.

Not sure about that.

Southgate has got us to a level which no other manager has achieved in my (and lots of peoples) lifetime. He's done an excellent job. Italy were the better team across the entire tournament, and the better team tonight.

Southgate did what Venables did not do 25 years ago (he needed to bring on Fowler and Sir Les Ferdinand for those pens) but tonight proved that maybe that idea is a shit one after all. But the pens were shit man. Absolutely terrible.

Dreadful selection of penalty takers. And dreadful penalties.

Team nice and dull. Keep it boring for an hour and then fucking blammo bring on the quick and skilful ones. Absolutely cannot fail.

Can't entirely see where your suggestion of moving Covid patients to cruise ships is in those links.

Whatever - the point is Japan has restricted those available to administer vaccine in a way we haven't.

Interesting explanation, thanks - but in 1) an Olympic year where they are hosting and 2) in an unprecedented in living memory pandemic it still feels like a fuck up. This time last year many were quick to point out "why can't we be like them" at other countries supposedly doing well. Well, if Japan hasn't got the nous to say "tell you what, let's get nurses to dish out jabs rather than only Doctors" then sorry its a fuck up. The article says at that point they'd only used 15% of the vaccine they had on hand, thats a fuck up. Lastly, before anyone else points it out, their case numbers and death number are tiny. It's bizarre that 18 months on they still cannot conceive a stadium with spectators in it on the back of a couple of thousand cases a day and double digit deaths (16 yesterday). I feel sorry for the Athletes performing in empty stadiums and the general reduction in spectacle and atmosphere for those of us watching. The Olympics is not everything of course, but obviously vaccination and freedom its own reward. Real shame.

I reckon it is a pretty safe bet that the TV co-commentator for England's first major final for 55 years will not be Ally McCoist.

Hearing the news today I find it difficult to believe Japan have fucked up over the Olympics. 15% national rate of vaccination, what have they been playing at, FFS. This time last year everyone was looking east to see how to cope with pandemics. Now they seem miles behind. Still seems very odd that they couldn't get to a position where local people could attend the events. They had a genuine target to aim for, not least to inspire their country. We can do ourselves down too much sometimes but we'd have got that show on the road.

Quite: the issue is a team becomes "not a top team" purely because we have beaten them, therefore they can't possibly be top. We had some fortune in the knockouts but Italy had a piece of piss group stage, easier than we did.

It looks like the tweet of a monumental twat.

We are three weeks away from Danny Ings sat in a press conference saying "yes, well the manager and the chairman are very clear that the club expects to be in the Champions League regularly in the future so I know I am joining a great club with huge ambition to play at the highest level". Just after his grinning photoshoot holding up an Everton/Spurs/Villa shirt.

Sterling?