saintant

You mean you would have rather played Switzerland than Italy in the next round if we beat Slovakia?

Watching that match Italy reminded me so much of England under Southgate - they offered nothing and looked clueless. Can anyone really imagine England beating this Swiss side assuming we bumble through against Slovakia. Switzerland were everything England are not and we will need massive improvements all over the pitch just to make any sort of game of it.

How much money do you think we have offered McCarthy for a new 2 year contract? There'll be no more keepers coming after committing that amount to the overall salary bill.

It seems fairly clear that the club has decided McCarthy will be our number one keeper until Baz returns. I don't agree with it but he hasn't been given a new two year contract to sit on his ass.

We won't. He's not been given a 2 year deal on what is presumably a very good wage to warm our bench. He'll be number one pending the return of Super Baz.

So what happens if Macca picks up a bad injury in the opening match? We'd be left with Lumley and who exactly?

H'll have to take a pay cut or retire. Nobody in their right mind is going to pay a player his age with his injury history what he is earning at West Ham.

One change would improve England's performances without doubt. Increase the tempo from the first whistle. In every match they come out with zero urgency and proceed to attempt to play keep ball in their own half and what is even worse they think they are good enough to do it at walking pace. This sets the trend for how we play and sends a message to the opposition that we are not going after them. Southgate needs to stop this pathetic walking football and get the whole team looking busy, aggressive and front footed from the start. If he doesn't we'll be exiting the tournament with a whimper and miss a massive chance having had the huge slice of luck in finding ourselves in the far easier half of the draw. Unless we improve he will get even more pelters from the press and fans.

Slovakia it is - they are ranked lower than Scotland but we all know Southgate will make hard work of it.

They have more skill and tactical awareness too - they aren't just about hard work. Far better than we've seen from pedestrian England led by Mr Negative.

In what wold do we offer him a new contract on more money at his age! That would be insane.

The first ten minutes told me all I needed to know to guess how this game would evolve. Rather than coming flying out of the blocks and making a positive statement England played timid keep ball in their own half at walking place. I knew what was coming after that and so it proved.

This is the crux of our problem and what you get from a Gareth Southgate team in a tournament. He will be over the moon that we have conceded just one goal in three games and kept two clean sheets. Unfortunately he sets us up to be so hard to score against that he squeezes the life out of any creativity and the players are clearly drilled not to take any risks. It's mind-numbingly dull and i'm convinced we'd do far better by going gung-ho and attacking teams at pace from the first whistle. Palmer and Mainoo both staked good claims to start the next match but will likely be back on bench-warming duties while the plodders plod around and stick to Southgate's game plan.

Too much flair and creativity for Southgate's taste.

Too much walking football - you're meant to be elite players not 60 year old blokes!

Different game same old shit - clueless. No movement, gaps between players too big, poor passing, lack of courage to commit men forward. Cowardly display presided over by Mr Negative.

Whilst I fully respect your opinion we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

You're saying he stuck his leg there deliberately I'm simply saying at that speed he would not have had the time or awareness to think about where his leg was. He was chasing the ball and managed to get between the defender and the ball - what happened after that was caused by the defender who, in desperation, almost fell onto Stu as he was doing anything he could to stop him getting a shot away. Anywhere else on the pitch and that referee immediately awards a free kick to Scotland.

Not sure Stu could have done much - he's not blessed with pace and Scotland were trying to score from his corner when Hungary broke away at speed. As the Sottish female pundit said the guy in the middle should have fouled his man and taken a yellow card..

At the speed of the incident I doubt Stu would have had time or awareness to think to himself 'if I put my leg in a certain position and go down I'll get a penalty' Ludicrous to suggest he was playing for it ergo it's a penalty as contact was clearly made and should have been spotted by VAR.

Stonewall penalty that.

Seems you think everyone else can play hardball with Saints but we have to roll over and have our tummy tickled.

Has anyone not mentioned Jack Clarke 🙂

Palace seem to be pretty good at unearthing gems who are relatively unknown.

Downes is only worth what any club is prepared to pay for him and it certainly aint 20 million. They'll want a realistic fee for him or he'll end up stuck on their wage bill.