The Euro2020 Thread

[AlexLaw76]

25 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

We were slow, ponderous and very predictable.

A team in its manager’s image.

Rubbish.

Southgate is crap.  I doubt Spurs would even give him an interview

[Antrimsaint]

7 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Southgate is crap.  I doubt Spurs would even give him an interview

Cant have that. He’s not crap. He got you to a semi final ffs. The players were ineffective against a well drilled outfit. Scotland were no mugs.

[Turkish]

9 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Southgate is crap.  I doubt Spurs would even give him an interview

He lives near me and is a member of our local David Lloyd gym, used to see him there quite a bit before I left. Nice bloke.

[kyle04]

It's not just this game either, England have looked poor for a number of games recently. I didn't understand Southgate picking players in the warm up games who weren't in the squad other than to protect some from injury, but includes injured or non fit players in the squad anyway (Maguire, Henderson etc). This is tournament football, not a along term building process, players who are both fully fit and in form need to play (Sancho, Grealish for example).

Still, a draw v Czech would see us finish 2nd, and facing Spain/Slovakia/Sweden in R16, a win and we top the group and likely face Germany/Portugal

Edited 19 June, 2021 by kyle04
addition

[Antrimsaint]

3 hours ago, Wurzel said:

Captain was Kane but he comes across as the least likely player on the pitch to "have a go".  By the look of him he was struggling to talk to himself last night let alone anyone else.

Last time England had a player like that was Robson. If England had a Roy Keane they would walk this tournament. I never see an English bulldog on the pitch dragging/geeing up the players.

 I think its the only  thing England haven’t had for decades.

Edited 19 June, 2021 by Antrimsaint

[Charlie Wayman]

We saw everything that is good about Che Adams and everything that is bad last night. When will he get it into his head that leathering the bloody ball every time he gets a sight of goal achieves nothing. With thought, patience and craft he could be a prolific goal scorer but sadly it seems he will never learn these attributes and so will never be a prolific scorer at this level. Two missed sitters last night was inexcusable and not the laughing matter he seemed to think it was. 

It's a pity Stuart Armstrong didn't get into the starting XI but easy to see why not. The Scottish side were clearly set up for a midfield and defensive battle to keep a clean sheet and maybe nick one on the break. Armstrong has the wrong skill set for that type of set-up.

[Charlie Wayman]

39 minutes ago, Turkish said:

He lives near me and is a member of our local David Lloyd gym, used to see him there quite a bit before I left. Nice bloke.

Of course he's a decent human being and a very rich one at that. It doesn't have much to do with his football managerial skills

[warwicksaint]

Really impressed with Hungary, they hold their shape brilliantly. I think a few of these players would be shrewd signings for cheap money. 
 

jinxed that!

Edited 19 June, 2021 by warwicksaint

[Manuel]

France have equalised.  Shame.  Good game though.  Hope Hungary get something from it...

[simo]

This Hungarian keeper looks decent , who does he play for ?

[Ohio Saint]

24 minutes ago, simo said:

This Hungarian keeper looks decent , who does he play for ?

Hungary

[benjii]

He's young, Hungary, and guaranteed to improve.

[positivepete]

5 hours ago, whelk said:

Cracking game? Fck me you are easily pleased. Was it the one shot on target that excited you?

Trust me, there have been a lot worse England performances at major tournaments over the past 10 years or so.  Having been lucky enough to travel to South Africa, Brazil and France to see England in “action”, I was glad that there was lots of other things to make those trips worthwhile.

[Badger]

1 hour ago, simo said:

This Hungarian keeper looks decent , who does he play for ?

RB Leipzig. 

[CB Fry]

Good game between beatable Germany and beatable Portugal here.

[whelk]

Never write off the Germans

[The Cat]

I'm not sure even Saints would manage two own goals in 5 minutes even if they included Hoedt, Hooiveld and Danny Fox in defence.

[whelk]

Weird watching a game with main aim of hoping Pepe gets booked. For betting purposes of course (3/1)

good game

[Turkish]

37 minutes ago, whelk said:

Never write off the Germans

Is the right answer 

[Billy the Kidd]

4 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

We saw everything that is good about Che Adams and everything that is bad last night. When will he get it into his head that leathering the bloody ball every time he gets a sight of goal achieves nothing. With thought, patience and craft he could be a prolific goal scorer but sadly it seems he will never learn these attributes and so will never be a prolific scorer at this level. Two missed sitters last night was inexcusable and not the laughing matter he seemed to think it was. 

It's a pity Stuart Armstrong didn't get into the starting XI but easy to see why not. The Scottish side were clearly set up for a midfield and defensive battle to keep a clean sheet and maybe nick one on the break. Armstrong has the wrong skill set for that type of set-up.

Missed two sitters 😂

That made me chuckle.

 

[Matthew Le God]

4 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

We saw everything that is good about Che Adams and everything that is bad last night. When will he get it into his head that leathering the bloody ball every time he gets a sight of goal achieves nothing. With thought, patience and craft he could be a prolific goal scorer but sadly it seems he will never learn these attributes and so will never be a prolific scorer at this level. Two missed sitters last night was inexcusable and not the laughing matter he seemed to think it was. 

You have a strange use of 'sitters' if you think either of those were easy chances.

[sadoldgit]

9 hours ago, austsaint said:

Have to agree.  The oddball who writes the Ugly Inside stuff maintains if only Prowsey was playing, England would be playing teams off the park.

He didn’t say that at all. He said that had he been on the bench he would have been an asset for the last 30 minutes. Not exactly the same thing is it?

[Saint Billy]

England are missing the trickery and passing skills of Redmond, of that I have no doubt. 

[Manuel]

Bednarek punching himself in the face to ready himself lol.  Never seen him do that before a Saints game.

[Turkish]

[SaintBobby]

If it stays 1-0 to Spain v Poland, then the record of the three teams with Saints players will be

Won 0 Drawn 1 Lost 5...For 2 Against 8

Eerily faniliar! Lol

[Manuel]

Bednarek off at 85 mins, possibly injury/cramp.

[davefizzy14]

Jan has had a great game for Poland tonight

[OttawaSaint]

Spain forwards missing chances that Che Adams would have tucked away with aplomb.

[aintforever]

Don’t think Spain drawing is good for us, we need them to win the group otherwise we get them in the next round if we finish second, or get Germany, France or Portugal if we finish top!

[waylander]

Spain look very beatable

[Antrimsaint]

9 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

 

Your point is pony

Apples and pears me old china. Knees up mother brown. Pretend English cockney with a language affectation. 
 

You are grim mate.

[Antrimsaint]

On 17/06/2021 at 18:38, whelk said:

8 hours ago, Minsk said:

I fully get all you're saying and really can't find fault with much of it.

Being ex-RN I have many friends from all corners of these isles. We always have great banter over sports, especially football and rugby. I have also lived in Glasgow a couple of times and spent a few days on the razz with the Tartan Army when Scotland played Belarus in Minsk (even though I openly admitted to supporting Belarus in the match, in support of my wife, her family and our friends). Only a very small minority are rabidly anti-English, and they were always put in their box by their fellow Scots.

Was chatting to a Polish mate this morning who also really enjoyed last night's match. For a neutral, it was a good game to watch. Good matches don't have to have lots of goals. For me, too many England players went missing last night. They simply weren't brave enough and Southgate had us set up too defensively. But hey ho, we will still qualify from the group and progress to the knockouts. Then we really must up our game or go out.

As for Ducky (like a few others I could mention) he is full of his own self-righteousness and will never, ever, admit to being wrong about anything. He will keep rolling out the same bollocks over and over again, as if trying to hammer his opinionated views into anyone who reads them. He will rarely, if ever, actually back up his ideas or thought process with actual fact and will ridicule any fact given against his ideas. Basically, yes, he consistently acts like a 7 year old. I don't bother arguing with his ilk very often as it is like banging your head against a brick wall. And the fact there are few like him on here is the main reason why I deliberately restrict myself to only 3 posts a day.

Anyway, cheers for the decent posts. Have a great weekend and enjoy the rest of the tournament. I will try to do the same.

Crackin post lad and thanks for your service mate.

[Antrimsaint]

Going to be some surprises this tournament thats for  sure. Poland excellent and its so obvious who the superstars are. The game goes in slow motion when they are on the ball it seems so easy. Seen it with Bale and now Lewandowski. Outstanding player.

[stknowle]

36 minutes ago, waylander said:

Spain look very beatable

They look fairly shit tbh. I’d say they offer us the best chance of beating a big nation in the knock out stages of this competition since we beat, er Spain, in 96 (on pens). If we beat them in normal play it will be the first time EVER we beat a big nation in the knock out stages on that basis. 
Still, let’s not get too excited we might not play them and even if we do we’ll almost certainly lose🤩

[nta786]

37 minutes ago, stknowle said:

They look fairly shit tbh. I’d say they offer us the best chance of beating a big nation in the knock out stages of this competition since we beat, er Spain, in 96 (on pens). If we beat them in normal play it will be the first time EVER we beat a big nation in the knock out stages on that basis. 
Still, let’s not get too excited we might not play them and even if we do we’ll almost certainly lose🤩

MLG: “Past results are irrelevant.  How is knockout games from 1996-2018 going to impact how well England, Harry Kane or others do many years later?”

[austsaint]

5 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

He didn’t say that at all. He said that had he been on the bench he would have been an asset for the last 30 minutes. Not exactly the same thing is it?

He did actually say that....."JWP would have quickened the pace and passing in midfield, he would have upped the tempo".   I don't think he would have; do you?

[SaintBobby]

4 hours ago, aintforever said:

Don’t think Spain drawing is good for us, we need them to win the group otherwise we get them in the next round if we finish second, or get Germany, France or Portugal if we finish top!

If they beat Slovakia, they will prob top the group.

If they don't, they can't finish in the top two.

[CB Fry]

14 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

He didn’t say that at all. He said that had he been on the bench he would have been an asset for the last 30 minutes. Not exactly the same thing is it?

Except that is not true if you actually read what was written.

I do truly believe that the England squad has too many similar players and from that perspective does not have any real game changers aside from Jack Grealish, but that is not enough, Ward Prowse should have been in this England squad and come the end of the tournament Gareth Southgate might just regret that he isn't, I would say that must have gone through his mind last night as his players put in an uninspiring performance with no one able to make that decisive pass.

 

Far from being just a request to bring him on for 30 minutes, it lumps JWP in as a "game changer", a one man "Plan B" and someone who would "up the tempo". It's a propaganda piece for a player most normal people would not recognise as James Ward-Prowse.

The whole piece is the worst kind of Saints obsessed small mindedness.

Southgate had plenty of options to "quicken the pace" or play in a different style from the squad he had out there. But of course let's just pretend none of that exists and just dress up a teenage need to shout "he plays for my team, he plays for my team" at the television as rational tactical analysis.

We might get knocked out in the semis, we might fail in the group stage. In either scenario the selection of JWP is an irrelevance. The idea that Southgate will mourn not taking such an average sixth choice midfielder is just unreal.

If Bellingham or Sancho or Calvert Lewin had just completed a season with us, I wonder what would have been written instead?

Honestly it is laughable.

Edited 20 June, 2021 by CB Fry

[Ex Lion Tamer]

19 hours ago, Antrimsaint said:

Cant have that. He’s not crap. He got you to a semi final ffs. The players were ineffective against a well drilled outfit. Scotland were no mugs.

The thing is, most international managers aren't from the elite anymore. Southgate is an ok manager doing an ok job, which is enough.

Roberto Martinez ffs

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:UEFA_Euro_2020_managers

[hypochondriac]

10 minutes ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

The thing is, most international managers aren't from the elite anymore. Southgate is an ok manager doing an ok job, which is enough.

Roberto Martinez ffs

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:UEFA_Euro_2020_managers

Mancini is an excellent manager TBF. 

[whelk]

No one can convince me that the creepy Joachim Low isn’t a regular swinger. Not relevant but he is.

 13 years in job is quite mental though. Think what Steve McLaren could be doing now if only he was willing to get his hair island wet?

[Ex Lion Tamer]

6 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Mancini is an excellent manager TBF. 

He's doing a great job for Italy but I thought City should have got rid of him sooner to be honest

[egg]

44 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Except that is not true if you actually read what was written.

I do truly believe that the England squad has too many similar players and from that perspective does not have any real game changers aside from Jack Grealish, but that is not enough, Ward Prowse should have been in this England squad and come the end of the tournament Gareth Southgate might just regret that he isn't, I would say that must have gone through his mind last night as his players put in an uninspiring performance with no one able to make that decisive pass.

 

Far from being just a request to bring him on for 30 minutes, it lumps JWP in as a "game changer", a one man "Plan B" and someone who would "up the tempo". It's a propaganda piece for a player most normal people would not recognise as James Ward-Prowse.

The whole piece is the worst kind of Saints obsessed small mindedness.

Southgate had plenty of options to "quicken the pace" or play in a different style from the squad he had out there. But of course let's just pretend none of that exists and just dress up a teenage need to shout "he plays for my team, he plays for my team" at the television as rational tactical analysis.

We might get knocked out in the semis, we might fail in the group stage. In either scenario the selection of JWP is an irrelevance. The idea that Southgate will mourn not taking such an average sixth choice midfielder is just unreal.

If Bellingham or Sancho or Calvert Lewin had just completed a season with us, I wonder what would have been written instead?

Honestly it is laughable.

This. Good player, but the notion that JWP could come off the bench and influence a game more than Grealish, Rashford, Sancho, Calvert Lewin, or even Bellingham or Saka is daft. If this was American Football where you can bring on a kicker, I'd get it, but in real football in open play he'd have added nothing more on Friday than anyone else. 

[Mosin]

14 minutes ago, egg said:

This. Good player, but the notion that JWP could come off the bench and influence a game more than Grealish, Rashford, Sancho, Calvert Lewin, or even Bellingham or Saka is daft. If this was American Football where you can bring on a kicker, I'd get it, but in real football in open play he'd have added nothing more on Friday than anyone else. 

You just named 5 dribblers.. Which one of them is likely to pick up the ball and look to pass as a first option to keep the ball moving quickly?  None of them... No point bringing calvin on when the rest of the team cant even find Kane. 

 

Some thing seriously usly wrong with your midfield when one of the best strikers in the world had less touches than the linesman. 

[CB Fry]

9 minutes ago, Mosin said:

You just named 5 dribblers.. Which one of them is likely to pick up the ball and look to pass as a first option to keep the ball moving quickly?  None of them... No point bringing calvin on when the rest of the team cant even find Kane. 

 

Some thing seriously usly wrong with your midfield when one of the best strikers in the world had less touches than the linesman. 

Dribbling is bad now? Thirty plus years of following England and this is a new one on me.

The solution is better intensity from the team on the pitch. Not to bring on a pretty average midfielder from a bottom six team.

 

But I'll give you something. Next time we are struggling to beat a nine-man Newcastle United or losing to Brighton or Wolves at home, or WBA away etc then I cannot wait to see this wonder midfielder who will be looking to pass forward as a first option and keep the ball moving quickly. Absolutely mouth watering prospect. Pumped.

 

[egg]

24 minutes ago, Mosin said:

You just named 5 dribblers.. Which one of them is likely to pick up the ball and look to pass as a first option to keep the ball moving quickly?  None of them... No point bringing calvin on when the rest of the team cant even find Kane. 

 

Some thing seriously usly wrong with your midfield when one of the best strikers in the world had less touches than the linesman. 

I'm not seeing anything in that to tell me what JWP would have added.

Kane's inadequacy was down to Kane, or our tactics, not the midfield. He was dropping deep and time and time again balls weren't going in to him. That's not a Rice deficiency, they were simple passes that Rice saw and could have made but didn't. That has to be down to tactics. What Kane didn't do is offer any runs to push their back 3 back. JWP, or anyone else in midfield, wouldn't have changed that. 

So yep, dribblers were needed to get behind their defence. 

As for JWP keeping the ball moving quickly, that's what he doesn't do. He dwells on the ball, whereas better players don't. We all see it differently, and as much as I like JWP for his commitment, energy, dead balls, I can see the faults I'm his game and accept that we have better. 

Far too much Saints bias from many in this discussion, and not enough objectivity. 

Edited 20 June, 2021 by egg

[The Cat]

11 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Dribbling is bad now? Thirty plus years of following England and this is a new one on me.

The solution is better intensity from the team on the pitch. Not to bring on a pretty average midfielder from a bottom six team.

 

But I'll give you something. Next time we are struggling to beat a nine-man Newcastle United or losing to Brighton or Wolves at home, or WBA away etc then I cannot wait to see this wonder midfielder who will be looking to pass forward as a first option and keep the ball moving quickly. Absolutely mouth watering prospect. Pumped.

 

Your crusade to try and convince people that a player they like isn't quite as good as they thought is getting a bit tedious now.

Sadly for you I doubt it will make any difference, instead you're just coming across as patronising.

Edited 20 June, 2021 by The Cat

[egg]

1 minute ago, The Cat said:

Your crusade to try and convince people that a player they like isn't quite as good as they thought is getting a bit tedious now.

Sadly for you I doubt it will make any difference, instead you're just coming across as patronising.

So pointing out deficiencies in one player, and suggesting that others can an offer more, is patronising now. A cynic would say that you wouldn't say that if the player played for another club.

[Charlie Wayman]

16 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

You have a strange use of 'sitters' if you think either of those were easy chances.

Good players turn these opportunities into goals