The Football Thread.

scrumhalf

Top of the group, unbeaten, playing well within themselves. Tournament football.

And it's painful to watch. Passing sideways, backwards, never trying beat a man and create a chance. It's like the team gave been possessed by the ghost of Ray Wilkins.

chris78

p90fool said:

Philly_Q said:

I just heard someone on the radio saying "Southgate drives his Ferrari at 15 mph.  And puts his phone on Battery Saver at 99%.".

Southgate is actually playing a blinder. He has shit players who are propped up by overseas talent in the Premiership, so his only weapon is crushing negativity. 

If he allowed a bit of flair and ambition they'd be exactly where Scotland are  now, ie, home.  

Yet Bellingham was La liga player of the year, Kane broke all records in the Bundesliga, other overseas players like Tomori can’t get near the squad and I bet if any of TAA, Foden, Saka or Rice became available, they’d be going to top clubs.
Worth remembering that Stones, TAA, Foden, Walker etc are Champions League winners

DrCornelius

They are so slow in possession that the players that would usually be running into space for a pass in the premier league just don’t bother . Everyone is so static 

Horrible to watch 

Teetonetal

chris78 said:

At least that game has shown him he needs to play Trent at right back, Mainoo in the centre, Gordon on the left and Palmer on the right. And that’s harsh on Foden who was our best player tonight, but ultimately we need to play round pegs in round holes and Bellingham has to start over Foden.

Bellingham looks really tired now, the season has caught up with him.

I would move foden to 10 and let Bellingham stay in bed.

BigBearKris

@chris78 Kane broke all records in Bundesliga? I'm aware of "at least 2 goals in several consecutive games in debut season" but I don't think he broke the most goals in single season or any Bayern record did he?

Gassage

I thought it was only in rugby where you're banned from passing the ball forward?

p90fool

chris78 said:

p90fool said:

Philly_Q said:

I just heard someone on the radio saying "Southgate drives his Ferrari at 15 mph.  And puts his phone on Battery Saver at 99%.".

Southgate is actually playing a blinder. He has shit players who are propped up by overseas talent in the Premiership, so his only weapon is crushing negativity. 

If he allowed a bit of flair and ambition they'd be exactly where Scotland are  now, ie, home.  

Yet Bellingham was La liga player of the year, Kane broke all records in the Bundesliga, other overseas players like Tomori can’t get near the squad and I bet if any of TAA, Foden, Saka or Rice became available, they’d be going to top clubs.
Worth remembering that Stones, TAA, Foden, Walker etc are Champions League winners

Which goes to prove my point really. Surround those stars with English players and they don't create or inspire anything. 

If course I'm being a little facetious and have no beef with any footballers, it's just that the commentators, pundits and press seem to live in a Nadine Dorries-style parallel universe which none of the rest of us can see. 

"World class generational talent" is absolutely not what the punters are watching or throwing plastic cups at. 

TTony

p90fool said:

"World class generational talent" is absolutely not what the punters are watching or throwing plastic cups at. 

We're watching it.

But it's not performing.

chris78

BigBearKris said:

@chris78 Kane broke all records in Bundesliga? I'm aware of "at least 2 goals in several consecutive games in debut season" but I don't think he broke the most goals in single season or any Bayern record did he?

https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/30/every-record-harry-kane-broken-bayern-munich-2023-24-20746375/

guitars4you

Well we certainly haven't inspired - What happens next we'll have to see - But if you look at the group stages alone, then Spain are along way above anyone else followed by Germany

If Spain had a world class #9 they'd be lethal - France not scored a goal in open play (Only scored 1 goal so far) - Germany set off on fire but struggled v Switzerland but maybe they knew it was job done as far as the group stages go 

Chances are Portugal will also reach the next stage with max points - But flattered to deceive v the Czech Republic 

Did I hear that Lukaku has had more goals disallowed via VAR than any other player has scored 

Some of the best games have been from countries/matches you'd probably not expect, or certainly not put on your 'must watch' calendar 

I would not be able to place a sensible bet on anyone at this stage other than Spain, based on results and performance 

Shrews

Come the end of the tournament nobody remembers the group games.

We topped the group, conceding just one goal. Job done. And we've done it playing poorly. It's so low energy it's virtually stop. 

But three boring, boring 90 minute 1-0's from now on will be fine with me and hopefully it will all click against a knackered Spain in the final.

And that will be the game that gets remembered

AlbertC

At the end of day, I guess it comes down to what is most important to you. 
Personally I watch football to be excited and entertained above being tribal. 

Yes, of course I’d like to see England win but I get little satisfaction watching us grinding out frustratingly dull 1-0 results. 

If by some miracle we got to the final and won playing in the same manner we have so far, to me it would be a hollow success and not something I’d feel particularly proud about, but each to his own. 

BigBearKris

chris78 said:

BigBearKris said:

@chris78 Kane broke all records in Bundesliga? I'm aware of "at least 2 goals in several consecutive games in debut season" but I don't think he broke the most goals in single season or any Bayern record did he?

https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/30/every-record-harry-kane-broken-bayern-munich-2023-24-20746375/

Thanks, that's quite a result.

Still- didn't beat Lewandowski's 41 goals in single season in bundesliga, which is pretty much the only record I've kept track of during the season, hence my question. 
Kane is amazing as a passer for England I think.

CaseOfAce

I'm at best a casual fan of the game with no in depth knowledge of coaching, tactics, formations and the like but can anyone explain why an England player venturing across the halfway line immediately feel the need to kick it back into their own half. Talk about frustrating. I thought the idea was to place the ball behind the opposition's goalie?

DrCornelius

CaseOfAce said:

I'm at best a casual fan of the game with no in depth knowledge of coaching, tactics, formations and the like but can anyone explain why an England player venturing across the halfway line immediately feel the need to kick it back into their own half. Talk about frustrating. I thought the idea was to place the ball behind the opposition's goalie?

From another layman's point of view, the idea is to hold the ball and probe until gaps appear in the oppositions formation or someone makes a run that warrants an attempt at a decisive forward pass (and the risk of losing the ball). The problem is we seem scared to risk losing the ball (do we not trust our defence ?) plus as mentioned earlier, we are so static that opportunities to play the killer pass aren't coming up.  When Palmer came on he created more space on his own than the whole team as he was willing to risk losing the ball to get past someone and open up space

victorludorum

victorludorum said:

Rocker said:

Shocking game, what happens to players when they don an England shirt?  Decent players seem to forget everything they know when playing for England. Hopefully the second half is an improvement over the first, frankly it couldn’t be worse. 

I believe it's called 'shit coaching', but I may be wrong.

To be fair to Southgate there seems to be a fair amount of shit coaching on show at this tournament, and this is usually the case at internationals now. Most countries are coached by multi-club failures who are seeing out their careers.

munckee

victorludorum said:

victorludorum said:

Rocker said:

Shocking game, what happens to players when they don an England shirt?  Decent players seem to forget everything they know when playing for England. Hopefully the second half is an improvement over the first, frankly it couldn’t be worse. 

I believe it's called 'shit coaching', but I may be wrong.

To be fair to Southgate there seems to be a fair amount of shit coaching on show at this tournament, and this is usually the case at internationals now. Most countries are coached by multi-club failures who are seeing out their careers.

His job is to get as far as he can and ideally win the tournament.  We have a fragile defence and he (probably rightly) thinks our best chance to win it is to protect the defence with the midfield, hold the ball as long as possible, take one or two openings that come our way and win boring.  It's not necessarily what the fans want to see but they don't set his goals the FA do.

mikeyrob73

Im scottish but to see the over reaction by England fans is hilarious 

unbeaten in group stages, top of group , what more do you actually want ? 
expansive football and losing games? playing 5-5 games and entertaining football? Its results driven and you have the results to take you through.

i have a horrible feeling Engerlund are going to shithouse their way to the final 

LionAquaLooper

CaseOfAce said:

I'm at best a casual fan of the game with no in depth knowledge of coaching, tactics, formations and the like but can anyone explain why an England player venturing across the halfway line immediately feel the need to kick it back into their own half. Talk about frustrating. I thought the idea was to place the ball behind the opposition's goalie?

It's always a combination of things.  Obviously all teams are trained and drilled to push the team with the ball back as far as possible.  If they were poor at this they wouldn't be playing at this level.  At the same time, England with the ball aren't exactly playing dynamically enough to get through the defenses.  And the passing has been really below par.   

menamestom

mikeyrob73 said:

Im scottish but to see the over reaction by England fans is hilarious 

unbeaten in group stages, top of group , what more do you actually want ? 
expansive football and losing games? playing 5-5 games and entertaining football? Its results driven and you have the results to take you through.

i have a horrible feeling Engerlund are going to shithouse their way to the final 

There's somewhere in between very negative football, playing none of your pace players who can open a team up, playing 3-4 players out of position for no good reason.....

.....and expansive football.  It a very large scale that, not a binary decision.

So I guess just some positive tactics, from the outset, would be good, becuase that's what you need in the later stages and exactly what prevented us from winning the Euro's last time and getting to the world cup.