Euro 2020 Final England Vs Italy

EXETERHAMMER

Italy were the better team other than the first 15 mins. They dominated the ball and then defended so well when they had to.

Jorderz_Moyes_will_be_Moyes

Ugh, taking off the silver medals the second they are put on is so childish and irritating.

KingHammerAbroad

Awful management. End of story!

Hamstew

What an insane decision to take Rice off. Was playing so well.

KingHammerAbroad

Hamstew said:

What an insane decision to take Rice off. Was playing so well.

But Henderson played so well. Not, Rice was bossing the midfield and putting the Italian defense under pressure, so unless he was injured why take him off?

Yeoldhammer

Saka thrown to the wolves.
Rashford and Sancho seemed like poor management and both were poor penalties.

We have blown the biggest opportunity to win a tournament and i feel like i am never going to see a final with England again in my life time.

This feels as bad if not worse than when we (West Ham) got relegated.

OldCastleSwift

If we're being honest, we didn't deserve to win. One shot on target all game and no real desire to get a second. I think Southgate thought we could see it out but unfortunately we couldn't.

The substitutions were all a bit weird. Henderson for Rice lost us the midfield and took away any drive we had through the middle. Saka ahead of Grealish didn't feel right, and then to throw on a couple of special team players completely backfired. Mount and Kane both stayed on for too long as well and overall I think Southgate had a bit of a 'mare tonight.

That's two tournaments in a row where we've had a favourable route to the latter stages; not sure we can expect that luck to continue so I think it's going to continue to be a long, long wait for the next silverware.

Hamstew

I'm not going to get on his back too much but I feel Southgate got it really wrong today. Let's hope he learns from it.

KingHammerAbroad

Hamstew said:

I'm not going to get on his back too much but I feel Southgate got it really wrong today. Let's hope he learns from it.

Shouldn't be any learn from it imho. He had his chance, and failed. His decision making was poor. Take Italy for example. They had a proven manger in charge... that's what we needed in this moment.

OutcastLondoner

I disagree that Saka for Grealish was wrong. Grealish has this great brand around him but his impact on games this tournament does not come close to that of Saka - who had spent most of games stretching a defence so Grealish could face them tired.

I feel really bad for Saka. He didn't have much impact but neither did Grealish. The problem was when Rice came off England weren't winning the ball back and transitioning. Mancini changed the game with the Crisante sub and Southgate's response actually made things worse. Suddenly Kane playing deep didn't have someone quickly releasing it to him so he looked stranded again, which makes it look even worse when he's not getting into the box.

I think Southgate made mistakes managing the game today but they are there to be learnt from. This team will be better next year, with Bellingham more experienced and Sancho hopefully more established as well. DCL might continue to improve. Rice grew and grew in confidence during this tournament - if he starts with that confidence in the World Cup then England will be a different force.

Hamstew

KingHammerAbroad said:

Hamstew said:

I'm not going to get on his back too much but I feel Southgate got it really wrong today. Let's hope he learns from it.

Shouldn't be any learn from it imho. He had his chance, and failed. His decision making was poor. Take Italy for example. They had a proven manger in charge... that's what we needed in this moment.

Well he can learn from it because his decision making was poor.

BubblesNeverDies

Just as much as Southgate deserves the credit for getting England to the final, so he deserves the blame for the defeat.
OldCastleSwift summed it up pretty accurately
The substitutions were all a bit weird. Henderson for Rice lost us the midfield and took away any drive we had through the middle. Saka ahead of Grealish didn't feel right, and then to throw on a couple of special team players completely backfired. Mount and Kane both stayed on for too long as well and overall I think Southgate had a bit of a 'mare tonight.

I'd just turned 18 and was lucky enough to see England win in 1966.
Right now I'm in reasonably good health and my fitness levels are good, I just want to still be alive when we win another major final, but I'm not holding my breath - or maybe I should be doing precisely that.

Fortuneseeker

Be interested to see the Liverpool media reports on Henderson considering, biased as the red half is, that they thought Rice has been poor this tournament & didn’t deserve to keep their man out of the team. 😀

ASLEFshrugged

I knew it was over the moment Rashford hesitated in his run up.

Rice looked exhausted but then so did Sterling and Southgate kept him on

Southgate's tactics worked fine until Italy made substitutions around the hour mark

whupathman

Southgate has noticeable blind spots for some players, that cost us tonight

yoyo

We may well have been under par but Italy were better

KingHammerAbroad

Hamstew said:

KingHammerAbroad said:

Hamstew said:

I'm not going to get on his back too much but I feel Southgate got it really wrong today. Let's hope he learns from it.

Shouldn't be any learn from it imho. He had his chance, and failed. His decision making was poor. Take Italy for example. They had a proven manger in charge... that's what we needed in this moment.

Well he can learn from it because his decision making was poor.

But would he? I doubt it, he has limited "management" up till now in his career. Imho the guy who is in charge of the national should be someone with management experience!

Lukerz

OutcastLondoner said:

I disagree that Saka for Grealish was wrong. Grealish has this great brand around him but his impact on games this tournament does not come close to that of Saka - who had spent most of games stretching a defence so Grealish could face them tired.

I feel really bad for Saka. He didn't have much impact but neither did Grealish. The problem was when Rice came off England weren't winning the ball back and transitioning. Mancini changed the game with the Crisante sub and Southgate's response actually made things worse. Suddenly Kane playing deep didn't have someone quickly releasing it to him so he looked stranded again, which makes it look even worse when he's not getting into the box.

I think Southgate made mistakes managing the game today but they are there to be learnt from. This team will be better next year, with Bellingham more experienced and Sancho hopefully more established as well. DCL might continue to improve. Rice grew and grew in confidence during this tournament - if he starts with that confidence in the World Cup then England will be a different force.

Agree & regarding that first part about Grealish, that could apply to any game he plays in general.

OutcastLondoner

Southgate has done better than any of the experienced managers before him. Tonight some of his big calls didn’t pay off but he’s tamed the media and made his calls, not the ones people clamour for. That got England to a final, which they lost on penalties. Sure he made mistakes but I expect him to be the manager for the World Cup.

Lukerz

I don’t think there is any point over analysing the game. It was a flip of a coin in the shootout. Southgate got most of the calls right, England played well in the first half & extra time. I think of Rashford scores we lift the trophy. That’s how close we were. Scoring early didn’t help us but I don’t think we did much wrong since in the game, it swung one way & then the other.

Kuchinghammer

Southgate showed total loyalty to Kane, and Sterling. This meant there was only room for one or two of our young, in-form, forwards. That gamble backfired in the final. In defence, his trust in Maguire paid off but Henderson for Rice was a disaster. So his strategy and tactics weren't good enough. I hope he learns, because he's been the classiest man to manage England that I can remember.

Pearces_Left_Foot

We need to stop the blame game this team has got to first final in 55 years now people seem ready to thrown them under the bus for losing in the narrowest of margins against a very good Italian team who we made look pretty average for periods. I enjoyed the tournament apart from the final hour we have a lot of good younger players we only conceded twice both from set plays .

Yeoldhammer

Hopefully the young players can keep their forward trajectory going. But when you see other nations and their young squads. Its going to take something out of this world to get to a final and win a tournament.

Pearces_Left_Foot

I think our youth set up is more in line with Germany France and Spain now plus the set up at St. George’s and coaching at youth level we have caught up with these countries. No kids playing on full size pitches etc winning any tournament is tough yet we came very close . Southgate has achieved more in recent times than anyone apart from sir Alf Ramsey WC semi Euro final wining penalty shootouts , beating Germany in knockout game all steps in the right direction .

mike

I woke up early this morning,going through the game in my head.To say i feel flat would be an understatement.
I have felt a lot worse than this though.The 2006 cup final against Liverpool(sorry to remind you)took me ages to get over.In fact i still don't think i have got over it .
Club over country always.

ASLEFshrugged

KingHammerAbroad said:

But would he? I doubt it, he has limited "management" up till now in his career. Imho the guy who is in charge of the national should be someone with management experience!

Southgate had three seasons managing Boro in the Premier League

If you want someone more experienced then we either need a non-English manager or its one of these...

Roy Hodgson
Sam Allardyce
Neil Warnock
Sean Dyche
Eddie Howe
Dean Smith
Chris Wilder
Steve Bruce
Graham Potter
Steven Gerrard
Frank Lampard Jnr

Southgate has achieved a semi-final and a final, that's not a bad start for a "novice"

Hamstew

I don't believe you have to have success at club level to be a good national team manager. It's a different type of job imo. I like him but he did make mistakes. If Rashford scores like he usually does then we could go on to win it and he'd be spoken about as some sort of genius.

yoyo

Although Italy looked better than us, we didn't lose the competition because we were played off the park. We lost because we can't take penalties. A harsh lesson, we were so near. Southgate will take us to the world cup. After all, if not him then who? I unfortunately don't expect us to get this near again

Hamstew

I think he had good games and average games but to me last night the game changed when Rice came off. Philips just isn't as good at that sitting role. And Henderson was non existent.

alderz

FWIW, I personally think that Southgate made pretty much the right call every game until the final. People can say that a better manager might not have done that, but look at Guardiola whenever he gets to the latter phases of the Champions League. Managers make mistakes, it's just a real shame that his happened to be last night.

For me, he's made England a far more likeable and enjoyable team to follow, and I think he and the squad are capable of taking us at least to the latter stages of tournaments to come.

I think we didn't win last night because we didn't expect to score the early goal, and then we panicked a bit. The game plan was always going to be to try and frustrate them for 55 minutes, and then bring ball carriers like Grealish, Saka, Sancho onto the pitch to trouble them. After we scored, we let Italy have the vast majority of the game, and we retreated too far, and then couldn't wrestle control of the game back.

I never thought we'd make the final, so I'm proud of what has been achieved.