Euro 2024

Slacker

I really don’t know what people expect. We’re not going to go out and beat teams three or four nil just because we have top Premier League players, there’s another team on the other side of the ball who are also busting a a gut to win the game. It’s the same on here about West Ham, it’s like there’s only one team on the pitch- there isn’t.

MrsGrey

Why is there never a handball given when they fall over and deliberately grab the ball. Drives me crazy.

thornburyiron

Turkey have created more chances in 10 minutes than we have in hours and hours of football.

thornburyiron

Slacker nobody expects us to beat teams 3 or 4 nil because nobody expects us to create anywhere near 3 chances. We had two attempts on target one of which went in and the other was a dolly from Bellingham. In the first half Saka regularly beat his fullback and crossed but there was no forwards in the box.

Slacker

Thornbury , why do you think that was? It’s because it’s international ,top class football and the opposition are trying to stop us from scoring!
I just don’t understand what people expect.

steve

Would be funny if England win this thing .And Kane gets his hands on a cup after playing his worse football ever

Slacker

The bloke worked his socks off mate.

steve

Guess we were watching different games

Slacker

Yup.

thornburyiron

In the group we played Serbia ranked 32, Denmark ranked 21 and Slovakia ranked 45. In last 16 it was Slovenia ranked 57. We struggled against all 4 of them and were really poor to be honest and could and should have lost them all.
Obviously they were trying to stop us scoring but at least for the most part they were at least trying to score themselves.
We’ve had fewer attempts than opposition in most if not all of our games.

claretandbluesky

I do like Lineker, especially when he finds ways to wink at the BBC always trying to curb his having a dig at the Tories.

From Twitter

Danny Baker
@prodnose

Bravo @GaryLineker
sneaking in, "The world's a better place, the world is a better place" about the England win...but I suspect it had an unspoken partner on the political scene as well.

Slacker

thornburyiron said:

In the group we played Serbia ranked 32, Denmark ranked 21 and Slovakia ranked 45. In last 16 it was Slovenia ranked 57. We struggled against all 4 of them and were really poor to be honest and could and should have lost them all.
Obviously they were trying to stop us scoring but at least for the most part they were at least trying to score themselves.
We’ve had fewer attempts than opposition in most if not all of our games.

And yet here we are in a semi final.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Slacker said:

thornburyiron said:

In the group we played Serbia ranked 32, Denmark ranked 21 and Slovakia ranked 45. In last 16 it was Slovenia ranked 57. We struggled against all 4 of them and were really poor to be honest and could and should have lost them all.
Obviously they were trying to stop us scoring but at least for the most part they were at least trying to score themselves.
We’ve had fewer attempts than opposition in most if not all of our games.

And yet here we are in a semi final.

Which is why football is a funny old game

Scraping past teams we should be flying through but somehow got ourselves itno a semi finals

The performances we've had would've got us knocked out in the last 16 if we were in the other side of the pot

We got lucky, doesn't mean we shoud be struggling with these easier draws

Bailed out by Bellingham and Saka brilliance in games we created nearly nothing in open play

claretandbluesky

I really think Rice should be allowed to carry the ball forward, he is a threat and draws players towards him and is more than capable of delivering a forward pass and even the odd shot as he did this evening. Were we playing France or Spain I could understand asking him to sit a little to offer the defence extra support, but when trying to break down lesser teams it's too negative to keep him back and reduced to ten yard passes to the attacking midfielders who have come backwards to be available to him.



This was only from Twitter and they had no source but It corresponded to my recollection of the match. Kane's stats in 115m of football were
0 Goals
0 Assists
0 Shots
0 Dribbles completed
10 Lost possession

BubblesNeverDies

claretandbluesky said:

This was only from Twitter and they had no source but It corresponded to my recollection of the match. Kane's stats in 115m of football were
0 Goals
0 Assists
0 Shots
0 Dribbles completed
10 Lost possession

Yeah but he worked his socks off.

alderz

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years said:

Slacker said:

thornburyiron said:

In the group we played Serbia ranked 32, Denmark ranked 21 and Slovakia ranked 45. In last 16 it was Slovenia ranked 57. We struggled against all 4 of them and were really poor to be honest and could and should have lost them all.
Obviously they were trying to stop us scoring but at least for the most part they were at least trying to score themselves.
We’ve had fewer attempts than opposition in most if not all of our games.

And yet here we are in a semi final.

The performances we've had would've got us knocked out in the last 16 if we were in the other side of the pot

Not watched much of France so far?

IronHerb

MrsGrey said:

I just switched over to ITV player to watch the later game.

Sponsored by..
Visit Qatar
and
Lidl

😂

Not sure there's a crossover demographic there.

I think for us plebs you need to shop in Lidl to afford a holiday in Dubai 😉

IronHerb

I watched the game here in Crete with the volume up to get the crowd noise but had to listen to the Greek comms. Tell you what, it was pretty good . You got the excitement of the game without the constant quoting of totally irrelevant stats that for some reason our comms back home insist upon. And no, I don’t understand Greek.

Slacker

BubblesNeverDies said:

claretandbluesky said:

This was only from Twitter and they had no source but It corresponded to my recollection of the match. Kane's stats in 115m of football were
0 Goals
0 Assists
0 Shots
0 Dribbles completed
10 Lost possession

Yeah but he worked his socks off.

Glad you saw that as well.

MunichHammer

I thought we played better than in our last matches, especially as Switzerland are a lot stronger than what we had played before.

Regardless, since Southgate took over we have been in 4 tournaments and have reached the semis in 3 of those. That is more semis in 8 years than in the 50 years since we lifted that World Cup.
The guy might not be easy on the eye and we often don't look like scoring but for some reason he gets the job done. A bit like Moyes.

claretandbluesky

It's all opinions but when I watch us play I think anything we achieve is in spite of him rather than because of him. I see players that look a fraction of what they do each week in the Premier League. I just do not think he is a manager and has been an over promoted assistant or youth team coach.

We could indeed win this thing having put in not one good performance, I don't think anyone would so far recognise a good performance against, Serbia, Denmark, Slovenia, Slovakia and Switzerland, teams we should be able to look pretty good against. So should we win I would be delighted, and very happy for Southgate as well, but I would probably give him all the credit most Chelsea fans do to Robert Di Matteo for winning them the Champions League. He had the players and they were good enough. The professional opinion will be will become clear when he leaves, will the clubs who have a huge financial stake in their businesses try and tempt him to come back into club Management. I don't think the phone will ring, I think they know.

MunichHammer

If it's all down to the players, get a Cricket setup where a group of selectors pick the squad and a captain who then picks the team.

He sure isn't the best coach around but just look at other teams in this competition. Italy went out to Switzerland, France haven't got a goal from open play, yet, Portugal are out and were bogged down by Ronaldo. Or past competitions when Grrece won. At the end of the day this is a results-based game and he sure has had those.

Nevertheless I wouldn't mind - say - Klopp in charge.

claretandbluesky

It's not all down to players and the right manager can make a huge difference but in some cases the players are of such different levels that the gulf in standard dictates the result. I would imagine if England played many teams every person on this forum could pick a team and provide a basic formation and basic instructions to win the match. This would by no means be the case once the quality of players came closer together as quality would not be able to overcome specific instructions and tactics anymore once there was less of a gulf in quality.

Under Southgate the players are shackled. I genuinely feel we would dominate games against what is quite frankly qualifying level teams if allowed to attack more as a whole unit. It's very reminiscent of Moyes for me in that we only begin to play when we go behind, yet really have players that can take a game to opposition.

For perspective regard FIFA rankings
England 5th

Our opponents so far
Serbia 32
Denmark 21
Slovenia 57
Slovakia 45
Switzerland 19

That is qualifying opposition and we are barely registering any chances made each match, yet he refuses to change much around at all.

thornburyiron

Funny how when it’s England it’s a results based game regardless of how boring or rubbish we are playing but when it’s club football it’s all about performance and we get the comments of we’d rather lose playing decent attacking football than grind out a boring 1-0 followed by Moyes out.

claretandbluesky

For comparison regard opposition whilst England's has been 32-21-57-45 & 19 France have faced 25-26 -7 -3 & 6

buffybegood

thornburyiron said:

Funny how when it’s England it’s a results based game regardless of how boring or rubbish we are playing but when it’s club football it’s all about performance and we get the comments of we’d rather lose playing decent attacking football than grind out a boring 1-0 followed by Moyes out.

Not really, this is a championship that comes around every 4 years, and is only 7 matches including the final, and is something that we have a realistic chance of winning. Given the PL is 38 matches a season, and we have next to no chance of winning it, then style of play is much more of a consideration imo.

Not that I don't think England should be playing better football, but I can see why many would view the Euros as much more results over style.

IronHerb

claretandbluesky said:

For comparison regard opposition whilst England's has been 32-21-57-45 & 19 France have faced 25-26 -7 -3 & 6

All you can do is beat what’s in front of you. France have got to the semis and have played no better than us. They are so reliant on Mbappe.

claretandbluesky

The 'beat whats in front of you' line is usually used when people question the credibility of a resounding victory, my point is our victories are anything but resounding, that we are lucky to be getting through as we are sitting back against inferior teams instead of playing to our strengths and dominating them with a more aggressive attacking play.

thornburyiron

We’ve only won one game over 90 minutes and that was against Serbia who battered us for long spells.

IronHerb

It’s tournament football. 90 minutes, 120 minutes is not relevant. It’s beating the team on front of you and progressing that matters. Yes, it would be great if we were playing free flowing football but we’re not so I for one will take the win.