FlyBritishMidland

Disappointed, but not surprised, to see some crawling out of the woodwork to criticise the manager and the team after the defeat.
Where were you when we beat the Germans?
Where were you when we thrashed Ukraine?
Where we you as we only conceded one goal in the build up to the final?
Where were you when we reached our first final in a generation?
I cannot stomach talk about “negative tactics” from fans who are just waiting for us to fail and revel in “I told you so’s.” The most crushing part of this defeat is that this team had the potential to silence these types, but instead they are basking in it.
duck off.

When I was growing up I just thought he was a idiot on TV, then I saw some footage of him playing and realised he was an absolute master. I wish he had joined us when had the chance.

44 goals for England and not a single penalty.  The best striker this country has ever produced.  Cracking documentary about him on BT Sport.

Semis last World Cup.
Final today.
Win it in 2022.
i think Southgate is learning as much as the players. 
It's a very young squad with tremendous depth.
I think Southgate is the man to make sure these kids use it as fuel.
No pizza ads though please guys. 

Thought the England team did us proud. 
The fans once again brought shame on the country and probably cost us any chance of getting another tournament in the next twenty years. 
Don't blame the penalty takers. They were brave enough to step up to the plate. 
I have grown to respect this England team and will support them again as they try to bring it home from Qatar. 

I thought his appointment had parallels with Ron Greenwood’s. Nice bloke, bit of a diplomat, won’t go upsetting the apple cart, never set the top division alight with success.
I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about it but then I’d lost a bit of enthusiasm about international football, much like I have for Premier League football.
What has impressed me as I alluded to in another thread yesterday is his attention to detail and management away from the actual games.
Some might say he’s been fortunate he doesn’t have players in this squad who feel the need to court publicity and build their brand off the back of playing for England at a major tournament but I really believe he’s got everyone, the team, physios, chefs, the whole shooting match, onside with one aim and I can’t say I remember such a display of “oneness” in recent times and that’s to Southgate’s credit.
Wishing him the best of luck tonight. ?

I don't think I've ever been against Southgate, I probably thought at the time of his appointment it was a safe option and would have liked someone a bit more charismatic - but here we are ? 
Southgate exudes calmness and intelligence, he clearly has all the players focussed no matter what their status in the squad.  He is probably helped by the fact we have no real superstars in the squad  - certainly no superstar ego's, but its still a talent to keep players that aren't playing, or those subbed on and off after 30 mins happy and the squad moving together as a unit.
Makes you wonder what he might have been able to do with previous squads that had more talent and more personality.

Always backed Southgate. I never understood why people thought he was a bad manager. 

I'm presuming some may have seeing as he was called everything from a yes-man to tactically naive prior to the Euros.
When I lived in t he US I didn't watch much Premiership and very few England games so I really didn't have much of an opinion and was on the fence.
But I was worried that he'd taken Boro down and not managed/coached at this level, but I thought the last WC looked promising.
Then I thought the open letter he wrote prior to the start of the tournament was utterly brilliant.
Of course that didn't mean he'd do well here, but it did show a real awareness of stuff other than the football, most importantly his players.
Then when I have seen interviews with other people who have known him from way back and who have talked about his approach to every level of the England organisation in terms of making it inclusive whilst giving autonomy for people to do what they do best, my admiration shot up.
That is how you lead rather than just manage.
He's also incredibly gutsy and not at all swayed by the media and fans clamouring.
Sir Alf was like that with Hurst over Greaves. He stuck to what he thought was the best thing to do even when millions disagreed.
To bring Grealish on and then take him off again required gonads of biblical proportions.
I also love that this team is almost egoless in an era where that is so unusual. That's not an accident.
So I've gone from ambivalence to thinking I don't care what happens today, I'll still be glad we have him going into the World Cup and I think this team will be a real force for years to come.
Anybody else changed their mind?
More importantly, anybody else still not impressed?

What I do admire about Southgate is his management of this tournament. 
What I mean by that is we have seen no pictures of wags for instance, I saw a post by Dark Fruits earlier in this thread quoting the greats from earlier tournaments, your Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard, Rooney & Ferdinand etc and they were fantastic footballers but man, what a circus they brought to the party.
Yesterday I read about one wag taking the seat of someone else so she could be behind another, higher profile wag, to ensure she would be in any photographs the paparazzi used. I mean really. ?
Southgate has seen to it there have been no such distractions. I bet Sven wishes he’d managed things differently at the World Cup in Japan. I know it could be argued his squad contained higher profile names than Southgate’s but I remember Beckham entering a press conference he wasn’t involved in to interrupt Eriksson mid speech which to me undermined the manager. That was his weakness, he let the big names run the show.
Southgate has no publicity seeking twits in his squad which I think has helped him immensely. I do have reservations about certain stuff, playing style-wise but hey, look where he’s got us and my gung ho preference would probably see the players on their holidays by now and not preparing for a major final so I must concede he knows a damn site better than me but I just wanted to acknowledge his management is not just about winning games and while he’s doing well on that front, everything else he’s doing from selecting a good backroom team to keeping the players occupied between games seems to be spot on an’ all.
Best of luck to him and his team tomorrow, I think a win would go a long way to giving the nation a much need boost. 

Her Maj rallying the troops...
 

Greatest town in the world.
 

Now just leave it like that please, looks way better.

Spot on @Alpha.  Southgate has a squad where everyone knows they have a chance of playing.  He picks the best team for each match.  Sven picked the best players regardless and that doesn’t always make the best team.  Forgetting the Nations League, we’ve been to the Semi-Final or Final six times in our history - Sir Alf had two and so does Southgate.  That’s no mean feat.
For the first time in many years we have a team we can be proud of.

Even if we lose, which we won't, people should have some pride and confidence in supporting England again.
They're not Sven's superstars or guys who pick up conveniently timed injuries. God, how often did we hear we have the best LB  CB CM,RM,ST in the world over recent years?
These are wonderful misfits and failure stories. Even the two main stars are Harry Kane who's path to the top wasn't straight forward and even now remains trophyless. And Raheem Sterling... the guy that has to apologise for spending his money, having a tattoo and not being the English answer to Messi, Ronaldo etc. How can Raheem Sterling ever be allowed to relax.
It's now actually possible to be a top 4 English player and not be picked. You can lose your place to players who were Championship when England lost in the World Cup.
If we lose Sunday then we've still had success. Well, unless you really trying to punish yourself. 

Yeah, I think it's massively underrated how he's developed this culture and pride in playing for England again. These players don't want to save 10% to give for their clubs, they work for each other and are the most likable bunch in a long long time. 
I dunno if Southgate is the best tactician etc but if he lacks in strategy then he excels in man management.
When have England players ever looked so proud, hard working and united?

Makes me laugh that people still don't rate Southgate. We have made it to the world cup semi final and the euros final. They call him lucky. You can't get lucky that many times. He makes bold decisions and it works. He's tactically switched on, learns from his mistakes and has created a brilliant culture in this England side. He deserves nothing but respect. 

International management is a completely different ball game to club management. You work with the players for a very small amount of time. It's almost impossible to have any impact in their professional development, which will be down to their managers and coaches at club level. It's then a case of coming up with tactics which aren't over-complicated and easy to get everyone singing from the same hymn sheet because of said time limitations. 
Southgate has created an environment that I can't remember any other manager being able to achieve for England. The cliques in the golden generation squad undermined everything that they could've achieved. Southgate seems to have everyone on the same page and pulling in the same direction. The fact that he's not Guardiola tactically really doesn't impact us that much, because it's hard to take players from 16 - Man City, Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Atletico, Villa, Leeds, Everton, Dortmund, West Ham, Brighton, Wolves,  Sheff Utd & West Brom - different teams and get them all playing to a fine tuned tailored game plan straight off the bat isn't plausible.

Cox is an interesting comparison
"He arrived at the Baseball Ground, asked Roy McFarland to be his assistant, and found only 12 players, of which nine were under contract. Undaunted by the scale of the task, he began to build and Derby moved from the High Court to the First Division in just over three years."

That’s why it makes me laugh when people get so stressed out about the starting 11 - Why isn’t Grealish starting, grr - he’s ok the bench, the starting 11 have their job to do, and Grealish will get his chance if and when he’s needed to do his job. 

I think he could be due slightly more time off than the players reporting back today due to being on international duty with Wales before they started their Euros campaign.
Could well be wrong, though.

Didn't know about him, thanks for the tip.
I am at the stage where any rumour that things are happening is a comfort! 
This is my biggest hope, that we are quiet because we are busy sorting out new owners. 

An interesting debate.  There are times in the past when I’ve thought about not renewing but I have, not necessarily because of the football but, as others have said, the day itself.  Meeting your mates, few beers and a bit of a laugh.  I’ve renewed for this year and will get excited once August comes round.
That said, the last year has made me take stock a bit.  I guess I’m becoming a bit disillusioned with professional football at the top levels - champ and prem.  It can be difficult to get to some games, particularly midweek and Sky mess about with so many moving games to Friday night and Saturday lunchtime, which is also a bit tricky.  And when you see the money in the Premier League and the struggles lower down it a bit disheartening.  We all know the situation we’re in and chasing the dream and spending big back in 2015/16 hasn’t helped that.  And situations like Macclesfield, Wigan, Bury and there are probably many more too show that it’s quickly becoming unsustainable, if it isn’t already.  And the gap is widening.  There’s been lots of debate about the relegated clubs and the level of parachute payments making it easy for them to go straight back up and it’s a valid point.  Before too long it’ll be a virtual closed shop - the three coming down will keep going back up.
I am seriously thinking I might enjoy watching my local non-league team instead.  The quality and atmosphere won’t be as good but it won’t be about the money, it’ll be closer to a level playing field, 3:00 kick off on a Saturday afternoon and I might feel like I’m helping out where it counts. Will that mean I’ll care any less about The Rams? Absolutely not!!  Will it mean I won’t go to some games I want to and know I’ll be able to attend?  Of course it won’t.  It’ll just be a personal choice based on my frustrations with how the game is run.  Sorry for the long post!!

An interesting debate.  There are times in the past when I’ve thought about not renewing but I have, not necessarily because of the football but, as others have said, the day itself.  Meeting your mates, few beers and a bit of a laugh.  I’ve renewed for this year and will get excited once August comes round.
That said, the last year has made me take stock a bit.  I guess I’m becoming a bit disillusioned with professional football at the top levels - champ and prem.  It can be difficult to get to some games, particularly midweek and Sky mess about with so many moving games to Friday night and Saturday lunchtime, which is also a bit tricky.  And when you see the money in the Premier League and the struggles lower down it a bit disheartening.  We all know the situation we’re in and chasing the dream and spending big back in 2015/16 hasn’t helped that.  And situations like Macclesfield, Wigan, Bury and there are probably many more too show that it’s quickly becoming unsustainable, if it isn’t already.  And the gap is widening.  There’s been lots of debate about the relegated clubs and the level of parachute payments making it easy for them to go straight back up and it’s a valid point.  Before too long it’ll be a virtual closed shop - the three coming down will keep going back up.
I am seriously thinking I might enjoy watching my local non-league team instead.  The quality and atmosphere won’t be as good but it won’t be about the money, it’ll be closer to a level playing field, 3:00 kick off on a Saturday afternoon and I might feel like I’m helping out where it counts. Will that mean I’ll care any less about The Rams? Absolutely not!!  Will it mean I won’t go to some games I want to and know I’ll be able to attend?  Of course it won’t.  It’ll just be a personal choice based on my frustrations with how the game is run.  Sorry for the long post!!

No I didn't say that. Rooney was meant to help with communicating what Cocu wanted, if the message wasn't clear then Rooney should have said something. As Rooney said himself, he was the link between the management and the players. So if the players were confused why hasn't it been said to Cocu, Twan and Chris that they didn't understand, why didn't the players say to Rooney we don't understand, what didn't Rooney say that they didn't understand?
I could see what we were trying to do under Cocu, I could see what the plan was, but he got dealt a poo hand, didn't have a proper pre season with the squad, he didn't have a proper transfer window and was hampered by injuries to key players. The players he bought were nearly all improvements on who they replaced. The youth players were managed correctly, and were improving consistently, when the football clicked last season it was brilliant to watch, at times it didn't and it was slow and ponderous and frustrating, but that annoyed Cocu as much as the fans. 
Everyone sees what they want to see, you didn't like Cocu but you do Rooney, I liked Cocu but not Rooney. Rooney could change my mind but Cocu will never change yours now, unless he was crazy enough to come back (which won't happen).