World Cup Qatar

[sage]

Southgate Out!!

[Gaspode]

Plucky though weren’t they? - plucky little Wales….

[Grumpy Git]

Wales were by far the worst team I’ve seen at this tournament tonight, and I’ve only missed a couple of games.

[Gritstone Ram]

23 minutes ago, Steve Buckley’s Dog said:

I thought Wales looked like a pub team. 

At closing time

[Mr Tibbs]

We can say what we want about Southgate but another tournament group stage navigated with ease. Three on the bounce. Obviously there are tougher tests ahead but another tournament with no surprises suits me fine. A fair few 'favourites' have had it much rougher against worse opposition. 

Thought Rashford was poor up until the freekick and then was sublime afterwards. Can't drop the tournament joint top goalscorer now. Hendo added that bite we lacked on Friday so I see no way back in for Mount. Plenty to be pleased about, even the first half snoozefest was completely controlled and we should have been 1-0 up after the Rashford 1 v 1. A good nights work. 

Onto Sunday! 

[Foreveram]

58 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Bellingham and Henderson by far our two best players tonight. Kane and Foden played well too. 

I feel quite sorry for the Welsh. Who wants to come from Wales.

I was happy to be coming from Wales on Monday.?

[Mr. P]

Don’t think it would’ve made much difference, but I didn’t think that was a free kick that led to Rashfords first goal. 

[kevinhectoring]

We’ve got some hopeless pundits but imho Neville and Ferdinand talk masses of sense. Have heard both of them saying in different ways that Alexander Arnold (as well as Bellingham and Foden) is a ‘player in a generation’  but that if we come up against Mbappe then Walker will contain him and no one else can.  Will be interesting to see what happens if we come up against France 

[kevinhectoring]

37 minutes ago, Mr Tibbs said:

We can say what we want about Southgate but another tournament group stage navigated with ease. Three on the bounce. Obviously there are tougher tests ahead but another tournament with no surprises suits me fine. A fair few 'favourites' have had it much rougher against worse opposition. 

The criticism of Southgate reflects a view that he has failed to win two major tournaments which could have been won, because he was too cautious. (And couldn’t organise a penalty shootout.) He seems to listen to what people are saying. And he seems smart enough to learn from his mistakes. So maybe he’ll do better this time ?
Tonight was promising albeit against mediocre oppo 

[kevinhectoring]

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

Rashford proving us all wrong again ? 

His missed effort in the first half was a decent effort at a crafty dink. Keeper was lucky and just happened to guess right. Along the ground was in. The free kick should have been saved. The second goal was a messy business - a world class striker would have been much tidier.

He gave the ball away far too often in the first half. Motm is a bit of a joke given what others did 

[DavesaRam]

After the first few minutes I feared another USA-type game, but it didn't last long. We controlled the first half, looking strong and a good deal better than the Welsh guys. I was desperate for Foden to do well, because he seemed to have been excluded, even though he is playing so well for his club, and he almost did with that liquid-smooth move towards the end of the hlaf that he put over the bar/post junction. at half time I was confident that it was only a matter of time before we scored. Wales worked hard and did well for the first half. However I was puzzled that they had to win, but didn't seemed to bothered about doing it, unless they were playing for penalties, but didn't know that there wasn't any penalty shoot out involved!

Three lovely goals brought about the inevitable, in what was the best England display for years - but so it should have been, because Wales were really poor. But you can only play what's in front of you! Let's see what we do against stronger opposition.

[Van der MoodHoover]

2 hours ago, Derbados said:

My god get Rashford off, abysmal

Ahem... ?

[Inverurie Ram]

2 hours ago, Derbados said:

Rashfords been awful so far 

I thought he was trying to be Sibley first half then he turned into Sibley second half…………

[Van der MoodHoover]

13 minutes ago, DavesaRam said:

Three lovely goals brought about the inevitable, in what was the best England display for years - but so it should have been, because Wales were really poor. But you can only play what's in front of you! Let's see what we do against stronger opposition.

How many years? Not picking a fight but IMHO it was no more than a competent performance against very weak opposition. 

[sage]

32 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

The criticism of Southgate reflects a view that he has failed to win two major tournaments which could have been won, because he was too cautious. (And couldn’t organise a penalty shootout.) He seems to listen to what people are saying. And he seems smart enough to learn from his mistakes. So maybe he’ll do better this time ?
Tonight was promising albeit against mediocre oppo 

Which people should be listening to?

[Ambitious]

Southgate deserves a lot of credit. International management is a completely different role to club management. Ok, we could find a better tactician or someone who can develop young players better, probably someone with a great CV in club management, but these players have a fraction of their football with their national team so the skillset required for management is different. 

Southgate has created a unity in the England set up that we've never had and he's probably going to go down as the best manager we've ever had. Deserves a ton of credit. 

As good as this team is, it's still nothing in terms of individual talent that we had in the golden generation. Terry, Rio, Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney were all generational talents. 

[Ambitious]

2 hours ago, Steve Buckley’s Dog said:

I thought Wales looked like a pub team. 

Wales have a couple of players in their squad that are currently plying their trade in League Two. 

They did well to even qualify. 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

6 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

Southgate has created a unity in the England set up that we've never had and he's probably going to go down as the best manager we've ever had. Deserves a ton of credit. 

And yet he gets an absolutely ridiculous amount of stick. Completely baffles me. Football fans don’t deserve good things. 

The bloke has given me two of the best summers I’ll probably ever have.

[TigerTedd]

2 hours ago, Mr Tibbs said:

Can't drop the tournament joint top goalscorer now.

It’s a bit of a headache for Southgate.

Saka’s scored 2 already and is in blistering form for Arsenal. Rashford’s got 3. Foden’s got 1, and clearly has to play too. Even Sterling’s got 1. So has Grealish.

Everyone has a heart attack over the starting 11, but we have 5 subs. I’m happy for Southgate to do a McClaren and always have it in the game plan to switch out the two wide strikers. Whatever the starting 11, we’ve got absolute quality on the bench in those areas. 

[FlyBritishMidland]

6 hours ago, Ambitious said:

Southgate deserves a lot of credit. International management is a completely different role to club management. Ok, we could find a better tactician or someone who can develop young players better, probably someone with a great CV in club management, but these players have a fraction of their football with their national team so the skillset required for management is different. 

Southgate has created a unity in the England set up that we've never had and he's probably going to go down as the best manager we've ever had. Deserves a ton of credit. 

As good as this team is, it's still nothing in terms of individual talent that we had in the golden generation. Terry, Rio, Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney were all generational talents. 

Totally agree with the bold bit, which I imagine is difficult to do at international level when you only have the players for a few days or weeks.  That shows he’s a good leader.

He needs to be less scared of losing against the big nations.  We have some exceptional attacking talent.  Let’s play to their strengths and go at teams.  If we get France in the QF, assuming we get through the next round, let’s not be scared of Mbappe, Giroud, Giezmann and the rest, let them be scared of Kane, Foden, Rashford, Saka, etc.

Edited November 30, 2022 by FlyBritishMidland