Euros 2024

I do apologise. I saw Midsomer and assumed Steve. Need my eyes testing.

comrade powell wrote:Agreed. And how many of the England team would get near Germany's?

It is difficult to judge. Certainly Gundogan performed well for Man City but other German players have not been particularly distinctive in our league since Klinsman. Scotland made them look exceptional.

Germany v Scotland like Premier league v League 1 club. I'd fancy Bath City's chances v Scotland. 24 team EUROS is too many team. 16 would be better. But TV companies rule. Declan Rice and Bellingham will be all over Gundogan and Wirtz if we play them. Looking forward to beating Serbia tonight. Roll on the last 16. Might be a few decent games in last game of the groups. A big hitter might finish bottom of a group but unlikely. Welcome Chris.

BenE wrote:
It is difficult to judge. Certainly Gundogan performed well for Man City but other German players have not been particularly distinctive in our league since Klinsman. Scotland made them look exceptional.

Perhaps because most top German players get hoovered up by Bayern?
But I agree that it would be dangerous to read too much into their chances based on that one game.
Spain looked pretty impressive yesterday against far tougher opponents than Scotland.

Why are the referees not clamping down on the shirt pulling and holding?

But thankfully most of them are not being conned by the divers, so it would have been pointless taking Grealish*.

(* Kane and Foden are also incapable of staying on their feet for 60 seconds so they can cover for him)

Paul1978 wrote:COMRADE POWELL from another thread. You’ll have to remind me of the bad luck England have suffered in the past (I WILL BUT  IT WILL TAKE ME A FEW HOURS TO COMPILE MY BAD LUCK REPORT) but they have certainly struck gold with the draw this time (WE'RE THE BEST TEAM SO FEAR NO SIDE OF THE DRAW). Along with Portugal they have what looks like the easiest pathway to the semis (and elimination by France (NO NEED TO FEAR FRANCE THEY WERE LUCKY TO BEAT US IN QATAR) provided they win their group, which looks a given. A third placed team would await them in the last 16 and a runner up in the QF.  But finishing second (NO CHANCE 3 OUT OF 3 WINS FOR US) in the group puts them in the tougher half of the draw (which would make up for the fortunate way things panned out for them in Russia 2018 (COLUMBIA, SWEDEN AND CROATIA ARE DECENT TEAMS!). 
See you on the new thread, WSP!

Will be interesting to read your assessment of England’s matches so far. Admit it, they’ve been a total shambles!

Top of the group. Can't ask for more than that. The Euros aren't won in the group stages. Just ask Portugal who didn't win a group game in 2016. We haven't played well but are still top of the group. All that matters at this stage. However something is missing. Not sure TAA is working in Midfield. We wont win a tournament with a right back at left back either. Shame Shaw and Chilwell are injured. Was a weird game with most passes being dodgy. Pitch was terrible however that's not to blame. Will regret not taking Grealish I feel. Such a class option to bring on. Players weren't happy with that decision either and that can cause friction between players and the manager. Will still win the tournament though, don't worry about that.

Paul1978 wrote:Top of the group. Can't ask for more than that. The Euros aren't won in the group stages. Just ask Portugal who didn't win a group game in 2016. We haven't played well but are still top of the group. All that matters at this stage. However something is missing. Not sure TAA  is working in Midfield. We wont win a tournament with a right back at left back either. Shame Shaw and Chilwell are injured. Was a weird game with most passes being dodgy. Pitch was terrible however that's not to blame. Will regret not taking Grealish I feel. Such a class option to bring on. Players weren't happy with that decision either and that can cause friction between players and the manager. Will still win the tournament though, don't worry about that.

You could copy and paste that over previous decades and decades just change names. Dismal.

Thanks for your response. Of course England should win this group of such limited teams. But do you really think they’d live with what we’ve seen already from Spain, France and Germany? It’s not about players in the wrong positions but overhyped, pampered PL stars not turning up. Kane, Foden and Alexander-Arnold have been embarrassing while Bellingham has yet to deliver. The boos at the end were well deserved. Oh for a passionate performance like Georgia delivered the other day in that classic against Turkey. In contrast, England are stinking out the tournament again and have featured in two of the worst matches!

No need to thank powell. Its great talking about the Euros. Yes we been poor but we stay positive as otherwise theirs no point in us being there. Things could go 2 ways now. We play well against Slovenia and confidence is boosted or we play bad and morale goes right down and we wimper out at the last 16. Feels like somethings not right in the camp. Not the buzz of last Euros. Hopefully we can have a convincing morale boosting victory against Slovenia. Trent Alexander Arnold needs dropping. Its not working. He's had 2 games now. Need Shaw back for balance as Trippier constantly has to cut inside. End of the day Spain etc can be world beaters in the group stages. Germany beat a league 1 level team in Scotland. When the knock outs kick in that's when it matters. Can get 10 out of 10 in a group stage match but doesn't really matter. Football can change quickly. No point in sulking we need to dig in. Football fans are very fickle and its easy to be negative and we could all moan but I prefer staying positive. Hoping we can raise our game. Will see what happens and yes the moaning if we continue to perform poor and get knocked out early will be justified but whilst were still alive and kicking the only approach I take is positivity. Land of hope and Glory.

The main positive has been the defence which would have done better I'm sure if the rest of the team had offered something in midgield. Kane has played like this for some time which he has got away with because of his goal scoring record. We effectively have no out ball. Midfielders need forward runs and we don't get them so it is all laboured and predictable. Southgate needs to be braver and play two strikers if Kane is undroppable. And to be fair we don't need both TTA and Bellingham. It is exactly the same as Lsmpard and Gerrard with exactly the same result.

A lot of pundits keep talking about the 6, 8 and 10 positions. Can anyone tell me what the hell they are talking about? It does my head in as I suspect it is a substitution for actual insight.

BenE wrote:A lot of pundits keep talking about the 6, 8 and 10 positions. Can anyone tell me what the hell they are talking about? It does my head in as I suspect it is a substitution for actual insight.

You certainly won’t get any actual insight from the appalling Shearer who very quickly needs to be removed from summarising England games. No problem with him wanting England to win but his jingoism at the start of both matches was quite nauseating. He reminded us several times that all Kane needs to do is score and yet when things were going pear shaped he’s moaning at him for not adapting to the match situation. He’s on a reported salary of £450k and yet Andrew Kerslake is a far superior summariser.

I couldn't work out why he thought he needed to shout into the microphone as if he was standing ten feet from it.

Paul1978 wrote:We wont win a tournament with a right back at left back either.

Italy did last time

Dave wrote:

Paul1978 wrote:We wont win a tournament with a right back at left back either.

Italy did last time

spinnazola is a right footed left back but he got injured in the quarter finals. was his replacement right footed at left back too. i cant stand right footers at left back. I blame the pitch for yesterdays shambles too. jim rollo played left back as a right footer when we won southern but he can play any where and we love him.

and he's losing his hair

BenE wrote:I couldn't work out why he thought he needed to shout into the microphone as if he was standing ten feet from it.

He is far better suited to the studio. Jenas is a decent summariser and should do the next England match covered by BBC. Many don’t like Mcoist but I think he complements the commentary really well. The problem with ITV’s matches is that they insist on referring to that robotic American whenever there’s an issue over a decision. That’s when I hit the mute button!

I think she's good. Gets it right most of the time while explaining the logic at the same time. Makes it more pallatable to me as VAR hater.

Having watched the France v Netherlands game last night mid way through the 2nd half when the Netherlands were sitting back that Kante guy natural kept coming up from nowhere to help the attack as he knew that his defenders were good enough to deal with what the Netherlands had left up front and it made me think of how Rice and Trent didn't/couldn't do this.

2weirdtown wrote:and he's losing his hair

that song invented 2006 and 18 years later he still got plenty of hair. Great song though. He's coming paint the park. What a man.

Don't forget Argentina won the last world cup after losing to the mighty Saudi Arabia in group stages. Only way to go forward is to keep supporting our country and be proud to be English. All teams need support more when things aren't going well. Bring on Slovenia.

While I admire your positivity about our overhyped national team, any success they achieve will be down to players playing at the standard expected of them not the blind support of their fans. Maybe they have a good game or two in them in the coming days but at present they don’t look anything like tournament winners. That’s not the fault of the doubters.

To be fair the whole of the premier league is overhyped. It is what the media do. Everything is magnified through a prism of superlatives.
I'm sure it's not just the british media that do this.
I'm equally sure that the English players are good. They just aren't a team. They aren't playing for either the manager or each other or the fans. They play within themselves and for themselves.
I hate to be negative about a manager but do they not buy into how he wants to play?