Too many England 'fans' not supporting England

[git2thachoppa]

It's gone from a hyperbole joke to a serious problem.

Not that it wins me any points, but I said many years ago that England (and Southgate) could win a trophy, and fans would be moaning within months that they're not winning every match 3-0 as world champions now.

Moan about Rooney not being dropped, first thing he does is drop Rooney.

Moan about not winning penalties and crumbling by the QF, yet win penalties and hold leads and reach semis and finals, moan.

Moan about squeaking through qualifiers, then wallop teams 6-0, still moan.

England could beat Netherlands and France and win Euro 2024, and the response will be to celebrate like they had anything to do with it, then say "well we didn't face any good teams" again. But if England get knocked out in the semis, it'll be "first good team we faced, we got beat".

It's all 'we', yet their negative whining is not.

Spoiler

I'm not moaning, you are.

McClaren's stellar Euro 2008 campaign brought much-needed humility to some England fans. Then as soon as we start doing well again, solely under Gareth, the entitlement and lack of respect for other countries comes rampaging back within a few years. Gross.

Hope England win though, however they need to, in spite of some of their fans. Too many will be insufferable though and make us all look bad.

Spoiler

Thanks for letting me rant, it's been building a few years.

 

Edited July 7 by git2thachoppa

[EnterUsernameHere]

Ok?

[Divinity]

2 minutes ago, git2thachoppa said:

wallop teams 6-0,

This was the funniest bit of the post.

England's players aren't the problem, the manager is. Tactically inept and has murdered your best chances of winning trophies in decades. It's fine for people to watch talented players wasted in turgid systems and then complain about it.

Compare Man City Foden to England Foden - the problem isn't the player.

[decapitated]

4 minutes ago, git2thachoppa said:

It's gone from a hyperbole joke to a serious problem.

Not that it wins me any points, but I said many years ago that England (and Southgate) could win a trophy, and fans would be moaning within months that they're not winning every match 3-0 as world champions now.

Moan about Rooney not being dropped, first thing he does is drop Rooney.

Moan about not winning penalties and crumbling by the QF, yet win penalties and hold leads and reach semis and finals, moan.

Moan about squeaking through qualifiers, then wallop teams 6-0, still moan.

England could beat Netherlands and France and win Euro 2024, and the response will be to celebrate like they had anything to do with it, then say "well we didn't face any good teams" again. But if England get knocked out in the semis, it'll be "first good team we faced, we got beat".

It's all 'we', yet their negative whining is not.

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm not moaning, you are.

McClaren's stellar Euro 2008 campaign brought much-needed humility to some England fans. Then as soon as we start doing well again, solely under Gareth, the entitlement and lack of respect for other countries comes rampaging back within a few years. Gross.

Hope England win though, however they need to, in spite of some of their fans. Too many will be insufferable though and make us all look bad.

  Reveal hidden contents

Thanks for letting me rant, it's been building a few years.

 

This won't make me popular but I agree with you. England fans are hyper-critical and extremely entitled. They moan when they aren't winning, and then when they are, moan they aren't winning "with style". I would rather have an ugly defensive tournament win than 'playing good football' and going out in the quarter-finals like in the Sven years. 

[GunmaN1905]

Wait, is that GameFAQs?

[git2thachoppa]

11 minutes ago, Divinity said:

This was the funniest bit of the post.

England's players aren't the problem, the manager is. Tactically inept and has murdered your best chances of winning trophies in decades. It's fine for people to watch talented players wasted in turgid systems and then complain about it.

Compare Man City Foden to England Foden - the problem isn't the player.

 
That bit refers to qualifiers where we used to lose away and have corners scored against us by Macedonia, Southgate's reign sees us beat them 5-0, 6-0, 7-0, beat Italy and co. like you guys demanded.

If he's tactically inept, how has he done historically well? The players? We've always had players. We didn't in 2018, that lot were awful and he got a semi out of them (). His tactics have been what England needed - game management. Arguably he should try to be expansive, but that argument comes up when England lose, not when they're progressing.

5 minutes ago, GunmaN1905 said:

Wait, is that GameFAQs?

Yes, it's pronounced Game FACKS, right?

Edited July 7 by git2thachoppa

[Ackter]

I don't get why you should support drudgery. 

Loyalty should go both ways.

[EnterUsernameHere]

18 minutes ago, decapitated said:

This won't make me popular but I agree with you. England fans are hyper-critical and extremely entitled. They moan when they aren't winning, and then when they are, moan they aren't winning "with style". I would rather have an ugly defensive tournament win than 'playing good football' and going out in the quarter-finals like in the Sven years. 

Why not both?

People who think this is the only way England can win are absolutely baffling.

[Rafalution]

32 minutes ago, decapitated said:

This won't make me popular but I agree with you. England fans are hyper-critical and extremely entitled. They moan when they aren't winning, and then when they are, moan they aren't winning "with style". I would rather have an ugly defensive tournament win than 'playing good football' and going out in the quarter-finals like in the Sven years. 

i'd rather the latter. i watch football to be entertained. silverware is overrated. 

[git2thachoppa]

4 minutes ago, Rafalution said:

i'd rather the latter. i watch football to be entertained. silverware is overrated. 

England have been very entertaining the past few decades... would like to see them win a trophy now.

We see this all the time though - a manager gets results, drags their Fulham, Charlton, Portsmouth, West Ham, Blackburn etc. to midtable or higher, so the fans demand 'entertaining' football, boss gets sacked or leaves, they very entertainingly get relegated to the Championship and sometimes again to League One.

You can have both when you're winning trophies first, but that's much harder in international football where you can't just buy different or better players to suit that.

 

[SteveUK]

England aren't a relegation fodder/midtable team, they have several of the best players in the world at the moment in attack. We should be getting better performances out of them, it's perfectly fine to expect that.

[git2thachoppa]

9 minutes ago, SteveUK said:

England aren't a relegation fodder/midtable team, they have several of the best players in the world at the moment in attack. We should be getting better performances out of them, it's perfectly fine to expect that.

So do many countries. It's fine to want it, but not expect it (certainly not by booing or piling pressure on). Not when many winners have a slow start, and in a specific tournament where many teams have been lethergic. It's unrealistic. Spain circa 2010 were a rarity and still had their dodgy moments.

There's no better performance than winning and progressing. You want them to be winning AND blowing everyone away, but you shouldn't expect that, especially when they haven't actually failed and been knocked out yet.

Edited July 7 by git2thachoppa

[Redshift]

I mean, Sven lost to Brazil and Portugal twice. Would he have been a great manager if he went out to them later in the tournaments?

[ceefax the cat]

59 minutes ago, decapitated said:

This won't make me popular but I agree with you. England fans are hyper-critical and extremely entitled. They moan when they aren't winning, and then when they are, moan they aren't winning "with style". I would rather have an ugly defensive tournament win than 'playing good football' and going out in the quarter-finals like in the Sven years. 

We didn't play entertaining football under Sven. It was almost always incredibly frustrating, boxy sideways nonsense, especially in tournaments

[git2thachoppa]

6 minutes ago, Redshift said:

I mean, Sven lost to Brazil and Portugal twice. Would he have been a great manager if he went out to them later in the tournaments?

2002 in 2024:

1-1 v Sweden - "typical England can't keep a lead"

1-0 v Argentina - "haven't beaten any good teams yet"

0-0 v Nigeria - "Sven out"

3-0 v Denmark - "haven't beaten any good teams yet"

L v Brazil - "lost to the first good team we faced"

W v Brazil - "worst Brazil team in generations, haven't beaten any good teams yet"

W v Turkey in semis - "easy draw"

Win literal World Cup - "lucky everyone else was bad"

Edited July 7 by git2thachoppa

[EnterUsernameHere]

21 minutes ago, git2thachoppa said:

England have been very entertaining the past few decades... would like to see them win a trophy now.

We see this all the time though - a manager gets results, drags their Fulham, Charlton, Portsmouth, West Ham, Blackburn etc. to midtable or higher, so the fans demand 'entertaining' football, boss gets sacked or leaves, they very entertainingly get relegated to the Championship and sometimes again to League One.

You can have both when you're winning trophies first, but that's much harder in international football where you can't just buy different or better players to suit that.

 

England have absolutely not been entertaining. In my lifetime anyway.

It's almost torture watching most England sides, and they're the reason I stopped watching friendlies or qualifiers.

[SteveUK]

2 minutes ago, EnterUsernameHere said:

England have absolutely not been entertaining. In my lifetime anyway.

It's almost torture watching most England sides, and they're the reason I stopped watching friendlies or qualifiers.

Need a better manager selection process, which is difficult as I can't imagine the pay is as attractive as club football, we're basically going into a semi final due to two wonder goals and the bloke who wrote Akanji dive left on Pickfords water bottle

[EnterUsernameHere]

1 minute ago, SteveUK said:

Need a better manager selection process, which is difficult as I can't imagine the pay is as attractive as club football, we're basically going into a semi final due to two wonder goals and the bloke who wrote Akanji dive left on Pickfords water bottle

Southgate surely isn't on a pittance?

[enigmatic]

25 minutes ago, SteveUK said:

England aren't a relegation fodder/midtable team, they have several of the best players in the world at the moment in attack. We should be getting better performances out of them, it's perfectly fine to expect that.

I think it's perfectly fine to expect better performances than the last couple of games, but England fans go way beyond that into weirdness like insisting we've never played this badly under previous managers and 2020 was a dismal failure 

 

15 minutes ago, Redshift said:

I mean, Sven lost to Brazil and Portugal twice. Would he have been a great manager if he went out to them later in the tournaments?

Sven also squeaked through group stages with draws against the likes of Sweden and Nigeria without getting nearly as much **** for the individual performances, never mind the insistence that he was the one thing stopping us from playing like peak Man City and winning the whole thing.

Edited July 7 by enigmatic

[SteveUK]

5 minutes ago, EnterUsernameHere said:

Southgate surely isn't on a pittance?

Not entirely sure, was just speculating really, had a google looks like he's on £5mil or so a year vs Artetas(soon to upped in new contract) £8mil and Guardiola's £20mil+ for comparison.

 

Edited July 7 by SteveUK

[enigmatic]

1 minute ago, SteveUK said:

Not entirely sure, was just speculating really, had a google looks like he's on £5mil or so a year vs Artetas(soon to upped in new contract) £8mil and Guardiola's £20mil+ for comparison.

tbf that's pretty good for a part time job  

 

(Howe's also supposedly on about that, which is perhaps a good thing as he's the only realistic replacement whose paper credentials suggest he might actually do a better job, and Newcastle probably looks like less of an exciting project to stick with than it did a season ago)

[EnterUsernameHere]

6 minutes ago, SteveUK said:

Not entirely sure, was just speculating really, had a google looks like he's on £5mil or so a year vs Artetas(soon to upped in new contract) £8mil and Guardiola's £20mil+ for comparison.

 

That seems like a good salary considering no real top club (United excluded if ETH doesn't do well...) would consider him. 

[metal_guitarist]

Watching England under Southgate has got me to the point where when Bellingham scored that overhead kick, my first thought was "great, I'm going to have to watch another half an hour of this". We are getting to semi-finals and finals in spite of him, not because of him. He's shown time and time again that he does not have the tactical nous or in-game management to get the best out of this group of players who produce moments of individual brilliance to keep bailing him out. When they can't do that, his limitations become extremely exposed. 

1 more week, can't wait for it to be over. 

[skybluedave]

There has always been a decent number of English football fans that don't support national side or aren't interest or would enjoy seeing then lose. It's nothing new

[Wavelberry]

Southgate's England are the type of team you should watch on ceefax. I'll be buzzin' if we win the thing but watching the team is painful.

[git2thachoppa]

12 minutes ago, metal_guitarist said:

Watching England under Southgate has got me to the point where when Bellingham scored that overhead kick, my first thought was "great, I'm going to have to watch another half an hour of this". We are getting to semi-finals and finals in spite of him, not because of him. He's shown time and time again that he does not have the tactical nous or in-game management to get the best out of this group of players who produce moments of individual brilliance to keep bailing him out. When they can't do that, his limitations become extremely exposed. 

1 more week, can't wait for it to be over. 

He got a defence of Pickford and Stones, no midfield, and Kane as the only goal threat into the World Cup semis. Can't be that bad.

Another problem is people assuming if we played more open football, we'd be blasting in goals and winning. Not still losing 2-1 or 3-2 like we used to.

It's our attack that has talent, our defensive options have been average for a decade. He made Pickford/Maguire/Stones a solid defence at one point. Imagine making Maguire a world class defender for you!

Edited July 7 by git2thachoppa

[Rob1981]

11 minutes ago, skybluedave said:

There has always been a decent number of English football fans that don't support national side or aren't interest or would enjoy seeing then lose. It's nothing new

Some of this goes WAY beyond England though.

The performative stuff where fans of big clubs hate on every aspect of international breaks... Like otherwise they are being disloyal to club football or something.

It's genuinely weird.

[EnterUsernameHere]

10 minutes ago, git2thachoppa said:

He got a defence of Pickford and Stones, no midfield, and Kane as the only goal threat into the World Cup semis. Can't be that bad.

Another problem is people assuming if we played more open football, we'd be blasting in goals and winning. Not still losing 2-1 or 3-2 like we used to.

It's our attack that has talent, our defensive options have been average for a decade. He made Pickford/Maguire/Stones a solid defence at one point. Imagine making Maguire a world class defender for you!

A team with Foden, Saka and Bellingham has only Kane as a goal threat?

*Roy Keane voice* do me a favour.

[TM]

12 minutes ago, Wavelberry said:

Southgate's England are the type of team you should watch on ceefax

as a teletext aficionado, I appreciate this statement

[decapitated]

2 hours ago, EnterUsernameHere said:

Why not both?

People who think this is the only way England can win are absolutely baffling.

I would like both, but if it were one or other then I value winning over entertainment. If you truly support a club or international side, then even if their match is utter turgid ineffectual football you should be feeling the adrenaline pumping throughout the match in a way you wouldn't for a game between neutrals. I had that for the Slovakia and Switzerland games, and if anyone else didn't, then they aren't really an England fan, and should stick to the club game and not comment on it. 

If we are honest, it's not just England where this is happening. Deschamps gets pelters despite 1 World Cup win and one runners up position as they are so boring, Santos is poorly thought of even though he's been the only Portugal manager to win something after 25 years of golden talent and Dalić gets stick despite overachieving to take Croatia to the World Cup final. Even Scottish fans are at Steve Clarke's throat, forgetting where the side had been for the past 20 years before he took up his post. 

Criticise a loss or a perhaps draw, sure, but a win is a win.  International football is by and large, cagey, defensive and decided on fine margins. Germany 7-1 Brazil is so notable as it's so rare for that sort of drubbing to happen in a World Cup final tournament whereas in the club game it happens at least half a dozen times a season, probably more in the English league system. It's no good saying "we have so many great players at club level"; so what? So do Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium, Switzerland, etc. Would you rather we attempt to play like Manchester City and go out in the 2nd round or the quarters or even the group stage than what we have now? If so, then, again, you aren't really an England fan and shouldn't get worked up about it so much. If England had two 0-0 draws with penalty wins for the final two games, I'd be really happy with that as someone who has followed the national side for over 30 years. 

Edited July 7 by decapitated

[git2thachoppa]

17 minutes ago, EnterUsernameHere said:

A team with Foden, Saka and Bellingham has only Kane as a goal threat?

*Roy Keane voice* do me a favour.

Pretty sure none of those players had even made their debut yet.

The fact that someone upvoted this shows that people aren't reading what others are saying and just agreeing for the sake of it...

[Haguey]

1 hour ago, Rafalution said:

silverware is overrated. 

I think this is where the divide is, for me and fans of club sides who rarely if ever win anything, winning an international trophy would be absolutely everything.

[enigmatic]

1 minute ago, git2thachoppa said:

Pretty sure none of those players had even made their debut yet.

The fact that someone upvoted this shows that people aren't reading what others are saying and just agreeing for the sake of it...

Tbf that team did have Sterling (ignoring the minor detail that he hadn't scored for the national team in three years...)

[EnterUsernameHere]

7 minutes ago, git2thachoppa said:

Pretty sure none of those players had even made their debut yet.

The fact that someone upvoted this shows that people aren't reading what others are saying and just agreeing for the sake of it...

I'll apologise, I didn't read it properly and thought it was about the current situation.

[eenie]

1 hour ago, Haguey said:

I think this is where the divide is, for me and fans of club sides who rarely if ever win anything, winning an international trophy would be absolutely everything.

Also, if silverware is overrated then "x years of hurt" wouldn't exist, and the world would be a better place.

That said, I think we can all be thankful that Baddiel and Skinner have spared us all a Three Lions '24 this time around.

[Ackter]

England are too big and too full of quality to be a team who are happy to fluke their way to titles.

[ceefax the cat]

 

10 minutes ago, Ackter said:

England are too big and too full of quality to be a team who are happy to fluke their way to titles.

That is simply mental. We are nowhere near good enough to be picky about how we win titles. You seem to be confusing us with by far the best team in the world, or a team that regularly wins titles?

International sides you might be confusing us with:

Hungary 1954
Brazil 1958 - 70
Holland 1974
Spain 2010

Aaaand basically no others, ever. Maybe Brazil 2002 at a push?

Edited July 7 by ceefax the cat

[Haguey]

Two of those also famously failed to win major trophies too despite it being incredibly simple

[ThanatosAFC]

It's mind-blowing that Southgate & Deschamps **** their pants every game while having the best talents in football. As a neutral i could careless for who wins at the end but give us some proper football. Football is still entertainment in my books.

Edited July 7 by ThanatosAFC

[enigmatic]

57 minutes ago, ceefax the cat said:

Aaaand basically no others, ever. Maybe Brazil 2002 at a push?

Might have had Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo and been the only side ever to win all their games, but also had a manager with a reputation for dull football and an easy draw...

Edited July 7 by enigmatic

[Rick87]

2 hours ago, eenie said:

Also, if silverware is overrated then "x years of hurt" wouldn't exist, and the world would be a better place.

That said, I think we can all be thankful that Baddiel and Skinner have spared us all a Three Lions '24 this time around.

It's the 30th anniversary of that song in 2026, so England better win this Euros, if only to save us from that when the World cup rolls around.

[eenie]

7 minutes ago, Rick87 said:

It's the 30th anniversary of that song in 2026, so England better win this Euros, if only to save us from that when the World cup rolls around.

Ah, but in 2026, "30 years of hurt" will refer to the punishment our ears have taken after being subjected to that ****ing song

[ceefax the cat]

"30 years of 30 years of hurt".... doesn't scan particularly

three lions squared. 9 lions on a shirt?

[Haguey]

3 lions is a fantastic football song you heathens. Even the Germans like it

[Ty]

6 hours ago, git2thachoppa said:

We see this all the time though - a manager gets results, drags Portsmouth to midtable or higher, so the fans demand 'entertaining' football, boss gets sacked or leaves, they very entertainingly get relegated to the Championship and sometimes again to League One.

 

We absolutely did not end up in League One for 7 years because our fans ‘demanded entertaining football’ ffs  

We ended up in League One because we spent well outside our means, financially a mess from top to bottom, we had shady people within the club absorbing money and to top it off we even let a fake sheikh ‘buy’ the club who had no money but turned up to a few games with a Pompey cap on. 

Demanded entertaining football

[Haguey]

17 minutes ago, Ty said:

We absolutely did not end up in League One for 7 years because our fans ‘demanded entertaining football’ ffs  

We ended up in League One because we spent well outside our means, financially a mess from top to bottom, we had shady people within the club absorbing money and to top it off we even let a fake sheikh ‘buy’ the club who had no money but turned up to a few games with a Pompey cap on. 

Demanded entertaining football

If anything this is more Southamptons downfall, who else remembers MLG almost in tears after Puel took them to 8th but with a worse record

[ceefax the cat]

Stoke perhaps

[git2thachoppa]

2 hours ago, Haguey said:

If anything this is more Southamptons downfall, who else remembers MLG almost in tears after Puel took them to 8th but with a worse record

Southampton, Portsmouth, same thing.

[The Amazing Dale Watkins]

The argument amounts to results trumping everything else, but if you look at how the results were achieved, they cannot reasonably be replicated using the tactics employed. England would have been rightfully eliminated by Slovakia in the round of 16 had it not been for a dramatic stoppage-time bicycle kick, a moment of individual brilliance. That moment doesn't vindicate Southgate in any way. If you were to replay the last ten minutes of that game, 98 out of a hundred times, England would now be home, and Gareth would be sacked. The criticism isn't that England isn't playing beautifully enough; it's that they don't play in a way that's likely to succeed. Just because they miraculously made it through to the semi-finals isn't a vindication but a further reminder of how much luck it took.  

Edited July 8 by The Amazing Dale Watkins

[Rob1981]

4 hours ago, The Amazing Dale Watkins said:

England would have been rightfully eliminated by Slovakia in the round of 16 had it not been for a dramatic stoppage-time bicycle kick, a moment of individual brilliance. That moment doesn't vindicate Southgate in any way. If you were to replay the last ten minutes of that game, 98 out of a hundred times, England would now be home, and Gareth would be sacked. 

 

Foden had a tap in disallowed because he had drifted just offside. Kane missed a free header from about three yards out. Rice hit the post.

You play the game 100 times, one of those other chances often goes in. Then maybe we go on and win it in normal time. Then we haven’t spent a week wringing our hands about needing a last minute goal and the mood around the tournament is completely different.

That’s not to defend the performance. But if you are going to do 100 hypothetical replays, you can’t just change the bit where a team scores to suit your argument and keep in all the times that they missed.

These knockout games just swing on odd moments here and there.  A goal on 95 minutes is no less valid than us scoring one of the other chances on 70 or 80 minutes.

Same as Spain v Germany. Because Spain went and got a last minute goal and avoided penalties, everyone is still purring about them being this amazing attacking machine. But they sat on a 1-0 lead for over an hour and then in stoppage time they were inches away from conceding a goal to Germany at the other end. You replay THAT game 100 times?  Quite often Spain are back at the airport after the final whistle and we are sitting here with a wry smile saying that they peaked too early.

Again, this is just what tournament football is.

Edited July 8 by Rob1981