PaulHartman71

You love to see it

Just seen it was Mrs SCR's birthday today as well, blimey, that seems extra fitting. Hope this brought even a tiny bit of joy/happiness to your day @SouthCoastRed

I think I still get 1 Leaflet a month from Guide Dogs for the Blind after doing a donation for a contest or something that BG won. Absolutely deserving cause, but stop sending me so much post

Just got round to coming on here and asking for the winner's chosen charity and half of you have already donated and it's to SCR's hospice charity! Lovely stuff. Awesome to see.

Like why’s he passing it to Stones??

Ruined my morning even more reminding me of this What the **** is Walker doing passing it back to Stones and not sticking it into the box?! Why is Pickford just smashing it long when he’s got options available?! We’ve just scored and have some momentum, a throw in in an attacking position and it ends back in our half then going for a Spain goal kick

By not pressing until our own box it meant whenever we did win the ball Bellingham, Mainoo or Saka were required to take on like 2-3 guys before creating a chance or we just had to recycle the ball or pass to Pickford who just booted it long for Spain to win the ball back. I don’t think we could’ve played a tactic that played into Spain’s hands more.

This is the thing I’m most annoyed about. If we played like we played against the Dutch in the Semi or the Quarter Final against France in the World Cup and we just got outplayed, then fine. But our actual tactic at least in the first half and until Kane went off was to let Spain have the ball as much as they liked without any real press at all until they got to our box. On another night they’ve would’ve won it 3-0 as if you give a side like that the possession and time to think on the ball of course they’re going to create chances.

I don't think it would have mattered as I think Southgate would have started Walker no matter what, but if White had been playing on the right with Saka I think we'd have looked better too. Grealish and Rashford obviously had **** seasons, but both would've been more effective even as subs than what we had on the left hand side. I can only assume he didn't trust/rate Gordon, in which case you might as well just take Grealish, Rashford or even Sterling.

I don't get what the tactic or the plan was tonight. If the plan was to play a low block and hit them on the break then he should have dropped Kane and Foden and played Watkins and Palmer from the start. Kane offered absolutely nothing, when Watkins came on and started pressing Simon we actually looked like we were troubling Spain, but weirdly once Palmer scored we seemed to stop doing that completely again. I watch Arsenal play against a lot of low blocks and the effective ones essentially close down the channels so Martinelli/Saka can't do anything out wide and we just end up passing it aimlessly unable to get a cross or a forward ball in, but it was like we were playing a low block but still just letting Spain's wingers get in if they wanted to, so it didn't really make much sense. Rice/Mainoo as a midfield just doesn't work. I think Mainoo is a good player but he's out of his depth at this level in a double pivot, it's almost unfair to be playing him in a game like this IMO as I've seen a lot of people criticising him for having a **** game, but he's not capable of doing what England/Rice needs him to do. We may never know if Rice/Wharton is a better combination, but based on what people have said about how Wharton plays I feel like that combination would work even if Mainoo is the better player to Wharton. Rice hasn't had a good tournament but it's like Southgate doesn't understand what Rice is actually good at, I don't know if it was masked by Maguire's passing in past tournaments, but he's looked **** for much of the tournament because he's being asked to play the role Jorginho has been playing for him all season. I don't really know why we changed from the 3 at the back formation we used in the Semi Final against the Dutch as I thought that worked pretty well. I don't get why Bellingham was out wide at all. Foden was anonymous again after having a pretty good game in the Semi Final. Pickford just smashing balls up the whole game was pointless when Kane wasn't winning anything and 2 of our 4 most forward players are Saka and Foden who are short and not good in the air. It was just a mess overall.

Good luck GunmaN. Gotta say I’m still not sure how I managed to put together a side this decent given I didn’t have many favourable draws towards the start. Probably one of the best drafts I’ve ever had so will take it even if finish 2nd

I just don't see Klopp happening. Not really sure why he'd want to manage England and I think him being German is a pretty big obstacle to get past for most fans. There's also the issue it could sour his legacy with (some) Liverpool fans too. Pep makes sense if his family are settled in England and he fancies international management as it doesn't seem likely he'd manage Spain IMO.

I don’t think Carsley has any chance of the job. It’s one thing having an ex Ireland international be the U21 boss but I just don’t see him managing England personally. It doesn’t help he’s not really a name at all either. I think if we didn’t start well the vibes would be awful the whole time.

I think if we win it the players/media/country generally will be willing him to stay on for the World Cup. I really don’t think he’d step down if we do win.

Mainoo for me looks really raw. Obviously will be some player in his prime but looks a little bit out of his depth at this level, but given who we have in the squad without having seen much of Wharton I don’t think anyone else in the squad would do better than him if that makes sense. I think he’s just exposed more where in another team’s squad like France or Spain he either doesn’t make the tournament or is on the bench.