The_jagster

Don't want to bang on about Rice but he makes up for passing deficiencies by carrying the ball past players and getting up the pitch that way (like Stones in the final) and the only time I can recall that this tournament was in stoppage time against Holland. I think it is because Southgate prioritised "control" which is really caution against giving the ball away in dangerous positions which is not the same thing.

Although I think a lot of the reporting of it is a bit stupid, there are aspects of Bellingham I don't like, such as the 'who else?' thing when he scored and the very frequent diving. Now maybe there is some inside joke about 'who else' but it seems too individualistic to me.

Appreciate this is upping a post from yesterday but the Irish podcast I listened to was openly laughing at either this article or a similar one. I paraphrase but on a day off Bellingham went out with his family and was getting a crowd around him while sitting out at a bar/cafe in Erfurt centre. "That Bellingham was the only player to attract a hubbub did not go unnoticed by his teammates."

When Ronay speaks on podcasts he doesn't even think Southgate is that great He just takes a slightly different position to the prevailing view and turns into the contrarian point of view, and that is something I just cannot get behind at all Jonathan Wilson has the best take on this which is that a lot of tournament football is down to luck, especially the draw, so saying "they should make the semis" isn't really fair necessarily

Come on Rob, one last meme rating please

Careful, you're ruining your narrative that City were complete ***** when the new owners took over

I don't think it's as simple as "top class" managers all being one similar group, identify what you need and ideally get the best guy who fits that. Di Matteo once won a CL but I wouldn't be looking at similar managers for a club with CL title aspirations. Gareth had 3 attempts where there was a squad realistically capable of winning, and we weren't embarrassed by the big sides we lost to, but we never had a deserved win against a top side either imo. Not that it's easy but I think it is possible to have a manager of this England do more than hang in there and hope for the best. But one penalty shootout goes the other way and we'd have won a trophy/got knocked out in R16 by Colombia

Take him out of the mentoring group with McTominay then!

I still think fundamentally people would complain if Bellingham was further back. "Need him further forward to be most effective" "Taken his game to a new level now he's playing in a more advanced role"

With the exception of LB, the squad wasn't the issue. Given how everyone has looked, I have no confidence whatsoever that an out of form Rashford would have had any benefit over the other options. He'd have probably stunk the left wing out even more.

That throw was awful, but England tried to play out plenty of times and couldn't do it, eventually having to clear it long to a Spanish defender, under no pressure from Kane of course. Or sometimes to a midfielder because they were hemmed in at the goal line. It's why I'm not that annoyed with Pickford, the mentality was bad throughout the team.

Didn't take long did it, yesterday you were saying you wouldn't mind England winning and now it's back to trolling (but getting bites), never change

BBC mercifully cutting Gareth off

I really rate him too, with the possible exception of Saka I just think our play makes everyone look worse in attack in an England shirt

Really noticed Rice tonight though, because Spain have players prepared to zip it forward, while Rice deliberates for a ****ing age and ends up turning and passing backwards

I don't know how effective we'd have been pressing them a bit more in all honesty, Spain were much much more comfortable under pressure than England. The reason we ended up with Pickford booting it out was that we couldn't rely on getting it up the pitch by passing it out

It's why the longer stoppage times were much fairer however frequently people said they were stupid Wasn't a joke of a performance, but the win for Spain was well deserved. On the plus side, Spain have proved it's possible to play the best football and win every match en route to the trophy.

I did a whole list of games last time you brought this up, we are no better when the game is level later on than when we've taken an early lead

Not terrible, fancy Spain to score if anyone but it's not like England are hanging on for dear life

And yet ETH has won infinitely more trophies in that time while England got relegated from a Nations League group losing 4-0 at home to Hungary in the process.

Morata has been decent enough, not stinking the place out like Immobile for Italy last Euros.

Ronay is one of those joining a weird selection of journos who will happily say ETH isn't very good and that Man Utd still picked up results against sides with less resources in spite of him*, and when England do the same it's because Southgate has created a culture where lucky stuff happens, so is it really luck? To take an example from that article, Watkins coming on in the 81st minute and scoring is one in the eye for fans saying Watkins hasnt been given enough minutes. But coming on and scoring with the only onside shot in the second half is surely more an argument for the detractors, because maybe we create more if he's brought on earlier/in other games? *possible, but unlikely, that he hasn't made this argument at some point in his columns or Football Weekly appearances

Thanks to the cricket finishing early I listened to the 5 live commentary of the semi, which had John Murray, Alan Shearer and Matt Upson. Shearer wasn't too bad actually, and offered comments on how England were playing, what he would like to see changed in the second half, he used to get a lot of stick when he was first on MOTD but I think he has improved quite a bit. However, what was apparent was that what felt like a tense game at the time had absolutely nothing happening in the second half until the last 10 minutes, where the Dutch were annoyed at fair challenges being called fouls and we had the offside goal and the actual goal. At the time I can remember the goal feeling quite sudden, and Murray's commentary was equally as blase until he yelled "AND WATKINS HAS SCORED" - it really reflected how unthreatening that position normally is and that 9 times out of 10 it's probably a comfortable save or gets blocked. Listening back was probably a bad idea because I'm now convinced that Spain won't be as awful as the Dutch were in the first half and there is no way we are going to create much unless we have to go for it.

Otoh, the Copa America knockouts seem to be exclusively decided by penalties

Think penalty shootouts should be removed from that tbh, unless there is evidence less rested teams are more frequently losing them? Chile, Italy and Argentina make the left side look a fair bit greener