UEFA Euro 2024: Mod Note Added 2/7/24

I thought Kyle walker was fairly useless attacking wise. I think James is a significant upgrade. I think he would have contributed more than Maddison, Grealish or the other names left out. But he’s massive fitness issues so I we never going to happen.

This.

The one thing that will win any neutral over is exciting tempo football. The one thing that will not is how England played this tournament. Boring risk adverse 'corporate' football. I get enough of that mentality at work (where it has its rightful place), but in football, no thanks.

When you, as a manager, see the impact of Cole Palmer and Ollie Watkins, yet you decide to make them bit part players, getting 5, or 10, or 20 minute cameos, the problem is with you.

When you give Anthony Gordon 2 minutes in a 7 game tournament, the problem is with you.

When you lumber on with Harry Kane up front, when clearly, he is not at 100%, the problem is with you.

If you can look across at the other bench, and see a manager, who used 25 of his 26 players, and was confident enough to take off the player of the tournament at half time, then you need to re-assess.

Having said all that, however, I do wish that Southgate stays on. he's probably the only "conservative" with power now, so who knows. The jingoism and relentless patriotism is embarrassing and I couldn't take 58 years of gloating . I listened to the RP podcast on Thursday where Mark Langdon tipped up Spain, yet, by Saturday every single piece of print media from the Post and the Sporting Life ALL TIPPED England. None of them had the balls to put it in print that Spain would win. That is how bad it is over there. Crazy. I lost respect for the "so called" professionals. Cowards, the lot of them.

Southgate had Gallagher and Trippier ready to come on right before Spain made it 2-1, fully settling for ET and penalties.

IMO they had abandoned a shape in search of a goal, and left themselves open centrally. Bringing Gallagher on to restore that would have been the correct move, imo. And Trippier in for Shaw (I assume?) who was making his first start in 6 months also makes sense, imo.

I know this is a bit controversial but I gotta say it.

Rodri is the best midfielder in the world and he was brilliant in this tournament but for me Ruiz was better. I was expecting him to get player of the tournament.

Some turnaround in the personality and behaviour of Bellingham. Real Madrid must give masterclasses on how to be an obnoxious prick. His diving and histrionics on the pitch over the tournament has been pathetic. Sad to see as he came across quite humble and genuine before he went there. Perhaps it's difficult to keep the ego in check when you are constantly showered with such praise.

Ronaldo is completely toxic at this stage, and is only in it for personal records.

I saw a video the other day, in all of his knockout games, he’s had 93 attempts and scored 3, all headers. He’s long been surplus to requirements at Portugal but will still publicly say he wants to continue which causes the manager a headache.

If Martinez has any sense he’ll tell him thanks for everything but he won’t be considered for selection for the WC. I don’t expect him to take it well but really, who cares - it shouldn’t be just about him.

A nice montage on BBC last night.

It seems like they're making the same mistakes as the last "golden generation". Pick all the best players and shoehorn them in somewhere.

Messi won the Copa and could retire from international football. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if he won it again.

I do agree Rodri should win it and it shouldn't be close.

The DM being as lazy as usual have copied the article.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13635409/Jude-Bellinghams-Adidas-campaign-upset-England-camp-Real-Madrid-stars-portrayal-Englands-saviour-ad-odds-Gareth-Southgates-ethos.html

There's a common theme with Southgate's England.
They qualify well. They get through groups. They get nice draws. They never really blow teams away but in general they do beat who they should beat.
They fail against teams who are better than them.

Southgate deserves credit for getting the team to the stage where they are actually going deep in competitions but I feel he has probably reached his limit.

They need to review how they get to that next level and that for me is a manager who can manage the in-game situations better.
They have the squad - they will get to knock out rounds of tournaments under almost any half-competent manager.
The extra % will come from a better in-game manager now to get them over the line in games where they aren't the big favourite

He's 37 and will be 39 for the next world cup. Be normal enough to retire at that age (or younger). Reports from that part of the world indicate he will retire but its very different to Ronaldo. He still adds huge value to the team.

You obviously didn't watch many of his games. You don't win La Liga, especially as a foreigner, player of the year unless you have been great for the season.

I watched him and was blown away by a lot of stuff he did.

Just because he was great doesn't mean he should win the Ballon d'Or though. Rodri and Carvajal were the two best footballers in 2024 in my opinion.

The absolute state of that cover for so many reasons. Were EA hoping to Photoshop in a certain trophy at the feet of Bellingham?

Their problem with the "Golden Generation" was they had too many players, particularly Lampard and Gerrard, who did the same thing but couldn't be dropped. You'll notice that with England, there's certain names that seem to be undroppable, no matter how many times it doesn't work, but they'll continually persist with them anyway.

We'll talk about great prem best 11 teams in 30 years, and still Gerrard, Lampard, Ferdinand etc will have to be the first names on the sheet, no matter what.

Alot of that "Golden Generation" are untouchable, despite how overrated most were. Barry/Hargreaves should of been played as a holding mid, with Scholes pushed up higher like he was at the end of his United career, with both Gerrard and Lampard dropped tbh. Lampard and Gerrard were only good at roy of the rovers stuff, when there was other players around them controlling the structure of the team at club level.

Otherwise two box to box players, running around, with no idea of how to run a midfield from a technical point of view. But England persisted anyway, and could never get a foothold in the centre of the park, didn't know how, still don't. The only truely world class player, in that otherwise overrated "Golden Generation", was Rooney.

Lampard and Gerrard are good at what they did, make no mistake, but like most English players, play their role, with their teammates generally controlling things in terms of playmaking. So when it comes to the national team, none of them really have any idea about game management.

I've said it over and over in relation to the England football team, it's game management that always lets them down ultimately. And Grealish was the only one who'd have the vision to bring that imo