Unpopular opinion??

Billy69_uk

Well-known member
Luke Shaw's early goal (whilst fully deserved and fantastically taken) threw the Italy team off its game plan in the first half, flattering the England performance.

Normal service resumed in the second half, and apart form a brief spell in extra time when Grealish came on, we were never really in the game.

Had we have converted one of the chances we had in the first half whilst Italy were a bit shell shocked, the result might have been different, and we might have been able to weather the 2nd half storm.

On the night, and across the whole tournament, the best team won i think.

Disappointment around losing on penalties aside, I have only hope for the future of this young England team and cant wait for next years world cup to get going. High hopes indeed, even though having the world cup in November and December just seems weird and wrong to me (about as weird and wrong as holding it in Qatar in the first place).
 
It's a tricky one, we were well on top and if we had added a 2nd during that 15 minute spell it would have been very interesting.

We do seem to have a bad habit of scoring early then sitting back, inviting pressure, going back many years.
 
Once the bitter disappointment has eased it's fair to say Italy were worthy winners. They knocked out Belgium, Spain and were the better team last night.

England had their chances though. I've watched the highlights again and Stones was a whisker from making it 2 - 1 in extra time.
 
There is something in the mindset of teams when they score early they revert to dropping deep and letting the other team grow into a game. I know not everyone’s capable of replicating a guardiola or klopp team but what I love about those managers is they never settle for 1. They keep going and going and finish the job and score more goals. Gareth knows what he’s best at and that’s being conservative and it has worked brilliantly but last night we just never got it right and left Italy dominate too much. Shame but proud of the lads
 
Yeah, but getting to the final wasn't a fluke and shouldn't be a one off. We've got a good team that should have that bit more tournament experience come Qatar
Definitely. I was getting pretty tired of negative comments about England reaching the final. It's a good side who earned their place in the final.

All good teams tend to go through set-backs before achieving something. It'll take the players a couple of weeks to get over the disappointment, but hopefully they use it and improve for next time.
 
I think Italy were the better team overall and through the tournament.

England deserved their place in the final and were the better team in every match they played until then, with the exception of the Scotland match.
 
We were beaten by the better side overall, it’s fair to say that.

the disappointment for me is our lack of awareness of the direction it was going. Italy quickly sussed out that our system and game plan meant our only attacking play was going to come through Kane dropping deep, or via Mount as the pivot between attack and defence, so they doubled up on Mount and basically starved us of any outlets.

by us not reacting to them sussing us out, I think we facilitated them a lot. They may be a better side, not a lot in it, but I think tactically we made their job much easier than it had to be.

easy to say from the armchair though. When you’re stood on the touch line 1-0 up with 30 mins to go in a Euro’s final, do you stick, even though you’re second best, or change it up?

maybe a more bold decision to change things would’ve been the answer (I believe so last night), but maybe a more bold approach to management might’ve seen us exit the tournament earlier too. So it’s hard to have a dig at Southgate too much, we accepted his more conservative style and praised him when it worked.

I think it’s an experience for him too. I think he has done a great job, but to go that extra step I think he and his staff need to know when to react with better timing. That’s the difference between a great manager and good manager. Mancini knew how to manage that game better.
 
I think it’s an experience for him too. I think he has done a great job, but to go that extra step I think he and his staff need to know when to react with better timing. That’s the difference between a great manager and good manager. Mancini knew how to manage that game better.

Ah this might be, for me, overstating it. Italy were the better team, but it still ended in a draw AET.

Pickford saved two penalties, so Italy had nerves there too. Really, really fine margins. Rashford rolls his just inside the post and we could have the better type of hangover this morning.
 
Ah this might be, for me, overstating it. Italy were the better team, but it still ended in a draw AET.

Pickford saved two penalties, so Italy had nerves there too. Really, really fine margins. Rashford rolls his just inside the post and we could have the better type of hangover this morning.
I agree with that. There's no doubt Italy were the better side, but re-watching some of the game shows they weren't peppering Pickford's goal. England defended pretty well and had their chances to win. As you mention, if Rashford's penalty goes in England are almost there.

Have a look at the John Stones chance too in Extra Time. Kane crosses it and Stones misses the ball by a fraction. The Italian keeper is committed and if Stones connects with the ball it's flying in the net. That's the difference.
 
I think he learnt a lot from the tournament, he played a bit of open football in the world cup and it caught up with his tired team in the world cup v Croatia.
In this tournament, he had them very disciplined and the Ukraine game made him think we can be disciplined, difficult to beat and win it.

They will be a year older next time out and it might just be their time, if he can change to better suit our situation during the game, his players do listen, they have at least shown that.

Great tournament, disappointing end, but for the first time since I was a bairn we competed until the end game.

I/we have known it when we haven't even qualified, and a few times where we just fell short of the final, I really enjoyed this tournament and I think other posters who always avoided the disappointment, watched them, and this time they too enjoyed it
 
I think he and his staff need to know when to react with better timing
Difficult call but I think if you look at the goal they scored it was the first time they had got a flick on at the near post from a corner (mistake) and if Pickford's save had gone wide rather than hit the post the goal would not have happened (luck 1) and if the ball had deflected at a different angle rather than straight to Bonucci (luck 2) it might well have been cleared. So we made one mistake and they got two lucky breaks. At that point I thought they were starting to resort to taking pot shots from distance in frustration another five minutes holding out? Who knows. In another parallel universe... What you are describing is 20:20 hindsight. We're all good at that.

Fine margins and with a little more luck Harry would have been lifting that trophy last night. You have to be careful not to over analyse things and change things for the sake of it.
 
One thing we know about Southgate is he will reflect and change things for the World Cup if he thinks it's needed. The formation has to be one that get the likes of Sancho and Foden in the starting eleven consistently.
 
Ah this might be, for me, overstating it. Italy were the better team, but it still ended in a draw AET.

Pickford saved two penalties, so Italy had nerves there too. Really, really fine margins. Rashford rolls his just inside the post and we could have the better type of hangover this morning.
Fine margins indeed

but I still think Italy wised up to us after 25 minutes, cut off most of our supply out of defence and then pegged us back

we never reacted to that.

so I don’t think it’s overstating it. Yeah it still ended up 1-1, but the problem is we never looked like scoring again and that was due to a lack of tactical change. We seemed to be very slow to react to change things to try and regain any control of possession in the game.

so in that sense, I do think Mancini managed it better, and we made it a bit easier for them to dictate possession and make us no real threat for most of the game.
 
Difficult call but I think if you look at the goal they scored it was the first time they had got a flick on at the near post from a corner (mistake) and if Pickford's save had gone wide rather than hit the post the goal would not have happened (luck 1) and if the ball had deflected at a different angle rather than straight to Bonucci (luck 2) it might well have been cleared. So we made one mistake and they got two lucky breaks. At that point I thought they were starting to resort to taking pot shots from distance in frustration another five minutes holding out? Who knows. In another parallel universe... What you are describing is 20:20 hindsight. We're all good at that.

Fine margins and with a little more luck Harry would have been lifting that trophy last night. You have to be careful not to over analyse things and change things for the sake of it.
If you look at that goal again there's an argument that Chiellini fouls John Stones too. There's a definite pull at Stones, who loses balance and can't deal with the ball across. Having watched it again I'm surprised the England players didn't complain about it actually.
 
is we never looked like scoring again
Stones very nearly scored in the second half of ET and Saka was dragged down by Chielini when going through on goal. I know what you mean and I do think he needs to analyse what Italy did to neutralise us and have a counter strategy ready.
 
If you look at that goal again there's an argument that Chiellini fouls John Stones too. There's a definite pull at Stones, who loses balance and can't deal with the ball across. Having watched it again I'm surprised the England players didn't complain about it actually.
I haven’t managed to watch back yet but that was my initial thought that there was a foul on John Stones.
 
I haven’t managed to watch back yet but that was my initial thought that there was a foul on John Stones.
On a different note - did you see any of the unpleasantness yesterday, FatCat?

You said you were in the disabled section and I've just seen some tweets about it getting rushed by ticketless fans
 
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