Can you admit that Southgate is doing a great job yet?

Ipad1977 said:
You expect that with the defenders we have available to us btw? No doubt when Robson brought in Rav, TLF and Emmo to attack with you suddenly expected us challenge Man U, Liverpool and Newcastle in the Prem then.

You must have frequent disappointment in your life.
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Nothing much wrong with our defenders. What's boro got to do with england? Completely gone off track there mate.
This is all my opinion like I keep saying, when he wins this world cup come back to me with all this statistic b***ks.
 
BoroMart said:
So you can only be proven wrong if he wins the world cup? There are no other scenarios where you are wrong? So you truly believe England have the best squad in this tounrament? HAve you seen our defenders and central midfielders and backup CF?
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Yeah that's clearly the only way. In what other world with this squad he has that anything other than winning is seen as success?
 
This 'brilliant England squad' argument.

We heard it in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, admittedly not in 2014, and then in 2018 Southgate himself took us way further than anyone expected, with Delle Alli, Ashley Young and Jesse Lingard in the team. He also had Danny Rose, Danny Welbeck, Phil Jones, Fabian Delph and Ruben Loftus-Cheek on the bench. Was THAT squad especially good on paper when you look back?

The truth is England always have strong squads on paper. They are consistently one of the strongest footballing nations in Europe (even without winning tournaments) and have arguably the strongest/richest league with some of the very strongest clubs and best academies. Hence why a fair bit of money goes on us and we have short(ish) odds at most tournaments even though we never win owt.

Until Southgate, every manager since Alf Ramsey failed to get them to the last 4 of a major tournament more than once (and most didn't achieve it once).

He really is doing pretty well.
 
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Uwefuchs said:
12 of those goals came against Panama and Iran to give a bit of balance to the argument.
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In England's World Cup history, we've failed to score against the USA, Bulgaria, Morocco, Nigeria, Algeria and Costa Rica.

Could probably throw Belgium in to thst equation at some point, as they were considered woeful at one point.

Just taking the the matches of "lesser" teams without Southgate.
 
atypical_boro said:
This 'brilliant England squad' argument.

We heard it in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, admittedly not in 2014, and then in 2018 Southgate himself took us way further than anyone expected, with Delle Alli, Ashley Young and Jesse Lingard in the team. He also had Danny Rose, Danny Welbeck, Phil Jones, Fabian Delph and Ruben Loftus-Cheek on the bench. Was THAT squad especially good on paper when you look back?

The truth is England always have strong squads on paper. They are consistently one of the strongest footballing nations in Europe (without winning tournaments) and have arguably the strongest/richest league with some of the very strongest clubs.

Until Southgate, every manager since Alf Ramsey failed to get them to the last 4 of a major tournament more than once. He really is doing pretty well.
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1998 lost on pens. 2002 lost to an excellent brazil side, a game we could of should.of won after tooth got sent off. 2006 lost on pens. 2010 we were bad from the start.
I mean we always seen to have similar exits to tournaments other than 2010, 2016 I've seen us lose on pens 5 times.
Southgate hasn't done much different to other managers.
 
BoroMart said:
Not sure I agree. In 1990 how many of that Egypt team had grown up playing for european teams? Republic of Ireland akin to Wales today. Cameroon go t out of their group through a great spirit and some talent, but were very naive team, half that squad had never played outside the cameroon league.
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Its hard to compare African teams now to then because they didn't play abroad as much then but they were still tough opponents at the time.

Ireland were far better in 1990 than Wales are now, they had an excellent manager and most of their team made up of players from the old first division. Charlton did something similar to what Southgate has done now by creating a club like mentality and as a team they were head and shoulders above the likes of Wales.

Ireland drew with the other team in England's group who you forgot to mention (Holland) who are a team full of superstars and were European champions. They lost narrowly to a very good Italy side in the quarters so they were no mugs at all.

The standard is a lot lower now in group stages or at least it has been in England's groups while Southgate has been in charge. But he is beating those teams which you can't do any more than.
 
dontheking said:
1998 lost on pens. 2002 lost to an excellent brazil side, a game we could of should.of won after tooth got sent off. 2006 lost on pens. 2010 we were bad from the start.
I mean we always seen to have similar exits to tournaments other than 2010, 2016 I've seen us lose on pens 5 times.
Southgate hasn't done much different to other managers.
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Sorry make that 7 times. But 5 since 1998.
 
Uwefuchs said:
I don't think he has the tactical brain of a Venables, Robson or even a Hoddle at this level but I think he has a lot of strengths that some of those managers didn't have as well which I've listed above.
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I'm not sure Bobby Robson or Hoddle did have the tactical nous, Venebles did but was only in the role for one tournament so was never really tested to see if he could adapt and adopt when others worked out how to play against him.

Lets not forget that until a bit of Gazza genius (nothing to do with tactics) we/he was struggling against Scotland and that was on the back of a 0-0 draw with Switzerland.

He hammered a talented but Dutch side that as per usual were not a 'team', don't forget that even Scotland got a draw against them! We then hung on against a decent but not great Spain, for a penalty shoot out, then lost to Germany on pens like we lost to Italy in the euros, just a round earlier.

Venables England image is largely built on one game, the Holland game, but the rest if it was fairly cagey, two poor performances in the group stages, a poor performance against spain, unlucky against the Germans.
 
He's done what I expect. Win the group but look shaky against the first test the team's faced.

While I'm glad we're through the group and want the team to do well (and would rather be proved wrong), my opinion remains that we're too cautious and it will be both our success and our downfall.

Playing two sitting midfielders against a pub team says it all.
 
One of the greatest squads we’ve ever had give me a break

2002 our team was full of world class players

Seaman
Ashley cole
Rio ferdinand
Scholes
Owen

2010

Rio
Terry
Lampard
Gerrard
Rooney


There’s only Harry Kane and Phil foden. What the squad of today does have is is strength in depth and potnential wonderkids
 
dontheking said:
1998 lost on pens. 2002 lost to an excellent brazil side, a game we could of should.of won after tooth got sent off. 2006 lost on pens. 2010 we were bad from the start.
I mean we always seen to have similar exits to tournaments other than 2010, 2016 I've seen us lose on pens 5 times.
Southgate hasn't done much different to other managers.
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He has, he’s won knockout games
 
dontheking said:
1998 lost on pens. 2002 lost to an excellent brazil side, a game we could of should.of won after tooth got sent off. 2006 lost on pens. 2010 we were bad from the start.
I mean we always seen to have similar exits to tournaments other than 2010, 2016 I've seen us lose on pens 5 times.
Southgate hasn't done much different to other managers.
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Except get us further in tournaments?
 
Here’s a thought.

If england don’t win the World Cup that’s probably because, put simply, they aren’t the best international team in the world?

And if they get to the quarterfinals/semi finals then they are one of the best 8/4 teams in the world.

Depends what makes you happy I suppose
 
Bernieslavenschin said:
He's done what I expect. Win the group but look shaky against the first test the team's faced.

While I'm glad we're through the group and want the team to do well (and would rather be proved wrong), my opinion remains that we're too cautious and it will be both our success and our downfall.

Playing two sitting midfielders against a pub team says it all.
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Most goals ever by England in a group stage-2022. Most goals ever at a Euros 2021. Most goals ever at a World Cup 2018. Most goals ever scored in a calendar year 2021. Most tournament wins by any England manager. All under Captain Cautious.....
 
BoroMart said:
I'm not sure Bobby Robson or Hoddle did have the tactical nous, Venebles did but was only in the role for one tournament so was never really tested to see if he could adapt and adopt when others worked out how to play against him.

Lets not forget that until a bit of Gazza genius (nothing to do with tactics) we/he was struggling against Scotland and that was on the back of a 0-0 draw with Switzerland.

He hammered a talented but Dutch side that as per usual were not a 'team', don't forget that even Scotland got a draw against them! We then hung on against a decent but not great Spain, for a penalty shoot out, then lost to Germany on pens like we lost to Italy in the euros, just a round earlier.

Venables England image is largely built on one game, the Holland game, but the rest if it was fairly cagey, two poor performances in the group stages, a poor performance against spain, unlucky against the Germans.
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He also didn't manage us through a qualifying campaign. His entire England legacy is built on 5 games, at a home tournament, of which we won 2/drew 3 in 90 minutes and didn't make the final (as Southgate did).
 
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