Euro 2020
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- a sterling performance craner's column forza italia gomorrah hundred more years of hurt is that kate moss? it's coming home kane is able matey & acid nigella's twitter takes no more years of hurt pedri though shaw thing something is rotten in the state of denmark southgate's redemption the enthusiasm of roy keane the referee's a wanker v-a-rlinist v-a-rse we still believe zeal of the convert
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
A Yank in goal
"Kick the ball Sly"
- "Adriaaaaan" toe punt out to the corner flag
"Ok, keeper it is Sly"
"Kick the ball Sly"
- "Adriaaaaan" toe punt out to the corner flag
"Ok, keeper it is Sly"
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
If you beat Germany i at least want a few riots out of it, street is really dead
Yeah, a real let down tonight. I remember watching the 5-1 friendly in 2001, conveniently leaving the pub after the "No Surrend-uh" chants started up, and the journey back home from Edgware to Burnt Oak being a half-hour safari through people staggering around with Tennessee Fried Chicken boxes, pissing against shopfronts, ripping up park benches to throw through car windscreens, doing human pyramids on traffic islands, etc.
I liked how they incorporated that game into Dog Soldiers. They're going on about it throughout the film - "What scares you?" "Penalty shootout." - then at the end you see the front page of one of the tabloids with the England result followed by "Werewolves ate my platoon!".
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
😍😍😍😍😍🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴
hucks
Your Message Here
Isn’t it pretty common to change your team from game to game? And there haven’t been massive changes game to game. They used 3 at the back a lot over the last few years anyway.
it’s going to be interesting over the next few days as people get used to the fact that England are both boring and good, and try to decide which they’d prefer- an exciting side or a winning one. The ten years (at least) pre Southgate we had neither.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Wax on, sent off.
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
The ladies of the manor are insisting on tennis
Wtf
Wtf
hucks
Your Message Here
I’d take a winning side. I’m (probably) over half way through my life now and I want to see England win a tournament. I’ve seen 3 semis and that’s it.
More boring sides- Greece 04, Spain 10- have won major tournaments so being interesting isn’t a pre requisite. But yeah there were times yesterday when I thought- come on, pass it a bit quicker ffs.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Well it depends on what you mean. The most standard thing is to have a system and maybe you have two fullbacks or whatever who could work equally well in that system and you might swap them from game to game depending on who is playing well. You might even have two or three systems and you switch from A to B sometimes and as part of that you take off attacker x and bring on defensive midfielder y.... so yeah, of course you make changes from game to game. But Southgate seems sometimes as though he looks at the game and goes "Ooh what shall we do this time?" - but I'm sure I am being unfair there. More likely he has systems A to H or whatever and so what I'm knocking (or at least remarking on in a slightly surprised manner) is in fact simply having a greater number of prepared systems and thus greater flexibility. I'm probably betraying myself as possessing the famous, English football-fan's natural suspicion of tactics...
Also, another thing; a while back I said something like "Broadly there are two ways to pick how you will start off, either you choose a system you like and fit your players into it, or you pick your best eleven and then find the formation that gets the most out of them - and, as national sides get far less time to play together and work out complicated tactics, I think the second is the way to go about things as a rule" - and I'm not saying I was wrong to say that, but with this England squad it's kinda tricky to say who the best eleven are, I think it's a fairly talented squad with most of them on a similar level.
Yeah I think a lot of people are wrestling with that one right now. Yesterday a lot of people thought his team selection was negative (It was) but I saw the guys I used to play with arguing and one of them said "I'm happy, it's a good one to get on top with and then unleash the creative players towards the end once they are softened up" and others agreed with that idea, but didn't believe he would do it.... he kinda half did.
But the performance yesterday was strong and assured in the end. If I were a Germany fan I would have said "well, we were the worst team, we weren't thrashed or humiliated but they just had too much for us all over and were too experienced and just ultimately squeezed us out" which is the kind of defeat that England have often been on the end of to top teams, or, say, when English clubs were finally allowed back in European competition and they were often just edged out by more experienced, cannier sides. Basically I'd rather be on the right side of that sort of result, that sort of game... and anyway it's an academic question in some sense cos although the fans like to debate winning ugly vs losing pretty, the England coach has no such debate, he is only thinking about winning, at all costs.