Seems like someone is confident in their club signing Sancho.
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It's flying garden chair day - England v Croatia
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Also... Tyrone Mings? Fucking Brilliant. He saved themon 6 occasions. Who does he play for?
(Got to jettison the goalkeeper. He's going to cost you one.) AndModric was shite?! Who knew?!
You lucky bastards.
Edit: Seriously, TyroneMings was fucking brilliant. All over everything.Last edited by Gerontophile; 14-06-2021, 02:05.
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Yeah, sorry. Pickford has to fuck off. He can't kick, his catching is only through awareness, and he's a wee shite.
Why is there no better? Isn't there a guy from... that's the fucking point. Kaspar threw one in, and he's not even English. What's going on with this? Didn't England used to have all the keepers?
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View PostSouthgate was very lucky that they won the game. It reminded me of someone firing an ak-47 straight up in the air, and standing there as the bullets hit the ground all around him. Picking Kieran trippier at left back instead of two actual left backs who had just played in european finals was something that you will get hammered for if you don't win. Leaving jadon sancho out of the matchday 23 was another inexplicable decision. But picking Sterling ahead of fan favourite Jack "Jackadonna" Grealish was the one that was going to be the biggest problem for him if they didn't win. Sterling scoring the goal was really important for Southgate, as the hook was about to come out for Sterling, and Jackadonna was about to come on when he actually scored.
Kalvin phillips played well in the bits of the game I saw, and that bit of play to set up the goal was very slick. And again given what I saw, he seemed like a reasonable enough shout for man of the match. It's just that if it had been someone other than sterling on the end of that pass, I don't think we'd have heard so much about the pass. Had it been exactly the same move and pass to say Phil Foden, and he'd done exactly the same as sterling, I think the focus would have been more on how the new Gazza had burst onto the world scene, and the pass would have kind of slipped by. I wonder how much of the attention phillips got for that fine bit of play is down to a lot of people not wishing to give sterling credit for scoring. When people have given their hot take, they don't like to have to admit that their hot take was wrong.
In the first half Croatia really struggled to handle england when they were attacking, struggled to get the ball back off them when england were passing it around, and struggled to break them down when they had the ball. It can't be stressed just how useful it is to southgate to have most of his team playing in club sides that like to make 600-700 passes a game. It's done wonders for england's ability to pass the ball to each other, even though they play for different teams, and don't spend a lot of time playing with each other, just like the england teams of the past.
The thing that struck me though was the level of Euro 96 nostalgia, and perhaps the most striking bit was a shot of a newspaper page after the shitty opening draw with Switzerland, which was a massive headline that said something along the lines "Fat drunk Gypsy madman Gazza betrays saintly tactical genius Honest 'el Tel'." And then I was sent this tweet
https://twitter.com/IandrewDiceClay/status/1404029382323212289
It's funny how people's perceptions of things change over time isn't it?
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I've seen a lot of comments about the selection of Trippier. He seemed to have a decent game to me.
Yeah, he was selected over 2 left backs who started European finals last month. But Luke Shaw's team didn't win their final and I don't remember anyone claiming Ben Chilwell was the crucial difference for Chelsea in their final.Last edited by Patrick Thistle; 14-06-2021, 06:43.
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It was a lovely day yesterday. Family barbecue, glorious sunshine and all the neighbouring houses getting into the spirit of supporting their national side in a football match, kids with their faces painted, playing their own pre match game before kick off etc.
This is my experience of most tournaments though. Good fun, around good people, all hoping England will win but all realistic to know we'll fall short again at some point. I'm well aware there are arseholes and violence in our society but I give them as little attention as they merit.
I thought England played well and deserved their narrow victory. I'm sure many will focus on whatever negative aspect of the performance bothers them the most but in hot conditions, against the last side to beat them in a major tournament, England won their first ever opening game at the Euros. Its something to be happy about. For some of us, obviously
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Oh, the pre-internet days, when we'd have to tune into whinging Alan Green to know what the score is. "The score is now 4-3, after yet another goal in this absolutely shambolic display of poor defending." That's not an actual quote, but it wouldn't surprise me. He really knew how to suck the enjoyment out of everything.
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Originally posted by Gerontophile View PostYeah, sorry. Pickford has to fuck off. He can't kick, his catching is only through awareness, and he's a wee shite.
Why is there no better? Isn't there a guy from... that's the fucking point. Kaspar threw one in, and he's not even English. What's going on with this? Didn't England used to have all the keepers?
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If Southgate had played Chilwell/Shaw, Grealish and whoever else people were clamouring for there'd have been yeah buts, too. I thought Trippier did fine overall, too. Southgate obviously thought what he'd lose in terms of angles by having a right footer at LB was worth the benefits he envisaged vs Croatia. I reckon he's going to mix and match a bit in the group games, so maybe the team in midweek will be slightly different. I think Alan Green's football glass was usually half empty and I often pondered how different actions/performances that he described at the time looked when seen on MoTD etc. Mind, England Scotland 96 wasn't good first half, but perhaps not as apocalyptic as Green, who seemed to commentate for himself, thought.
Early doors is my mantra at the moment.Last edited by Sixmartletsandaseagull; 14-06-2021, 08:48.
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Originally posted by Bizarre Löw Triangle View Post
The English national football team is a weird thing cos it's like an avatar for England's national id. Like it's the medium through which Britain's national honour is judged and everything boils down to avenging British national humiliations and reliving past British glories. It's honestly very strange as an outsider looking in and it doesn't happen in other sports.
Like England reached world cup finals in two sports in 2019 and though i didn't really want them to win, there definitely wasn't the same overwhelming sense of threat you get when England are doing well in football (for the most part i think people largely didn't care that much).
What strikes me in comparison to other countries is the 20-something maleness of it all, which didn't exist in Portugal nor Egypt. The national team in both those occasions was largely a family occasion. I can think of one exception in Portugal, when the big screen was in the main park and gangs of second-generation immigrant kids would come in from the poorer suburbs.
On the other hand, interest in the tournament for Portuguese and Egyptian families was totally in the national team and not the tournament as a whole. I'd estimate 80% + of the 20-something males wearing England shirts outside the Box Park had watched every game of the tournament in the run up to England's match and will continue to do so. It's unique to England and also the UK, but unlike Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, there is an unfulfilled constant expectation that England could win a major championship which transforms itself into quite a tense and xenophobic demonstration, because doing well is not good enough, England really should have won something since 1966.
When most of these 20-something lads get a girlfriend/wife/child, they'll see the bigger picture and wonder why they were so hung up on the belief that immense pleasure and satisfaction could be derived from their nation winning a football tournament. But until then, they're dying for England to be victorious in the same way they're dying for a shag.
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Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Posts, I must confess that I didn't quite understand the analogy, given that England played quite well and the team selection proved to be an effective one. It wasn't a lucky win.
It's an incredibly reckless and dangerous thing that leaves you looking very cool if you pull it off, but may kill you pointlessly. And if your particularly unlucky the US miltary might fire a drone missile at you.
And any win where your forward drills your only goal, in off the keepers hand is a lucky win. Two inches higher, or the keeper having his arm two inches lower and it's not a goal at all, and is in fact just a draw, and that's when the recriminations start, that's when all your hostages to fortune get slaughtered.
The worst recent example of this involves thomas tuchel, and the FA cup final. Tuchel switched azpilicueta to right wing back, and reece James to the right side of the back three. He did this to prevent a repeat of the last FA cup final where arsenal kept dropping the ball over azpilicueta's head for aubameyang to chase. Jamie vardy may not have scored more than a handful of goals since november, but he hadn't stopped doing all the other Jamie Vardy things that mean that the leicester attacking game plan was still based around him, and it still worked. As it turned out vardy was neutralized completely, and leicester scored their goal from a ridiculously brilliant 30 yarder into the top corner, by a player running from deep with the ball.
Thing is Chelsea didn't win that game, and a lot of people were grumbling that he had concentrated too much on stopping his opponents, and been too negative as if you ignore eliminating leicester as an occasional attacking force completely, he robbed chelsea of Reece James' "Trent alexander arnold level crossing" as Pat Nevin put it. Now a cynic might suspect that kasper schmeichel not made an absurdly brilliant save, or had chilwell held his run by a fraction of a second, then the switching of james and azpilicueta would have been considered to be just another example of the attention to detail of a tactical genius. You know, the stuff that people had been saying about him when he was making little tweaks in every game and they worked. The most disturbing aspect of it though is that people managed to create an imaginary super creative version of reece james to rhetorically beat him over the head with. The thing is that tuchel would be astonished to hear this line of argument, because james set up one goal under tuchel, against barnsley at the start of his tenure. Aaron Wan Bissaka sets up more goals than reece james.
I was surprised to hear this from Nevin, who I generally like and find quite reasonable and thoughful who while explaining the line of argument, kind of agreed with it, which disappointed me, because it's utter nonsense, and yet another example of people using tactics not as a framework for understanding both sides taking part in the game, and their actions, but as a post hoc explanation for why the losing manager is a loser. He also mentioned that if tuchel didn't win the the final league game and qualify for the CL, or the CL final, then it was unlikely that he would be there by christmas, which was not something that he approved of, but said it was after all the 'chelsea way'.
This sort of thing is something that maybe we should have a wider discussion about at some point. Scoreboard journalism is one of the most depressing things about football, As it is just a big carnival of bad thinking that people then go on to apply to other aspects of their lives, and particularly to the world of politics. it gets in the way of progress, and it masks the activitities of conmen, charlatans, and generally just makes us all stupider.Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 14-06-2021, 10:36.
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- Mar 2008
- 18786
- Revelling In The Hole
- England, Chelsea and Tooting and Mitcham. And Surrey CCC. And Wimbledon Dons Speedway (RIP)
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
It's an incredibly reckless and dangerous thing that leaves you looking very cool if you pull it off, but may kill you pointlessly. And if your particularly unlucky the US miltary might fire a drone missile at you.
And any win where your forward drills your only goal, in off the keepers hand is a lucky win. Two inches higher, or the keeper having his arm two inches lower and it's not a goal at all, and is in fact just a draw, and that's when the recriminations start, that's when all your hostages to fortune get slaughtered.
The worst recent example of this involves thomas tuchel, and the FA cup final. Tuchel switched azpilicueta to right wing back, and reece James to the right side of the back three. He did this to prevent a repeat of the last FA cup final where arsenal kept dropping the ball over azpilicueta's head for aubameyang to chase. Jamie vardy may not have scored more than a handful of goals since november, but he hadn't stopped doing all the other Jamie Vardy things that mean that the leicester attacking game plan was still based around him, and it still worked. As it turned out vardy was neutralized completely, and leicester scored their goal from a ridiculously brilliant 30 yarder into the top corner, by a player running from deep with the ball.
Thing is Chelsea didn't win that game, and a lot of people were grumbling that he had concentrated too much on stopping his opponents, and been too negative as if you ignore eliminating leicester as an occasional attacking force completely, he robbed chelsea of Reece James' "Trent alexander arnold level crossing" as Pat Nevin put it. Now a cynic might suspect that kasper schmeichel not made an absurdly brilliant save, or had chilwell held his run by a fraction of a second, then the switching of james and azpilicueta would have been considered to be just another example of the attention to detail of a tactical genius. You know, the stuff that people had been saying about him when he was making little tweaks in every game and they worked. The most disturbing aspect of it though is that people managed to create an imaginary super creative version of reece james to rhetorically beat him over the head with. The thing is that tuchel would be astonished to hear this line of argument, because james set up one goal under tuchel, against barnsley at the start of his tenure. Aaron Wan Bissaka sets up more goals than reece james.
I was surprised to hear this from Nevin, who I generally like and find quite reasonable and thoughful who while explaining the line of argument, kind of agreed with it, which disappointed me, because it's utter nonsense, and yet another example of people using tactics not as a framework for understanding both sides taking part in the game, and their actions, but as a post hoc explanation for why the losing manager is a loser. He also mentioned that if tuchel didn't win the the final league game and qualify for the CL, or the CL final, then it was unlikely that he would be there by christmas, which was not something that he approved of, but said it was after all the 'chelsea way'.
This sort of thing is something that maybe we should have a wider discussion about at some point. Scoreboard journalism is one of the most depressing things about football, As it is just a big carnival of bad thinking that people then go on to apply to other aspects of their lives, and particularly to the world of politics. it gets in the way of progress, and it masks the activitities of conmen, charlatans, and generally just makes us all stupider.
"It's an incredibly reckless and dangerous thing that leaves you looking very cool if you pull it off, but may kill you pointlessly. And if your particularly unlucky the US miltary might fire a drone missile at you."
A football team manager played an experienced, predominantly right-sided, full-back on the left in a calculated gamble, believing that a more defensively-adept player might be the best call against tough opposition rather than a specialist but more attack-minded left-back . Even allowing for messageboard exaggeration for effect or simple hyperbole, the two situations are hardly comparable.
All of Southgate's moderate gambles paid off. Trippier was solid, Mings had a good game in a back four, the Rice-Phillips partnership was extremely effective and Sterling played well and scored the winning goal.
And as for it being a lucky win, behave yourself. Croatia barely troubled the England goal, England came close to scoring on a number of other occasions and a 'keeper getting an ineffective hand to a powerful shot on target after an inch-perfect through ball is hardly (a) unusual or (b) unlucky.
I'm sure that if you try really, really hard you'll be able to recall the odd instance of Manchester United being the better side in a game, creating good chances, defending well but only winning 1-0.
Last edited by Nocturnal Submission; 14-06-2021, 12:57.
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Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View PostI've seen a lot of comments about the selection of Trippier. He seemed to have a decent game to me.
Yeah, he was selected over 2 left backs who started European finals last month. But Luke Shaw's team didn't win their final and I don't remember anyone claiming Ben Chilwell was the crucial difference for Chelsea in their final.
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
I think you're missing the point. England used to have to play right footed players at left back, because england didn't have any left footed left backs. There's little reason to play a right footed right back in that position, if you have two left footed left backs who are playing at the top end of domestic and european football, and you've brought both of them to the tournament.
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Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View PostMaybe they were both knackered and just needed a few more days off?
Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View PostA football team manager played an experienced, predominantly right-sided, full-back on the left in a calculated gamble, believing that a more defensively-adept player might be the best call against tough opposition rather than a specialist but more attack-minded left-back . Even allowing for messageboard exaggeration for effect or simple hyperbole, the two situations are hardly comparable.
And it's not just at left back. Picking Sterling ahead of jack grealish was the right thing to do, for the right reasons. (Sterling is much better than grealish, and grealish is still coming back from a lengthy injury, and on the basis of the warm up games is still about as sharp as a spoon). but if sterling hadn't scored that goal, and if england hadn't won the game, he would have been hammered with that as well.
Remember we're not talking about a calm sane rational situation here, we're talking about england at a major european football tournament, where every piece of bad thinking, and illogical contortion will be engaged in if things don't go well.Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 14-06-2021, 12:29.
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Originally posted by Snake Plissken View PostWeird how playing wingers on the "wrong" side is fine but fullbacks not.Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 14-06-2021, 12:31.
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Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
No, I got your point. I just didnt agree with it. Perhaps you missed that Trippier is more experienced in tournament football and has played against Croatia before.
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
Remember we're not talking about a calm sane rational situation here, we're talking about england at a major european football tournament, where every piece of bad thinking, and illogical contortion will be engaged in if things don't go well.
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Oi pebblethefish , that's unfair. TAB will also engage every possible contortion if things do go well.
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