Team will amble along until being eliminated anywhere from 1st round to quarter final entirely dependent on the draw. Qualification was assured the minute we beat Slovakia away under big Sam. Southgate's credentials won't be tested till the World Cup.
Exactly. The crunch game was first up for once and having won it the rest is just a canter to the finish and the players clearly know it.
I'm happy with England right now because, for the first time in my life, I have absolutely no hope of them being successful. In every tournament year up until now (when we've qualified for the finals) I've thought "yeah, we're ****, yeah we play **** football......but just may be we can go all the way this time". Iceland finally extinguished that small glimmer of hope once and for all. Now I feel meh towards England and, to be honest, pretty meh about international football in general.
We wont get out of the group stage. Id even wager we wont win a game. The Sun will start headlines soon about how all our top team players are so great and will win it for us. We might as well just not go, less embarrassing. I feel very sorry for any fans travelling to watch that lot represent us in such a hell hole
England are poor ,should follow a side like the mighty Norway ah hang on a minute! ( lol had fun winding some up at work this morning ).
I actually hate England nowadays. They've done nothing good for 25 years and can do one. I hope they get battered, unless Chalobah and Doucoure are playing for them
The English have a number of key problems. Their fans are entitled and expect far more than is realistic. This adds unnecessary pressure. The players are soft. They crumble under pressure. They haven't often had to work for anything in their life, and therefore have never had to dig in and endure. I believe we have the worst penalty record in international football, which speaks volumes. Technically, we are good, but again, nowhere near as good as our fans think. English managers are generally lacking the combination of tactical nous and motivation. And linked to option 1, the fans require the manager to be English. Great. The best English managers will remain in he PL, leaving us with managers who cannot get jobs in the top leagues/ managers taking on one more job before they retire. Step up Gareth Southgate and Aidy Boothroyd. I'll watch the international tournaments, because it's an excuse to get drunk and watch football with my mates. However, no way will I watch any non-competitive friendlies or competitive friendlies (qualifying matches). I struggle to think of a sport more boring, despite your side constantly winning.
One of the chaps summed it up last night when he said most of them are playing for money and not pride. W****rs.
Might be in a minority here - but I believe the players we have are good enough (at least for last 8/last 4 and then anything can happen). The problem is that the FA constantly appoint the wrong management. We've seen it first hand here at Watford what a difference a good coaching team can make to the first 11. Does anybody really think Southgate knows what he's doing?? If Boothroyd succeeds with the under 21's he'll be a major candidate for the top job as soon as the FA realise Southgate hasn't got a clue. I'm eternally grateful for our promotion season under Aidy, but we all know he's severely lacking in tactical nous when competing against the top coaches from around the world. Our list of manager's/coaches over recent years is an absolute joke: Allardyce - hard to call because he only had one game, but I suspect his preferred type of basic football would have been quickly found out at international level. Roy Hodgson - football dinosaur, and the lack of clubs looking to appoint him now that he's available is damning. Fabio Capello - a complete mismatch from day one, and could not speak English and never bothered to try becoming fluent, relying on interpreters throughout his reign (where have we heard that recipe for disaster before?) Steve Mclaren - his track record in club football is all you need to know about how good a manager/coach this muppet is. Eriksson - probably the last half decent coach considering we're far worse now than we were under him, although he did have a good selection of players to choose from and when it really mattered he was often found tactically wanting. I could carry on, but you get the point. The players we have now aren't as good as the press makes them out to be - but they're definitely better than what we are seeing. A good manager can make a team better than the sum of its parts. Every England manager of the last 15 years has managed to make us a worse team than the sum of its parts. The bit of information revealed in Tony Coton's forthcoming book about the influence behind the scenes as to why he was never picked for England is a damning indictment of how the FA were/are run - and it would be naive to think that similar practices no longer occur in the current set-up. I used to love watching England as a kid but now I couldn't really care less what they do - I've only been interested over the last few days as I was curious to see if Chalobah would be given a chance. I just hope that Nath doesn't have his mind clogged up with Southgate's anti-football to the point that it affects his game here.
It's in the thread about Coton's forthcoming autobiography, where the Daily Heil have published a few extracts: When Graham Taylor succeeded Bobby Robson with England in 1990, I thought my chance of a full cap might finally come. I was in squads but never played. On a tour to Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, all I returned with was jet-lag and a few bottles of duty-free while Brian Deane, Earl Barrett, John Salako, Gary Charles and David Hirst became internationals. Graham told me a few years later he'd been told in no uncertain terms by his employers at the FA that playing me wasn't an option. Apparently there was no such thing as a rehabilitated criminal as far as the men in suits at Lancaster Gate were concerned. Then in 2016, Steve Harrison (Taylor's assistant) told me: 'Of course Graham wanted to give you a cap. He planned to give you a game in Malaysia but was asked not to by Peter Swales (chairman of Coton's club Manchester City and chairman of the FA's International Committee). 'The problem was City would have to pay Watford a £350,000 bonus if you ever played for England and Swales didn't want that to happen. So he put the squeeze on Graham. It was agreed that you'd get a game at a later date, but the opportunity never materialised. I know Graham has regretted it ever since.' When you consider some of the strange selections over the years, it makes you wonder what's really going on behind closed doors.
I would have Eddie Howe as England manager in a heartbeat because (1) I think he would do a better job of getting something out of the players available than Southgate and (2) like with our first spell with GT, when Howe leaves Muff I think they will be relegated the following season.
The jury is still out on Eddie. Until he gets success at another club with different expectations, I would be reluctant. The press seem to have edited out his failure at Burnley, yet most people rate him higher than Dyche. Honestly wouldn't care if the manager is foreign, as long as it's the right one. I know foreign doesn't necessarily mean better than English - but the English coaching cupboard is pretty bare right now. Just get the right man, irrespective of nationality. We've seen at Watford how there are just as many poor foreign coaches as there are good ones. Can't come up with a list of names as I haven't thought it through in depth. I just know that we won't do anything under Southgate, so after the world cup we'll be starting from scratch once again.
That's the problem as I see it. While I agree that managerial appointments since Sven have been poor (though I wonder if Big Sam might have cut it), there doesn't seem to me to be a plethora of available options, whether English or not. Most high-quality managers these days would prefer to manage in the Champions League.
Lee Dixon about Sterling: “the Man City team he plays for is arguably stronger than this England side”.
This is utter dire tripe. I'm annoyed I've spent time watching this (though I did fall asleep for 10 minutes). I feel truly sorry for anyone who paid to go.
Commentator: "And the highlights show tonight starts at 10.45pm on ITV with England up first, followed by Scotland at 10.46pm."
If this wasn't written by Moog, I'd be predicting that no England manager will ever pick Doucoure for some reason
Don't worry. I saw the goal and it cut to three grown adults, faces contorted in unbridled joy, hands together around a replica World Cup trophy. You could be one of those guys.
Goodness that was dreadful. Southgate's tactics are so insipid. He's going to get ripped a new one in the summer.
Joe Hart said something quite telling when asked if he was worried about the critics. 'You fink I care what anyone finks of me ova than those guys in the dressing room? Nah.' There you go.
Not sure why anybody is surprised by that performance. Watford would qualify from that group. One of the poorest England teams that I can remember. God I miss Gazza as I really want England to do well but we are so far away from being contenders in Russia. I don't believe we will ever have a chance unless we get more of our younger players playing regularly in the PL.
Before that interview I never realised how thick Joe Hart is. Makes Kane sound like an intellectual colossus.
