Dan

I get your point, but I think if this had happened, or had we lost to Slovakia, we'd have been forced to make some tough decisions. I don't think this outcome forces that. So it's better in the short-term to make a final rather than go out in the groups, but I think it removes a bit of that drive to improve. I could be wrong but I've seen this before with England, we'll convince ourselves it was a good showing and we'll plod on. I actually think Southgate himself while clearly limited (almost surely beyond any debate at this point) is going to take a lot of criticism away from players who didn't turn up either. Some rotten individual showings. Guehi, Palmer, Watkins and arguably Mainoo are probably the only ones who come out of this higher than they went in.

There is a case that England had the worst tournament we could've possibly had. We've fluked it far enough to breed the illusion that it was a good tournament performance, meaning that there won't be any proper reflection or anywhere near the criticism that there should be, but not enough luck for us to actually break our duck and get a trophy secured. We've had our numbers come up on the lottery and not bought a ticket. I've no doubt Southgate gets 2026. I've no doubt it goes similarly. We would've been better in the long run to just lose to Slovakia. Force action. Embarrass us into striving for better. As it is now we can just trot out the same stuff we hear all the time after a tournament failure. Ignore all objective criticism because we threw four sixes in a row with the draw. I've not forgotten the gobbing off after the Slovakia win. You don't get to do that without the trophy. Where is it?

2021 worse for me, on home soil and against an Italy side who aged terribly. Make no mistake though I only feel like this because we performed below the sum of our parts all tournament anyway. Once again, the first serious opposition for England and it's curtains.

The truth is always revealed in the end. The truth is England weren't even close to the second best team in this tournament - let alone the first. A tournament from our perspective that will be remembered for individual moments of magic. Individual quality and one of the kindest imaginable runs to a final have pushed an illusion that this was a good tournament from England. It wasn't. In terms of the actual level I would argue it was Southgate's worst yet. Well done to Spain - truly worthy winners from day one to the end.

This one feels a bit too good to be true to be honest but it's quite clear there's truth in the rumour. I can only assume we'd see his future at number 10 as Fatawu on the right is arguably now our best player.

Usually for England, it's the possibility of winning a trophy we had the lead in the Italy shootout. Football's margins are so fine and extreme takes shouldn't be made until 11pm Sunday. If we win, well it's a first trophy in 58 years, our first on foreign soil ever, a step forward for the country I believe to be the biggest underachievers of all at international level. Lose the game and ultimately Southgate and the players have failed to cash in a trophy, yet again, despite as many circumstances as you could possibly wish to have go your way have done. This tournament will not be remembered fondly at all if England lose a game that we're expected to lose. The history isn't on our side. I'll caveat all of this by saying, I call England we, us etc... I am an England fan, but I haven't got anywhere near the emotional investment plenty of others have in it. I'm a completely different animal with Leicester. The other day my mate was watching the Netherlands game and couldn't even speak to people through nerves. In a way I envy him but then why do I, all it's brought him so far is pain England need to win to shift the mentality in this country. We need to respect winning again. We're too obsessed with doing fairly well or looking good. A deep rooted participation mentality - which I flagged in the "why won't your country win the Euros" thread pre-tournament. I think it's massive copium myself. Winning is what matters. If you want to be considered a top team, these are the standards.

England honestly are helped by going 1-0 down. We're crap at going 1-0 up and at least going 1-0 down seems to make our mind up. Force us to actually have to go for it. We're yet to face a side close to Spain's quality really though. I thought the Dutch would offer a lot more - but in truth they're just another side who lucked it getting this far. They had a lot of fortune in their route as well all considered.

It is possible to stumble upon something and for it to click. Timing is so important and England have so far timed everything pretty much to perfection. I think we beat all allegations if we beat Spain to be fair. They've been excellent. There's no luck in getting them, they look the part, strong all over the pitch. I think they're a bridge too far personally, but far stranger things happen.

Miracle is pushing it. We're clearly a bit of a 'moments' team and say what you like about these players, the performances, they are stepping up when they're needed. I said it at the time of the Slovakia goal - an absolute one in a million goal to potentially save a tournament. That's just simply not the sort of thing England players do in my experience. I think Spain are a better team and will win the game, but England do have a shot.

To be honest, although luck was on our side (again!) I do actually think over the course of the 90 that we deserved that and the subs were right as well. Common sense tells me it's a comfortable Spain win, but England just seem to have that luck this time. Like even more extreme than in previous runs.

Prediction is a repeat of our nations league game with them in 2019. We take the lead, fail to see it out and then lose in extra time. But who knows. We do seem to have a bit of a knack of scraping by.

I was thinking this earlier, I think there's a chance they win that final 3/4-0. Probably being a bit kind to them there based on the last two games, but then they've gone and beaten probably the 2nd and 3rd best teams in the tournament (I know that's being kind to France). I never thought I'd say this about an England team but I honestly think our best chance of beating Spain is penalties

His tenure and this tournament are seperate arguments in my opinion , I think he's always seemed to have a lot of fortune in draws but you could at least point to a semi competent side. This time around, particularly for the talent supposedly on display it's been dire. I read a stat yesterday that we've created less chances in this tournament than Georgia and Poland. For some context, Poland played 3 games against France, Holland and Austria. We've played 5 games, two of which went to extra time, against Serbia, Denmark, Slovenia, Slovakia and Switzerland. Even Georgia did it in a game less having played Spain and Portugal. Appreciate I'm going over old ground a bit here but I think we've got to substantially improve just to get past Holland, let alone France or Spain.

He'd be a disaster at club level. He's by his own admission not great tactically. I think so anyway, I don't want us to be the club that gambles on him.

I think it is the time anyway. The FA seem to love him though. I can see them trying to convince him again. In a way I sort of hope he stays because apparently Leicester's owner quite likes him. Please for god sake no.

Am I Albanian or something?

I don't even think it's necessarily just Southgate himself though, I think the FA want him there more than he wants to be there. The way he'd been acting early doors in this tournament was peculiar, almost as if he just wanted this over with ASAP. The performances felt a bit like that as well. I think it would've all made far more sense if Bellingham hadn't scored against Slovakia, but here we are. DDW made a quite interesting point about our best tournament performance under him actually being 2022. I can see that. We had three wins by 3+ goals, topped our group, knocked out a tricky Senegal with ease and fell to a side who were probably as good as the winners Argentina. I think having watched what has panned out this time around there's a case that despite exiting in an earlier round, this tournament hasn't lived up to that one. It was the one tournament where I don't think he really had much luck with the draws. There's a real case for me that he has delivered par from pretty much day one of his tenure. He's beaten the majority of teams he's expected to beat. He's hardly beaten anybody who he wasn't. The constant that goes against him is that he's lost a lot of the tight 50/50s. Croatia, Italy, arguably France. England haven't been good for pretty much any of our lifetimes though. We hardly ever turn up in tournaments. Hodgson was a disgrace in 2016, a tournament that I rank as England's worst of my footballing lifetime (born in 1993 but I'll judge anything from 2002 onwards) and yet I think we were seconds from basically equalling that this time around with almost eerie similarities. 2014 was abysmal as well, tough group but but into context by the fact Costa Rica ended up topping it, so was it really that tough? 2012 decent group effort, pretty bad knockout showing. 2010 a disgrace, 2008 didn't even qualify, 2006, 2004 and 2002 all pretty much par for me - very much on the end of tight margins which seems to be the theme with England, but the theme as well is that in all of them we weren't given kind draws. Southgate's luck with draws has been barely believable and he's still yet to convert it into a trophy. There's a lot of arguing going on in here but I think the truth is to be revealed this week and that nobody can really definitively say. If England go out this week I think basically every word DDW has said has been correct, and up until now, it's correct because we haven't won anything. If England do end up winning this tournament though, everything that you, Stan etc.. say about not caring about the performance if we're winning is totally valid. I think the not caring about the performance is fine when a trophy is won, but up until then, with no precedent of this actually delivering England any tangible success then I can't make any case for it. We shall see. It's going to be interesting. This has provided a quite interesting read for me in the last hour or so

We can definitely lose because we've hit what is again a respectable stage of the competition, which we both know deep down will probably be enough to turn the FA's head and give him another tournament regardless of how we do from here. Lose to Holland, Southgate secures 2026 and I'd go as far as saying it's the worst tournament we could've had and it would've been better for us in the long run to have gone out in the groups or to Slovakia. I can't give him credit for any of this this time around. It really has been a one in the thousands levels of fortune. None of this to me has felt by design. Should we go all the way, things may change, but for now I just think we're on a bit of a freak run carried almost entirely by individual quality - of which we should've been far more convincing with. To me a decent coach would've been able to rotate somewhat against some of the opposition we've had and has us fresher for the Dutch and the final if we made it. We've looked really leggy since day one.

Found this thread very interesting as well. Both England and France got taken to penalty shootouts by inferior opposition. France ended up on the tougher half of the draw by failing to beat an already eliminated Poland. I'm not so sure the defensive approach is really all that great this time around. England of all teams definitely cannot claim penalties are something we can rely on either:

England can't yet be compared to Greece or Portugal because we haven't won it. This sort of talk needs to be for when its won. We are one loss away from this tournament being blasted as Southgate's most abject by a mile and two bits of individual brilliance are the only thing thats kept us alive. We're giving too much credit to the organisation of Southgate this time around, game state is the main reason we haven't conceded many chances having only spent around 20 minutes of a game in front since Serbia. We've looked very vulnerable when attacked.

You play to win. The problem for England is I think Deschamps, while horrid to watch, has them very well organised, and England really have been awful for the most part, bailed out by individual quality. We've not looked organised or robust, it's just been a load of nothing with moments of magic. Thinking rationally we don't win this tournament.

It's been a rubbish tournament after a very bright start. Looks pretty clear to me it'll be a France England final - it'd be very fitting.

How've I got the brunt of this