Dr. Gonzo

Best chance we've got of convincing Klopp to join is by telling him this: "English refs can't officiate your matches if you manage England." But given he's said he wants to take a break because the pressure has been intense... I'm not sure there's a job in English football that comes with quite as much media scrutiny as the England manager. It's worth a shot seeing if he'll take the job though. He rejected the US job a few days ago according to ESPN I think.

You can say that again

I'd also really like to know why exactly he was hardly ever in the box and why he basically was playing as a midfielder. Was he told to do that by Southgate? Was he just having a hard time moving from midfield to the box like normal because of his back issue & subsequently got that knock in the tournament? Or was he just... dropping deep because he felt like dropping deep? I don't think Kane should be dropped, especially with a new manager coming in. He's still obviously a very good striker. Joint top scorer in the tournament too despite playing very, very, very poorly. But his position as a nailed on starter I think should be something any new manager evaluates. What I'm hoping for is a new manager that builds the team around Bellingham but also finds a way to get Foden firing on all cylinders rather than being generally useless for England. The question is... how does it get done when it appears Kane, Foden, and Bellingham seem to naturally all want to occupy the same area on the pitch? Someone like Watkins might be the way to get more out of players like Foden and Bellingham. Someone like Toney, who's not as good as Kane, but took his very limited opportunities to be a menace in the box with just a short amount of time on the pitch also seemed to make us look more threatening in moments where being threatening was important. Can Kane fit into an England team that's more focused on Bellingham and Foden? Was it a matter of tactics or a lack of tactical instruction that caused the way they all played in the tournament? I think these are big questions for the new manager to come out and why things like that shit tournament that replaced international friendlies for UEFA teams will be a big part of figuring out how England will look ahead of any actual tournaments in the future. Having said all of that, I'm sure the next England manager is going to be thinking "how do I build a team that gets the most out of Bellingham, Foden, and Kane?" and Kane's likely going to be a big part of this England side for a while. But imo, I don't think he shouldn't be under scrutiny just because of how he performs at his club. I think the new manager who comes in really needs to dissect why exactly our typical starting attack was largely ineffective and why big players like Bellingham, Foden, and Kane put in such disappointing performances - even if big moments of individual class from Bellingham and Kane turned to be decisive in one of the most shit England performances of the tournament. I don't think any player is too big to be dropped in the name of putting out a side that can compete while actually playing football that isn't painful to watch.

I think Southgate deserves credit for taking England on runs that we couldn't have imagined when he took over as manager. Expectations for England were so low when he came in - the national team were an embarrassment. He took us to 2 finals and a World Cup semi-final after things like the Iceland debacle. I hated his brand of football, especially with this current squad at Euro 2024 - but let's be real, only Spain and Germany were truly looking to play football and I don't think Southgate was wrong in his belief that you don't need great tactics to go far in international football and that it really is about the moments of magic from big players. I just think Spain have proven if you've got that along with a style of play and an identity, rather than reacting after you've been scored on, you may just have enough to go on and win something in a way that'll have you remembered. But I think he deserves a lot of credit for removing the toxicity from the England squad that was clearly there when the "golden generation" (who I think were a much better starting XI than anything Southgate's been able to put together, but nowadays we have a lot more quality all around) kept failing. And for where he ended up finishing in big tournaments. We used to be a country where at best you'd think we'd get to the quarter finals and that's probably about it. He took us to wanting more and to actually truly dreaming of winning. We even got to a final in a country that isn't England. but I hated his brand of football and now that we've got the aspiration and belief to go win something, I think it's absolutely the right time to go with a manager that's going to have England playing more on the front foot with the very strong squad we have. I honestly think the time to replace him was probably after the sad loss to Italy, but that probably would have been very harsh considering he'd taken us to our first final since 1966 and we'd only lost on penalties. I think despite the dogshit football, he can leave with his head held high. He restored pride back into the national team and got England fans seriously dreaming for the first time since Southgate missed that penalty in the Euros. It's a shame he could never get over the line - but I think he's done a good job in laying the groundwork for a better manager to come in and try to do better. And honestly, given his record in club football... I think it's fair to say he surpassed everyone's expectations of him by a long distance.

If you look at the statistics, they make a case for Trippier being the most well rounded fullback England has, Walker being the tallest, and Alexander-Arnold the most unnecessarily slated for his defensive work. Weirdly, Trent's got the lowest pass completion rate in long and short passes - while Walker's got the highest short and long pass completion rate; yet Trent is far ahead of him in terms of chance creation (where Walker's statistics paint him as virtually useless). I think moments where you see a brilliant recovery tackle make a player pass the eye-test more than when you see a fullback like Trent vs. Doku appearing to get rinsed but what ends up happening is Doku is ending up isolated in a useless position and losing the ball almost immediately - even if one's good actually defending and the other is using pace to make up for dogshit positioning. If Trent was playing right back at the final and did what Walker did, he'd be made a scapegoat.

Yes the Liverpool fans… and the statistics. Ben White should be fucked off for turning his back on his country in his prime. The fume some players in the past have gotten for ending their England careers earlier than normal… when they weren’t even in their prime & the relative ambivalence White gets for doing something worse is mind boggling to me.

Pretty sure you should take a look at Alexander-Arnold’s defensive stats from last year and Kyle Walker’s defensive stats from last year. Yes he’s faster, but I’m not sure he’s actually any better defensively and Spain’s two goals & him being the weakest link in England’s defense all tournament I think have gone a bit under the radar. Probably because of how poor we generally were in attack. I think if the new manager can get England playing some actual football, we have a good chance. Spain and Germany were just about the only sides that looked like teams with a plan from kickoff each match. It’s no surprise that one of those sides ended up winning. I think with the players we’ve got, if we have a real team identity that’s bigger and better than “keep things tight, but if we go down push really hard to get a goal back - then go back to keeping it tight” we’ve got as good of a chance as any year we’ve had before to win a tournament.

Fabrizio Romano now saying we're interested. Would be a good Matip replacement.

I use warm water unless it's hot out and then I use cold water

Yeah I know, I agree with you. They should both be panned imo. And if anything Roberto Martinez's failures are more forgivable than Southgate's, even though Southgate's managed to get to finals.

Gun ranges and rifling clubs at school, lmao what the fuck

They're saying they've found a body and his stuff.

Tbf I do not understand how Belgium gave Roberto Martinez so long or why Portugal gave him a shot given their squad and how he'd underperformed with Belgium. But the expectation that England do better than Belgium is reasonable. Particularly in this tournament where on paper this England squad's one of the best ever in England history. Given the performances, I think it's easy and also accurate to say England got to the final despite Southgate, rather than because of him. He got so much wrong and persisted with it while getting lucky as fuck and even after he'd found his mistakes and corrected them with substitutions. Rather than reward players like Palmer for saving his bacon, he'd persist with Foden who did fuck all except hit the post once this tournament, etc. This is a squad that's got too much quality and depth to be fucking around with a manager like Southgate or Martinez, imo. Potter or Beheadie Howe are English and better options. The £4m a year might not be enough for Beheadie considering his employers, but the lure of being the England manager might be enough to get Potter to forget about how Chelsea are paying him to do nothing.

Might have been more useful than Kyle Walker’s shit crossing though.

guess he didn’t make that $15 minute donation either

Yeah your England would have been much better

New manager please

Oh shit we’ve got a chance!

We know his views moved further to the right. As a 17 year old he made a $15 donation to a democratic PAC, by 18 he had registered Republican.

By the same token, Trump in the past has 1) asked for “second amendment” people to take care of Hillary Clinton, 2) encouraged the violence at the US capitol when Biden’s win was to be certified, in an attempt to invalidate an election, 3) after being shot turned back to the crowd, raised his fist and told the crowd “Fight!” - two times. The American right has plenty of culpability in the escalation of modern political violence. The second amendment people themselves say one of the biggest reasons to protect gun ownership is specifically for political violence - so that citizens can fight back against “tyranny”; most of those people are right wing to the extreme. It’s why I’m finding these calls to tone down the rhetoric from the right a little bit laughable. Where was this when they were mocking Pelosi’s husband for being attacked in his own home?

Honestly because we now know he was a Republican, I suspect the shooter was deep on the q anon bullshit and the Trump-Epstein release from 2 weeks ago might have been the straw that broke the camels back and made the shooter think “someone needs to kill this guy, I’ll do it.”

Project 2025 was barely in US media compared to Biden’s diminished facilities tbh. It’s gained a bit more awareness, but the current king of the US electoral cycle was “Biden is unfit to be president and his party is turning against him” - now the current king of the US electoral cycle is “both sides need to turn down the rhetoric before more people die” … which maybe should have been a talking point after the January 6th incident.

What keeps me from definitively saying it’s staged is I definitely think there’s people that hate Trump enough to want him dead.

Yeah literally millions of them are asking this and have been asking this for a while now lol