Smiley Culture

International tournaments are every two years, they’re hard to win. They’re not one of five competitions on offer year after year.

The England setup, of which Southgate has played a large part in overseeing, has caused a real change in the England setup and subsequent results. I don’t think any Premier League club gives a flying one about England and why should they? The Sweden shouts make no sense. The bizarre belief from the ale chucking, Sweet Caroline singing, Sports Direct retro shirt wearing balloon knots that the only way to define success is by winning a trophy is, frankly, lunacy. To suggest the only way Southgate’s tenure will be deemed a success is whether he wins a trophy or not is bizarre. He’s genuinely overhauled the England setup and has instilled a level of commitment that was not seen for decades, with a squad that man for man was not close to the supposed “golden generation”. England pre-Southgate lose to Colombia in 2018, the draw to Tunisia in 2018, they probably draw to the Czechs as well and definitely don’t score an equaliser against Slovakia or win on penalties against the Swiss or come from behind against Holland. I think the England bandwagon has become spoilt, for the most part. England also get an absolute humping if they suddenly decided to go gung-ho against Spain last night too.

I’m not sure what the leagues have to do with anything. Brazil, Argentina and France are perennial winners and achievers yet nobody across the planet panders to see Arsenal di Sarandi or Bordeaux. England have gone from Quarter Finals, if they’re lucky, to becoming a regular at tournaments at the back end of them. I’m not sure winning something is the decider between them and Southgate being deemed a success or not. Southgate’s tenure has been hugely successful, regardless of tournament wins, and should go down as such but there’s this weird God given right to win trophies that’s always been there regardless of how good England have been.

Do England need to win something? I’m not sure where this has come from but international football is different to club level and trophies are harder to come by.

I don’t watch a lot of football on the tele but from what I’ve seen, the best team overall won and certainly the best team on the night, won. England had their moments and tried to counter and for a short while, they looked as though they might take them to extra time, but ultimately England’s “moments” were not that long and you always felt like Spain could go up a gear. Jordan Pickford and Marc Guehi probably kept the scoreline respectable, at times and allowed England to stay in the game and I do feel a bit for Guehi getting caught the wrong side of Oyazarbal. As for Pickford, I’ll get tonnes of abuse from Evertonians on here I suspect but, he should be playing for a bigger club than Everton. He should be playing for a side in the Champions League. He’s criminally underrated and still gets a load of stick from people but his shot stopping is excellent and his destruction is usually very good. Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham are spent. They were three games ago but carrying an injury and playing nearly 70 games a piece in under twelve months is going to do that to you, I suppose. As for England, they’re in a good place. As much as they’ve not been aesthetically pleasing, many England sides over the years go out to Slovakia, they don’t equalise in the dying embers, they probably don’t beat Switzerland and they don’t come from behind against Netherlands either. They probably also lose that game tonight by three or four. There’s a change in mentality and application at International level, overseen by Southgate and he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. The problem with England is a warped expectation of them that they need to win a trophy. It’s not club football, lads. Trophies are hard to come by because they’re not a never ending cycle of trophies week after week for year after year, international tournaments are every two years and as such, they’re incredibly hard to win. I think people also demand to be entertained with England, too. Maybe because they care less than their club or they’re just out in a pub/overcharged in a bar/whatever but winning isn’t enough, they must be entertained in doing so and England need to be a reincarnation of Barcelona circa 2010. Sacking Southgate would be a ludicrous move.

There was definitely pressure from some angles of the media and football fans for others to get a game for England around the time Pickford's form for Everton dipped. Southgate stood by him quite possibly because "form is temporary, class is permanent" etc. He's probably had a couple of seasons now better than he's ever been and Everton and England are seeing the rewards.

First half, both teams got lucky with their goals and had good chances to score. An uncharacteristic error from Declan Rice, almost unseen from him in the past couple of seasons in a West Ham or Arsenal shirt, and a penalty that was one of those that looked soft as a penalty but had that happened anywhere else on the pitch, Denzel Dumfries would have been penalised for it. A couple of decent chances either way, Dumfries’ header off the crossbar and Foden’s shot that looked very similar to Yamal’s the evening before. Second half the quality dropped out of the game. Neither team wanting to commit too much and make an error and a lot of safe passes amongst back fours and holding midfields. I think many had read that sort of script before, England having more of the ball than their opponent but doing nothing with it and then getting hit against the run of play and being tactically devoid of a plan to equalise, and many probably feared it would come to fruition again. Gareth Southgate gets tonnes of stick, a lot unwarranted I feel, but he could quite easily be a bit of a dick this evening after two of his late subs, Palmer and Watkins, combined for the winner. I think Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham look knackered. That’s not a criticism of England or Southgate but more so football as a whole. Kane must be pushing 60 games for the 23/24 season and Bellingham not much further behind him. I get it, they were their respective clubs’ big money signings but they look fatigued and slower than they have done. But hey, we have more Champions League games, a World Club Cup that nobody wants and an expanded World Cup and group games against footballing luminaries like Burkino Faso and El Salvador to come, so that’s exactly what the footballing world needs. As for Southgate, I think he has strayed from what was so successful for him somewhat. There was a time when he’d get stick for picking certain players and allegedly having “favourites” but for a long time he had players playing a system that worked and he knew that Jordan Pickford, Harry Maguire and Raheem Sterling did a job regardless of how they did for their clubs. This now feels a bit like he’s learning again with a fresh crop what works and what doesn’t and who works together and who doesn’t but he’s now doing it to the backdrop of actual pressure and expectations, given his past results. Anyway, Spain should win but football is weird sometimes.

I’m really not an England fan at all but it was really nice to see Bukayo Saka score his penalty. The abuse he suffered in 2021 was a disgrace and he seems like a really sensible, likeable lad so seeing him do that was a nice moment.

That and the rise in data has made football far worse as a spectacle to watch.

I’ve watched bits and pieces of games, I’ve watched one full game in the whole tournament, and while the public opinion and media is going to be about Gareth Southgate and England, the entertainment value throughout the tournament has been virtually zero. Eighteen draws across the board, thirteen in the groups, seven 1-0’s and twenty-eight games with two or fewer goals scored. Football is very dull these days.

That West Ham shirt without a sponsor is superb. It’ll end up being some moody Asian bookmaker slapped across the chest.

He’s a dead man walking, it’s a bizarre move to take up the option, IMO. They couldn’t get who they wanted, so they’re sticking with him, it’s hardly a good selling point to new players this summer.

Haringey Borough season ticket renewed. It's cost me the grand total of...£0.00. I've not robbed them or lost a quiz and got the booby prize, that's just how much they cost. Why wouldn't you want one? Sixty-one goals scored last season, albeit forty-nine were conceded by Boro', the only club actually on White Hart Lane, their own lager and a 3G pitch so it's almost never called off.

I think it's top football, in general. It's data obsessed and a dull watch to suit playing the percentages and nullifying opposition. Flair and creativity are dirty words and unless it's some miracle equation, football people aren't really interested and the entertainment value of football has suffered and it's not just this tournament, so often Premier League games are talked up and then a 0-0 draw is played out and everyone is bored stiff watching it.

Whiffs of one of those moody deals the Premier League want shot of. £30m on a lad that was made up for accounting purposes is a massive grift.

No idea, tbh. I don’t know masses about it but from the little I know, it appears similar to Football Index, though with just Premier League players, and crypto involved.

I can’t work out whether this is an example of one of those transfers that are being investigated or a continuation of Chelsea’s scattergun approach to recruitment.

On top of Maguire and I’m sure there’s a fifth player that’s gone, as well. Their approach this summer is as bold as it was last year.

I signed off an email once "Kind R E T A R D S" instead of "Kind Regards". I was in a rush to get out the door and the G and T are close together on the keyboard. At least I was saying something positive, I suppose.

You'd have thought that Crawley had been relegated the way their players have been picked off by others.

My money is on him walking into a hospital/police station a few days after some of this cash has been released claiming he’s been drugged/no memory of where he’s been/had a head injury and some of this money has gone mysteriously missing.

The fundraising money is to be released to his mum, then. The cynic in me thinks this story will come to an “end” soon and that the decision to release funds has been orchestrated by the police and that they’re giving his mum enough rope to hang herself. I reckon she’ll be under intense surveillance and her room and phones will be bugged so that what she spends, who she talks to, how she acts etc will be tracked. Given the recent rumours that some locals reckon he was sat in a bar watching football a few days after he went missing, I think we may be reaching the conclusion of this soon.

I think this season is going to be pretty crap with the new TV deal and games spread across four or five days to cram in as much football as physically possible. We've never been more connected to football and its clubs but from a matchday attending point of view, it's going to be like planning a holiday just to watch your side at Port Vale with this new TV deal, all to satisfy Sky and with no disrespect to the clubs, who is going to watch Chesterfield v Swindon on a Friday night in August barring people in and around Wiltshire, who can't be taking a day of annual leave to watch a game of fourth tier football. As ever, there is no thought or care for fans and clubs are guilty of that too.

Yeah, that’s great and all but my question remains, does xG take into account the other side of things and who is taking the shot at goal?

Does xG consider who is behind those chances? I've often wondered this. Are those numbers what they are because they've been balls played in by a bloke who plays for Olimpija Ljubljana to a bloke who plays for Panathanaikos rather than, say, someone from Barcelona playing in someone who plays for Real Madrid, as you'd fancy Mbappe to have a better chance of scoring a goal from a particular position compared to some Slovenian fella.