England 1-0 Austria - Wednesday 2nd June, 2021

[Dan+]

I know people will say it's a friendly, had players out and whatever but we're two games away and just look a bit crap, and tournament after tournament you see the same thing, going into what turns into a shitshow. We were lucky to win that. Garbage performance.

[Dan+]

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Every time I have watched England since the World Cup, it looks like England making the semi-finals was a complete fluke

I mean it probably was. You have to apply the usual England tournament principle - first decent side we run into and it's curtains. I suppose we made a better first of the games against the average sides in 2018, which is an upgrade on the crap Hodgson served up, but I've definitely got less optimism for this tournament than three years ago. There was a fresh positivity going into Russia. This just feels back to the usual in my opinion.

We'll top our group despite only getting 5 points, and then get knocked out by Germany, is my prediction.

[Stan]

10 minutes ago, Dan said:

I know people will say it's a friendly, had players out and whatever but we're two games away and just look a bit crap, and tournament after tournament you see the same thing, going into what turns into a shitshow. We were lucky to win that. Garbage performance.

Surely the players out do make a difference though? It was disjointed today of players who won't even be at the tournament and those who are literally playing for England for the first time. 

Can't read in to it as much as other international games. It's just unfortunate it can't be a full squad only 2 games before the actual tournament starts. 

I fully expect Sunday to be a better performance if the Chelsea/Man City players are back. 

Mount, James, Sterling, Foden, Chilwell, Shaw are 6 players/options who add a lot of quality in to the side that we saw today. 

[Dan+]

12 minutes ago, Stan said:

Surely the players out do make a difference though? It was disjointed today of players who won't even be at the tournament and those who are literally playing for England for the first time. 

Can't read in to it as much as other international games. It's just unfortunate it can't be a full squad only 2 games before the actual tournament starts. 

I fully expect Sunday to be a better performance if the Chelsea/Man City players are back. 

Mount, James, Sterling, Foden, Chilwell, Shaw are 6 players/options who add a lot of quality in to the side that we saw today. 

Maybe so but doesn't change that Austria looked a lot more cohesive. I'll see if I'm proven wrong but I'm struggling to be too optimistic. Wasn't a good display.

I can see this being a weird Euros in general mind you given the fact virtually everybody will be knackered. I can see fatigue playing a part.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Every time I have watched England since the World Cup, it looks like England making the semi-finals was a complete fluke

It was

You beat Tunisia with a late buzzer beater
You beat Panama
You lost to Belgium, the only team you faced whos players you can actually name by that point
You beat Sweden (this was by far your best performance and result, beating Sweden, fucking Sweden. Good work bro)
You drew with a fucking DIRE Columbia, no Falcao, no Rodriguez, and beat them on penalties 
You lost to Croatia
You lost to Belgium (again)

Can only play what's in front of you but it only took teams the quality of Columbia and Croatia to trip you up. Had you played a France, Portugal fuck even Russia at the time you'd have gone home 
 

[Danny]

7 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

It was

You beat Tunisia with a late buzzer beater
You beat Panama
You lost to Belgium, the only team you faced whos players you can actually name by that point
You beat Sweden (this was by far your best performance and result, beating Sweden, fucking Sweden. Good work bro)
You drew with a fucking DIRE Columbia, no Falcao, no Rodriguez, and beat them on penalties 
You lost to Croatia
You lost to Belgium (again)

Can only play what's in front of you but it only took teams the quality of Columbia and Croatia to trip you up. Had you played a France, Portugal fuck even Russia at the time you'd have gone home 
 

I feel like at the time it was very clear what was happening, the fact we couldn't beat Colombia highlights it because they are a step up from Sweden but a step down from Croatia. Of course we were gunna draw with them.

Southgate was great at simply restoring a bit of pride in being able to beat lesser ranked teams, but reaching a semi-final definitely over egged how good England were and we saw that in the Euro Nations League with some of the displays there. I hope full strength we play better but I'm not confident.

[Ploughendplonker]

I didn't think that, under the circumstances, it was too bad of a performance. 

We were playing a proper competitive side who have a strong chance of reaching the knock out stages of the EURO's, and we were probably 3-4 players short of our strongest team. I can't recall many instances of Austria actually getting in behind us, and they created very little throughout the game. 

Brilliant work by Grealish for the goal, he is a definite starter for me. Quite liked Bellingham as well. 

[Dan+]

4 hours ago, Danny said:

I feel like at the time it was very clear what was happening, the fact we couldn't beat Colombia highlights it because they are a step up from Sweden but a step down from Croatia. Of course we were gunna draw with them.

Southgate was great at simply restoring a bit of pride in being able to beat lesser ranked teams, but reaching a semi-final definitely over egged how good England were and we saw that in the Euro Nations League with some of the displays there. I hope full strength we play better but I'm not confident.

Completely agree with this and pretty much how I see the Southgate reign. Feel good factor of luck of the draw carried us somewhat in Russia. I think the feel good factor has evaporated personally and he's become quite unpopular.

I could end up looking silly but I've not got high expectations for this tournament.

[RandoEFC+]

Only watched the second half of this. I do find it a bit confusing why players like Lingard, Godfrey and White were given game time. I get that he doesn't want to call them up and then send them home without any minutes, but you have countless other pointless friendlies to give players some experience and token minutes on the pitch. At this point, you're preparing for a tournament and those minutes that could have gone to players that are actually going to be involved as a part of their preparation, otherwise why even have the friendly? If the thinking was more to do with players like Henderson and Maguire not quite being ready and having to field a full match day squad without them then I sort of understand more calling upon the backup players, but still only on the bench really. You don't want to be fielding a team in the first group game that haven't had a chance to play together much, knowing you've had an opportunity to put more of them on the pitch together for 60 minutes or so just a couple of weeks earlier.

Grealish was the standout for me. My main worry with England is that you've got so many talented attacking options that it's tempting to rotate too much. Weaker teams you should be able to overwhelm with quality when you've got that much of it at the top end of the pitch. If you want to compete for semi-final spots or higher though, I think you need a better idea at this point of what your best team and combinations are. I don't have any idea who you'd put in the front 3-4 positions if the final was tomorrow night and you had a full squad to choose from. Maybe Southgate does, but I'd still rather see them playing together and building their understanding now. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but when the substitutes start piling on in friendlies like this and it starts to get heavily disjointed it just doesn't really feel like you're making the best use of the time in a relatively competitive game. It isn't easy, of course, when the players have all just come through a gruelling season with their clubs.

[Danny]

14 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Only watched the second half of this. I do find it a bit confusing why players like Lingard, Godfrey and White were given game time. I get that he doesn't want to call them up and then send them home without any minutes, but you have countless other pointless friendlies to give players some experience and token minutes on the pitch. At this point, you're preparing for a tournament and those minutes that could have gone to players that are actually going to be involved as a part of their preparation, otherwise why even have the friendly? If the thinking was more to do with players like Henderson and Maguire not quite being ready and having to field a full match day squad without them then I sort of understand more calling upon the backup players, but still only on the bench really. You don't want to be fielding a team in the first group game that haven't had a chance to play together much, knowing you've had an opportunity to put more of them on the pitch together for 60 minutes or so just a couple of weeks earlier.

Grealish was the standout for me. My main worry with England is that you've got so many talented attacking options that it's tempting to rotate too much. Weaker teams you should be able to overwhelm with quality when you've got that much of it at the top end of the pitch. If you want to compete for semi-final spots or higher though, I think you need a better idea at this point of what your best team and combinations are. I don't have any idea who you'd put in the front 3-4 positions if the final was tomorrow night and you had a full squad to choose from. Maybe Southgate does, but I'd still rather see them playing together and building their understanding now. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but when the substitutes start piling on in friendlies like this and it starts to get heavily disjointed it just doesn't really feel like you're making the best use of the time in a relatively competitive game. It isn't easy, of course, when the players have all just come through a gruelling season with their clubs.

I think it’s cos half the team just played a Champions League final so late season finish

[Danny]

If we win our group we will most likely end up playing one of Germany, France or Portugal in the first KO round and that will be the end of our competition lol

[Honey Honey]

23 minutes ago, Danny said:

If we win our group we will most likely end up playing one of Germany, France or Portugal in the first KO round and that will be the end of our competition lol

Didn't notice that. How did Portugal, France and Germany end up in the same group in a tournament expanded to let more dross in?

[Stan]

41 minutes ago, Danny said:

If we win our group we will most likely end up playing one of Germany, France or Portugal in the first KO round and that will be the end of our competition lol

I know it's all about beating the best but on the other hand, it's about getting through as far in the competition as possible.

We could be better off if we finished 2nd and we play the runner-up in Group E (Spain, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia).

Having just looked at the route, if we win that tie, we then could end up facing France/Germany/Portugal anyway in the quarters...

[Danny]

17 minutes ago, The Premier Steve's said:

Didn't notice that. How did Portugal, France and Germany end up in the same group in a tournament expanded to let more dross in?

France and Portugal weren't seeded, France missed out of seeding by 1 point because they lost as well as drew in the qualifers (I think most seeded only lost or drew once and won the rest) and I think Portugal finishing 2nd in their group meant they weren't seeded.

 

[Danny]

19 minutes ago, Stan said:

I know it's all about beating the best but on the other hand, it's about getting through as far in the competition as possible.

We could be better off if we finished 2nd and we play the runner-up in Group E (Spain, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia).

Having just looked at the route, if we win that tie, we then could end up facing France/Germany/Portugal anyway in the quarters...

Knowing us if we tried to lose to get 2nd we'd end up getting knocked out lol

[Stan]

9 minutes ago, Danny said:

Knowing us if we tried to lose to get 2nd we'd end up getting knocked out lol

I'd be amazed and stunned if we got knocked out considering there's still 4 best 3rd-placed teams to qualify as well! That would be one of the worst tournament performances if we fail to qualify from the groups. 

[Danny]

2 minutes ago, Stan said:

I'd be amazed and stunned if we got knocked out considering there's still 4 best 3rd-placed teams to qualify as well! That would be one of the worst tournament performances if we fail to qualify from the groups. 

It's England we'd find a way

[UNORTHODOX]

20 hours ago, Stan said:

Two of them (James and Walker) weren't in the squad anyway because they've been given extra time along with other Chelsea/Man City players.

Trippier could have played there though with Saka moving to LB. 

I hadn’t even realised James and Walker weren’t in the squad last night