Danny 2,203 Posted June 14, 2022 Share Posted June 14, 2022 44 minutes ago, Rucksackfranzose said: It's an useless excuse since it's end of season for Hungarian players as well. It’s not a useless excuse. It’s just a fact, the players are on a downer and part of that is down to the heavy rotations we’ve made with young players and the other part is that no elite player wants to play these friendlies at this stage of the season. For Hungary this is a chance to get a scalp in the Nations League, for us it was a group of fixtures in the way of the players holidays. On top of that we’ve clearly played poorly regardless of any reason or excuse, in all games we’ve played consistently bad or underwhelming. But there are major contributing factors to that as well which can’t just be denied because it hasn’t affected another team as much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reluctant Striker 134 Posted June 14, 2022 Share Posted June 14, 2022 It is a bad result for England. Only thing you can try to justify it would be they've maybe approached it like friendly matches. And Hungary at least were playing it like everything was on the line. Draws vs Germany & Italy aren't usually seen as too bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Gonzo 8,182 Posted June 14, 2022 Share Posted June 14, 2022 1 hour ago, Danny said: I don’t think this point is about salvaging anything. We’ve been good for a long time now, the last week or two we haven’t but it’s end of season, players have played in a gruelling campaign domestically and in Europe. Wait till September, that’s when we can either come away with some hope or feel like we’re in for an uphill battle Every European side's just had the end of a grueling campaign & virtually every European league is going to be working with a condensed schedule due to the insanity of a winter world cup... it's not a great excuse. On paper there's no reason these players should have been beat 4-0 at home by Hungary. There's understandable poor results, like the matches against Germany and Italy... and then there's some mild shocks like Hungary away from home... but 4-0 at home to Hungary is just shambolic there's no excuse. And because these competitive matches have basically replaced normal international friendlies because UEFA is hungry for the money, while players can claim they're glorified friendlies as much as they want (and I'm going to keep treating them like that because I don't respect UEFA's cash grab with the internationals)... I just don't see how being so abjectly poor in these can be good preparation for the England side. I feel like this is going to be a shit World Cup for me... and I have 2 sides I'm wanting to get through in the group. England have UEFA arranging it's pre-world cup friendlies against strong opposition including Germany and Italy... and this talented group of players are either the most difficult group of people to motivate... or they're led by an inept coward. Meanwhile Iran are an international pariah with the most useless FA in the fucking world and are incapable of properly preparing for a World Cup... even when put in a group against countries that should have everyone involved with Iran football to be taking this world cup the most seriously of all world cups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rucksackfranzose 4,364 Posted June 14, 2022 Share Posted June 14, 2022 7 minutes ago, Danny said: It’s not a useless excuse. It’s just a fact, the players are on a downer and part of that is down to the heavy rotations we’ve made with young players and the other part is that no elite player wants to play these friendlies at this stage of the season. For Hungary this is a chance to get a scalp in the Nations League, for us it was a group of fixtures in the way of the players holidays. On top of that we’ve clearly played poorly regardless of any reason or excuse, in all games we’ve played consistently bad or underwhelming. But there are major contributing factors to that as well which can’t just be denied because it hasn’t affected another team as much. Even, if you have a point here, it' s still an useless excuse in the sense that usually- if it wasn't for that extraordanary timed Qatar WC -the players would be playing an International tournament right now. So it's their and the coaching staffs fault if they're not fit at the end of the season. And please be so kind not to tell me a WC or Euro were meaningless to England. Both of us now they didn't won enough International titles to sensibly claim such things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber Dan+ 1,916 Posted June 14, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted June 14, 2022 There is no possible excuse for that. You could perhaps brush over an underwhelming set of fixtures, played at a stupid time ultimately (they really probably should've just binned this, or the last nations league) but 0-4 to Hungary. That is just disgraceful. It's unforgivable. This set of players are not this bad. Some of them overrated but after tonight I'm wondering if England are sleepwalking into a disaster tournament. That was a complete and utter humiliation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devil-Dick Willie 3,253 Posted June 14, 2022 Share Posted June 14, 2022 Kanes dive after he hit the post is embarrassing. But him and Sterling get that green light in an England shirt to hit the deck as much as they want with no comments made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny 2,203 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 37 minutes ago, Rucksackfranzose said: Even, if you have a point here, it' s still an useless excuse in the sense that usually- if it wasn't for that extraordanary timed Qatar WC -the players would be playing an International tournament right now. So it's their and the coaching staffs fault if they're not fit at the end of the season. And please be so kind not to tell me a WC or Euro were meaningless to England. Both of us now they didn't won enough International titles to sensibly claim such things. In a normal non-Covid affected summer tournament season the league will generally end second week of May and the tournament would begin on the second week of June, so there would be a months worth of preparation and rest if needed between the domestic and international competitions. This break has just been 2 weeks. On top if that this current season has been disrupted a lot by covid postponements causing a back log of games to be played towards the end of the season increasing the chances of burn out. But the main issue here is that this isn’t a European Championship or World Cup, this is a collection of glorified friendlies. Fatigue is as mental as it is physical and I can guarantee most of those players would not have wanted to have to have played these fixtures at this time. Players look up to and look forward to major tournaments, but this isn’t one of those tournaments. Im not saying they are definitively the reasons for why we have been poor this time around, but they contribute as part of a wider theme and tiredness will hit different camps at different times. If you take away tonight’s game then we haven’t been terrible recently, just a bit underwhelming. 42 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said: Every European side's just had the end of a grueling campaign & virtually every European league is going to be working with a condensed schedule due to the insanity of a winter world cup... it's not a great excuse. On paper there's no reason these players should have been beat 4-0 at home by Hungary. There's understandable poor results, like the matches against Germany and Italy... and then there's some mild shocks like Hungary away from home... but 4-0 at home to Hungary is just shambolic there's no excuse. And because these competitive matches have basically replaced normal international friendlies because UEFA is hungry for the money, while players can claim they're glorified friendlies as much as they want (and I'm going to keep treating them like that because I don't respect UEFA's cash grab with the internationals)... I just don't see how being so abjectly poor in these can be good preparation for the England side. I feel like this is going to be a shit World Cup for me... and I have 2 sides I'm wanting to get through in the group. England have UEFA arranging it's pre-world cup friendlies against strong opposition including Germany and Italy... and this talented group of players are either the most difficult group of people to motivate... or they're led by an inept coward. Meanwhile Iran are an international pariah with the most useless FA in the fucking world and are incapable of properly preparing for a World Cup... even when put in a group against countries that should have everyone involved with Iran football to be taking this world cup the most seriously of all world cups. What I would say is that when it rains it pours, the margin for failure is quite small within professional football and it can drastically impact what we as fans see from the team. If we had won 1-0 today these collection of games would be considered disappointing but not defining. But we lost 4-0 even though Hungary’s xG was at 0.99, which suggests that if we were to play this game over and over in the same manner that we played today then it’d more than likely end as a draw. But it ended 4-0 and the worlds falling apart and people are calling for Southgates head. I think Southgate hit the nail on the head in that our issue has been lack of cohesion, through trying so many different players in different positions we lost consistency in how we play. Today we had Ramsdale, Guehi, James at left back, Gallagher, Bowen and Saka at left mid. Much like the previous 11s we’ve put out the past 4 games it was such a mismash of players who’d mostly never played together or played together in the systems we’ve played. We’re not the only team to play disappointingly in our group, we had a higher xg than both Italy and Germany I believe which wasn’t good for them. We could have played better most definitely and it is frustrating to watch. Will England ever be a fluid attacking side like City or Liverpool under Southgate? No. But are we a solid group that play as a team that has world class talent within? Yes. We didn’t show that throughout these games and we definitely didn’t show that tonight. What I would say is today, especially looking at the xG, was more of an anomaly rather than a consistent expectation under Southgate. If it’s the same in September then I think we have to worry but I don’t think that’ll be the case personally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Gonzo 8,182 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 xG's a bit of a weird stat to point to, because by itself it doesn't really tell us a whole lot other than when we should have expected goals. I will say when you have 4 matches and we have supposedly a higher xG than every team we played in those 4 matches... but we can't manage a single goal from open play despite the xG... that's actually a statistic that's more worrying than not. Because ultimately, xG isn't really a useful statistic unless you compare it with the actual goals scored. And right now I think the biggest thing from an England perspective is... maybe a higher xG than the teams we've played... but only 1 goal scored and 0 from open play. xG is certainly not the end-all-be-all of football stats. Look at Son's xG last season... he massively outperformed that? Does that mean he's lucky? Nah, I don't think so - if anything I think it indicates he's probably one of the best finishers in the league. And I'm not sure pointing to a lack of cohesion takes any pressure off Southgate. He's the one who put out sides that lack cohesion. I hope this is a wakeup call for some of these players who have probably been thinking we'll have an easy ride in the World Cup because they've made it to a semi-final and a final... but especially for Southgate. His biggest strength as England manager has been getting England to play with some semblance of an identity (even if it's playing ugly "no tactics, just vibes" football, at least it's an identity) and for getting players to unite around the national team instead of a collection of various groups of players that hate each other. Without those 2 things, I think it's really really easy to turn on Southgate. Because when "no tactics, just vibes" goes wrong, it looks fucking abysmal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patoriku66 9 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 I'm going to out on a limb here as I seem to sometimes get up people noses. If you look at the majority of successful English teams, how many English players are actually playing? Would Liverpool or Citeh be where they are without foreign players? I don't think so. The problem is, the lack of reaping home grown talent. How can you expect to win a world cup when you only have dribs and drabs coming up through the system? Unless, there's a concerted effort to encourage new talent we're doomed. We have a few talented players but not a full squad. This gets me into the point where I'll get shite upon. Then we get on to Southgate. If offence was a currency, he'd be as tight as a duck's arse. Perhaps he's right?? We can't play as an offensive team? We certainly can't sit there and wait to defend as we get picked apart by teams. I don't have an answer. If I did, England would be belling me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toinho 2,210 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 England getting shown up for the bang average side that they are, yes not their best line up, but 4-0 at home. lolz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toinho 2,210 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 19 minutes ago, patoriku66 said: I'm going to out on a limb here as I seem to sometimes get up people noses. If you look at the majority of successful English teams, how many English players are actually playing? Would Liverpool or Citeh be where they are without foreign players? I don't think so. The problem is, the lack of reaping home grown talent. How can you expect to win a world cup when you only have dribs and drabs coming up through the system? Unless, there's a concerted effort to encourage new talent we're doomed. We have a few talented players but not a full squad. This gets me into the point where I'll get shite upon. Then we get on to Southgate. If offence was a currency, he'd be as tight as a duck's arse. Perhaps he's right?? We can't play as an offensive team? We certainly can't sit there and wait to defend as we get picked apart by teams. I don't have an answer. If I did, England would be belling me. To be fair, their youth sides have been great in recent years right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander 166 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 4 hours ago, Toinho said: England getting shown up for the bang average side that they are, yes not their best line up, but 4-0 at home. lolz. Yes looked poor yesterday. Stones was very poor not sure if he won a header against their front men meaning we were under pressure all the time. Strange line-up yesterday, we are bottom of the nations league table and Southgate is still tinkering with the side. He mentioned about the domestic league being so long and tough he was struggling to pick fit players, I can't help think that is the same for other countries too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFCMike 3,009 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 It is ridiculous that there's international games going on this late when pre-season starts even earlier ahead of a condensed season because of the winter World Cup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted June 15, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted June 15, 2022 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/61807905 That says it all for England, the World Cup would have started last week, imagine if it did and a score like the 1-4 defeat came up!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Stan 18,378 Posted June 15, 2022 Author Administrator Share Posted June 15, 2022 32 minutes ago, CaaC (John) said: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/61807905 That says it all for England, the World Cup would have started last week, imagine if it did and a score like the 1-4 defeat came up!!!! A bit of a moot point considering the season would have ended earlier and there may have been bit more of a break before the WC started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber CaaC (John)+ 5,358 Posted June 15, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted June 15, 2022 3 minutes ago, Stan said: A bit of a moot point considering the season would have ended earlier and there may have been bit more of a break before the WC started. True, I read all the "Southgate Out..." brigade in full swing again, gets England to the Euro 2020 final and end up as runners up and they still yell "Southgate Out..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subscriber RandoEFC+ 7,660 Posted June 15, 2022 Subscriber Share Posted June 15, 2022 I've all but stopped paying attention to non-tournament internationals so it's possible that I'm just not grasping how poor England have been since last summer but it's only been a year since this manager got them into the final of the Euros which is the best thing England have done in 50+ years. He has his faults but in light of that, it seems a bit mad to be talking about him as finished as bad as this little run of games has been. Losing 4-0 to Hungary at home is obviously unacceptable but it's also not like England have been putting performances like that in on a regular basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beelzebub 2,508 Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 International football is all about figuring out what works best for you before major tournaments start. Everything before that is excused if you get it right Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Gonzo 8,182 Posted June 17, 2022 Share Posted June 17, 2022 Lol Southgate says the Hungary match shows the dangers of being too attacking. 5 at the back with Kane playing CDM incoming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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