That’s the first bit of England i’ve seen under Southgate… But it really doesnt matter who the manager is, it’s still the same old England, lacking technical ability and general know how.
Being honest, the biggest surprise for me is that Southgate has lasted so long, but then, if you think about it, he’s so incredibly bland and dull the press have fuck all to use against him. He reminds me of that tall blonde skinny fucker from the office … A Tim nice but dim type… he’s the diet coke of management. He’s a cheese sandwich. An ordinary boring cheese sandwich… no one ever went out and died for a cheese sandwich.
They’ll be undone against the first decent team they come up against. They’ll struggle against Panama.
Switzerland largely defended deep, but looked threatening on the break because they have superior attacking ability to Iceland and were willing to give it a real go when the opportunity presented itself. They actually came across as a much more likeable team than they have done before, though they were helped by Brazil’s lack of urgency.
My point is that in a situation such as Saturday’s game against Argentina, once they’d got their poxy equaliser, and even more so from half-time on, Iceland almost saw any form of attack as a distraction for them, because any attack meant they would be committing players forward, with the risk of a counter attack. By Iceland not attacking at all, there was little chance of Argentina “creating chaos” in the play and catching Iceland out of the position in which they’re most comfortable defending.
Anyway, in all three of the Argentina-Iceland, Brazil-Switzerland and England-Tunisia games, we’ve seen one team sitting deep and parking the bus, to varying degrees - total bus parking in Iceland’s case, bus parking with added counter-attack in Switzerland’s case, and desperate, slightly hapless bus parking in Tunisia’s case. When a team does any of those three, even the best attacking talent in the world will find it difficult to break them down.
England at least eventually did so, by hook or by crook. They have loads to improve on, but they’re in a good position now with a win under their belt and shouldn’t be under much pressure for the rest of the group.
Looking at the England highlights, Tunisia set up with three on the line when defending corners, with the keeper on the back post. Have never seen that before
England will improve but they are technically weak in comparison to the stronger teams and lack a decent playmaker, still they were streets ahead of Tunisia and will be very confortable against Panama, I don’t think anybody will steamroll them but at the moment I’d say they’re no more than a quarter final team, Maguire could be the breakout star, they need to get rid of young, he offers nothing
So Kane’s auld fella is from Galway? Did RoI ever approach Harry to play underage ?
I’d say back in the 80s/90s , Kane, Keown would have declared for big Jack !
Keown probably had stronger links with Ireland than most of the lads Jack brought in through the grandparents rule. Regular visitor to Tuam, heard he despised the term “Plastic Paddy” and that he didn’t want to be known as a plastic anything.
