philpvfc

Spot on….don’t know why so many are saying we have a better squad than last season, it is far too early to say the players we have are better than what we have cleared out. Hopefully they are and they should be if DC has done his job properly but looking at the friendlies I have not been filled with confidence.

I’m predicting mid table this season after thinking we would go up last season! Goal scoring will be our Achilles heal this season.

Didn’t we have Kane taking corners in the last Euros?

It’s pretty obvious that managerial skills are not the most important attributes to have when being manager of England. Being on favour with the press is massively important, Taylor was crucified as was Sven to a certain degree, while Venables who I did not rate was loved by the press and Southgate is very good in the way he comes across hence the press love him.

Yes….. I thought the same before the cup started so logged on to a French booking site which had us down at exactly the same odds and joint favourites alongside France.

It was a great opportunity and had the team not sat back then things may have ended up different, who knows. Can’t recall anyone saying it would be easy though.

Not at all, Southgate has done a good job in both tournaments but I do not agree he is as good as many are coming out with and yes, Hodgson is a better manager, look at his club record and compare to what Southgate has done outside the England job. England were 2nd favourites to win the trophy going in to the tournament and we finished 2nd, yes Southgate did a good job to get us to the final but we ended up where we were predicted to finish. Last time I looked we are 7th favourite to go up this season, if we make the play offs in 7th position and fail in the play off final, will you be saying that DC is fantastic and done a great job?

Far better record but not necessarily a better manager.

I think most Germans would say the last 4 years have been their worst period.

I would have a mixture of the 2 teams but Seaman wasn’t up to scratch, Pickford better plus Kane up front. The thing is, we had great players then as we do now but we did not have nearly as much depth to the squad, 1 or 2 injuries and we were screwed then plus you don’t mention the full backs, Neville and Pearce aside we have not had many decent full backs through the years. This time we did not have a weakness in our team plus the added benefit of playing at Wembley for most the games.

Sven was manager when we won 5-1 in Germany during a qualifier.

Yes, we have the best squad in my lifetime. Is Southgate better than a lot of the managers we have had before? I would say no, certainly not better than Hodgson. I would not go as far to say despite Southgate but I do not think his tactics have been marvellous like the press have been saying, his tactics have seen us to the final, had his tactics been more attacking we may well have got to the final as well so it cannot fully be said that we got to the final because of his tactics. What is for sure, his tactics did not work in the final and had we played like we did in extra time for the full match we may well have won the game. Out of all the games we played there is not one team except Italy I expected us to lose to, we were favourites behind France going in to the tournament, more favourites than the Italians despite their great run going in to the tournament and the bookies are not usually far off so we must have had one of the best squads. Similar to the World Cup, when it comes down to the crunch against good opposition we <ovf censored> it up and I believe that is mostly down to the tactics employed by the manager. We did well to get to the final, is that down to the manager? Partly yes but we were expected to anyway.

Player of the tournament is always given to one playing for the winning team, and he would be up there. Personally, I think Chiesa has been their best player.

Correct, Italy were there to be beaten last night, an aging defence, England favourite to win with the bookies yet we sat back. Saying that, his tactics worked in the rest of the tournament or at least they didn’t cost us.

Sterling didn’t take a penalty in the last shoot out he was involved in, can’t remember if it was for City or England. I would expect him to miss anyway. Before the shoot out Southgate asked Grealish something and he nodded, I thought he was going to be one of the takers.