- Oct 19, 2004
- 39,837
- 50,713
The reason why england didn't do well is that they played a certain style throughout the qualifiers and reverted back to a style that didn't suit the team, not to mention poor selection of the first team and poor squad selection.
Some people have said that these players wouldn't make in it the premier league bar one or two, yet it was a squad that included Ings, Berahino, Stones, Kane, Jenkinson, Ward-Prowse and Chambers. All linked with big moves or play for top clubs. Not to mention several other players
Two points I've made too. I was really optimistic based on what had gone before the tournament.
I was listening to the 5live football daily podcast today, and the usual talking heads were wheeled out spouting the same old bullshit. Mostly claiming England should abandon this new fangled passing game and go back to "traditional English strengths" like that had worked for the previous 50 years ! Fucking cocks.
They were also claiming that this new fangled philosophy was risk averse, completely and utterly ignoring that there were players like Kane, Carroll, Pritchard, redmond, Hughes all players who take responsibility and risk
The problem was that for some reason, Southgate panicked and reverted to idiotic, counter intuitive and utterly risk averse selections and tactics for the last game and a half.
To his credit, at least Dan Ashcroft (the FA coordinator) defended the philosophy of having the development teams play a passing, technique driven based game. What they need though is managers at all levels who stick with the program and don't piss their pants at the first sign of turbulence.