Sir Gareth Southgate

[dsr]

Rashford had a plan to beat the goalkeeper, which worked. It wasn't about acting "cool". WTF are you smoking?

Rashford shouldn't have had a plan to "beat the goalkeeper". He should have had a plan to "put the ball into the net". If he thought the point of the penalty shoot-out was to send the goalkeeper the wrong way, then he missed the point as badly as he missed the goal.

[martin_p]

Rashford shouldn't have had a plan to "beat the goalkeeper". He should have had a plan to "put the ball into the net". If he thought the point of the penalty shoot-out was to send the goalkeeper the wrong way, then he missed the point as badly as he missed the goal.

Do you seriously think his plan didn’t include putting it in the net.

Anyway, I was going to avoid this board today as I expected the kn0bhe@ds to be out in force. I wasn’t wrong so I’ll be off again.

[steve1264b]

Lets not rewrite history here.Italy are a good side, not a great side.Their goalkeeper has been voted player of the tournament, that must say something about them.

We didn't put the centre backs under any pressure, we started lumping it long.

The manager had faced this scenario before, Croatia and got beat, this time he did the same thing.

That for me is the telling point,if he had changed the game and we had got back on the ball and still got beat so be it, it wasn't our night.When Southgate says today we didn't keep the ball well enough for 20 minutes the second half he is trying to rewrite history. We were now where near them in the second half.

Mancini was brave took of star players,Kane looked like he couldn't run for a bus in the second half.

If Mancini had been our manager we would have won,Southgate isn't good enough.

For those saying he has taken us to a semi final and final, and we are better than we were when beaten by Iceland,i say the players are better not the manager. He is bang average!

[Tribesmen]

Look fair play to Southgate as he took the blame for the pens as he said it was up to him who took them .
Class act from the manager without a shadow of a doubt .

[JohnMcGreal]

Southgate got a few things wrong last night but to say we haven't improved under him is patently false. A World Cup semi-final and a European Championship final in 3 years discredits that argument completely.

If Southgate was guilty of anything last night it's that he was too cautious and looked too far ahead towards to the penalty shoot-out, rather than focusing on trying to win the game in 90 minutes, or more specifically, in extra time.

He clearly felt we had players on the bench who could make a difference in the event of penalties, but overlooked the possibility that we had players on the bench who could have maybe made a difference before that. I'm sure there'll be a lot of reflection and analysis from him and his coaches, and they'll look at things they could have done differently.

Ultimately we went unbeaten all tournament in normal and extra time, and were only eventually beaten by a very solid Italian side on penalties. A couple of kicks the other way and it's a different story.

What a tournament. Some wonderful moments that will live long in the memory. There are a number of people who Southgate will simply never win over for various reasons, some footballing, some not.

To suggest that he doesn't deserve the chance to take this team to the World Cup next year is quite ridiculous.

[tim_noone]

Southgate got a few things wrong last night but to say we haven't improved under him is patently false. A World Cup semi-final and a European Championship final in 3 years discredits that argument completely.

If Southgate was guilty of anything last night it's that he was too cautious and looked too far ahead towards to the penalty shoot-out, rather than focusing on trying to win the game in 90 minutes, or more specifically, in extra time.

He clearly felt we had players on the bench who could make a difference in the event of penalties, but overlooked the possibility that we had players on the bench who could have maybe made a difference before that. I'm sure there'll be a lot of reflection and analysis from him and his coaches, and they'll look at things they could have done differently.

Ultimately we went unbeaten all tournament in normal and extra time, and were only eventually beaten by a very solid Italian side on penalties. A couple of kicks the other way and it's a different story.

What a tournament. Some wonderful moments that will live long in the memory. There are a number of people who Southgate will simply never win over for various reasons, some footballing, some not.

To suggest that he doesn't deserve the chance to take this team to the World Cup next year is quite ridiculous.

Been a fantastic tournament....

[CrosspoolClarets]

We have improved hugely under Southgate:

A decent man with honesty and integrity - that is important.
The setup from the juniors up to seniors has improved a lot, down to him.
He has a “team” and a “One England” mentality, which is akin to the Clarets and is a big step forward.
He recognised the weak defence and made us solid with the two holding MFs.

The results bear out the above.

The problem is that as I have long felt he isn’t good enough to take us further and win something. The style he has makes us a flat track bully, not suited to harming the best. He nearly ragged it yesterday, after a lucky draw. Italy had to beat Belgium and Spain - we may have lost to both. His judgement was badly flawed, both in normal time and in penalties. There was a time to gamble, when the game was getting away. He didn’t adapt to Mancini’s “false 9” and we got overrun.

To be fair to him he missed Foden hugely, our most influential player for me (not just based on these games), but I think he was chronically underused before the injury.

The big question - do we keep a manager for those qualities in the list above, even if we know he isn’t world class like Mancini and others? He is akin to Martinez, good but not great, and that Belgium golden generation now fades away without even a final.

[Grumps]

Look fair play to Southgate as he took the blame for the pens as he said it was up to him who took them .
Class act from the manager without a shadow of a doubt .

I take it rashford had been taking his pens differently in training for him to reach the decision to get him on the pitch with the sole reason of taking a penalty

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Lets not rewrite history here.Italy are a good side, not a great side.Their goalkeeper has been voted player of the tournament, that must say something about them.

We didn't put the centre backs under any pressure, we started lumping it long.

The manager had faced this scenario before, Croatia and got beat, this time he did the same thing.

That for me is the telling point,if he had changed the game and we had got back on the ball and still got beat so be it, it wasn't our night.When Southgate says today we didn't keep the ball well enough for 20 minutes the second half he is trying to rewrite history. We were now where near them in the second half.

Mancini was brave took of star players,Kane looked like he couldn't run for a bus in the second half.

If Mancini had been our manager we would have won,Southgate isn't good enough.

For those saying he has taken us to a semi final and final, and we are better than we were when beaten by Iceland,i say the players are better not the manager. He is bang average!

Manager picks squad and match day team

For a bang average manager he's done far better than many much more vaunted managers Inc numerous former England ones.

[Jakubclaret]

Do you seriously think his plan didn’t include putting it in the net.

Anyway, I was going to avoid this board today as I expected the kn0bhe@ds to be out in force. I wasn’t wrong so I’ll be off again.

I don’t think anybody is arguing that there wasn’t a plan the argument is that some people are insisting that the plan worked that’s where the argument is, if the plan is to make the keeper dive the wrong way just by a 50/50 chance & then hit a post I guess you could say it’s a plan I certainly wouldn’t call it a working 1 anyhow,

[evensteadiereddie]

Rashford fooled an excellent keeper into going the wrong way. His error was to miss, inexplicably, what was a relatively simple tap in.

[Jakubclaret]

The keeper had to dive left or right anyway or remained fixed, 3 options existed, if you assert that the keeper was committed before the ball was struck it makes the miss even more glaring.

[KRBFC]

Rashford fooled an excellent keeper into going the wrong way. His error was to miss, inexplicably, what was a relatively simple tap in.

He did everything right, Jorginho and Bruno Fernandes are penalty experts and there's method behind the stutter/hop run up, its proven to work. Rashford did the hard part well then somehow mishit it.

[PeterWilton]

Rashford shouldn't have had a plan to "beat the goalkeeper". He should have had a plan to "put the ball into the net". If he thought the point of the penalty shoot-out was to send the goalkeeper the wrong way, then he missed the point as badly as he missed the goal.

It's possible for a plan to contain plans, maybe you're unfamiliar with this concept.

For example, Rashford probably had a complementary plan to go with his plan to defeat the goalkeeper. Like, get his shot on target. Now, i'm not saying that part of the overall plan worked, i'm ONLY saying that his plan to beat the keeper worked. I don't know why some of you are determined not to understand this.

[Jakubclaret]

It's possible for a plan to contain plans, maybe you're unfamiliar with this concept.

For example, Rashford probably had a complementary plan to go with his plan to defeat the goalkeeper. Like, get his shot on target. Now, i'm not saying that part of the overall plan worked, i'm ONLY saying that his plan to beat the keeper worked. I don't know why some of you are determined not to understand this.

The law of averages based on what the goalkeeper could have done favoured rashford 2/3 anyway, the goalkeeper could have dived in that same direction anyway with just blasting it, we don’t know unless you actually ask the Italian keeper whether rashfords run up influenced that diving direction, everybody is guessing, most keepers I think instinctively dive we are assuming because he dived the opposite direction that rashford fooled the guy, the law of averages suggest that was going to happen anyway on a 50/50 basis.

[RVclaret]

We have improved hugely under Southgate:

A decent man with honesty and integrity - that is important.
The setup from the juniors up to seniors has improved a lot, down to him.
He has a “team” and a “One England” mentality, which is akin to the Clarets and is a big step forward.
He recognised the weak defence and made us solid with the two holding MFs.

The results bear out the above.

The problem is that as I have long felt he isn’t good enough to take us further and win something. The style he has makes us a flat track bully, not suited to harming the best. He nearly ragged it yesterday, after a lucky draw. Italy had to beat Belgium and Spain - we may have lost to both. His judgement was badly flawed, both in normal time and in penalties. There was a time to gamble, when the game was getting away. He didn’t adapt to Mancini’s “false 9” and we got overrun.

To be fair to him he missed Foden hugely, our most influential player for me (not just based on these games), but I think he was chronically underused before the injury.

The big question - do we keep a manager for those qualities in the list above, even if we know he isn’t world class like Mancini and others? He is akin to Martinez, good but not great, and that Belgium golden generation now fades away without even a final.

Absolutely agree with all of this.

[IanMcL]

His penalty taking choices remain suspect.