Gareth Southgate O/T

[fulwoodshrimp]

Whilst recognising the great achievement of the management and staff to take England to the Euro Final am I alone in believing Gareth Southgate messed up last night? The game was calling out for a substitution in the second half when Italy were dominating but the manager didn't respond. To bring Sancho and Rashford on as extra time concluded was unfair to these two players. Their first touch of the ball almost was to take their penalties! Finally to ask Saka to take the last penalty was very unfair to him. A 19 year old with the fate of the competition in his hands. Hopefully, lessons will have been learned to help us in the campaign for the World Cup. There were some big pluses with Calvin Phillips in particular showing huge promise and Rice performing well at international level. I felt there some question marks too about some players. Imo Jordan Henderson is not quite at international level despite him being a key player in Liverpool's successes and Mason Mount to me doesn't quite seem as effective as he is for Chelsea in the Premier League.

[black morse]

Whilst recognising the great achievement of the management and staff to take England to the Euro Final am I alone in believing Gareth Southgate messed up last night? The game was calling out for a substitution in the second half when Italy were dominating but the manager didn't respond. To bring Sancho and Rashford on as extra time concluded was unfair to these two players. Their first touch of the ball almost was to take their penalties! Finally to ask Saka to take the last penalty was very unfair to him. A 19 year old with the fate of the competition in his hands. Hopefully, lessons will have been learned to help us in the campaign for the World Cup. There were some big pluses with Calvin Phillips in particular showing huge promise and Rice performing well at international level. I felt there some question marks too about some players. Imo Jordan Henderson is not quite at international level despite him being a key player in Liverpool's successes and Mason Mount to me doesn't quite seem as effective as he is for Chelsea in the Premier League.

I too feel that Gareth Southgate dropped some clangers last night as outlined above BUT his previous decisions throughout the tournament have been good.I suspect that Gareth himself will be feeling his decisions were not good.

We all make mistakes! I read somewhere that battles are won by the one who makes least mistakes.

[redrobo]

I'm no doubt alone in this but our goalkeeper needs to rethink his distribution and take notice of how other goalkeepers in the Euros distributed to their defenders enabling them to build from the back.

[fulwoodshrimp]

Great point about the goalkeepers distribution at the Euros. Most teams built from the back whereas our long punts upfield were meat and drink to the Italian Defence.

[Gone_Shrimping]

I would always rather have an Englishman managing the England team rather than an expensive mercenary like Sven or Fabio.

Our most successful managers have always been English , Alf Ramsay , Bobby Robson , Terry Venables and now Gareth Southgate.

[Phil Anderer]

Agree last night was down to Southgate's decision making, but still overall an excellent tournament. Whilst I see some of the argument over Pickford's distribution, it's difficult when the opposition are limiting his options, and much of the time, particularly early in games, he was rolling or passing to defenders. At the end of the day, he was actually my and Mrs A's player of the tournament. Just shows how we can all see things differently.