take a look at this.
Southgate’s England put in another Southgate England performance as they drew nil nil with the might of Slovenia a country more interested in skiing and cycling, which saw England top the worst group at the tournament.
And of course in topping this group it means the knockout stages will work out much like they did for Southgate in Russia and the last euros. With all the real dangerous teams in the other half.
But this is Southgate and if anyone can fall into a barrel of tits and come up sucking his thumb it’s Gareth. Because no one in the easy side of the draw will look at these three group games and think England aren’t there for the taking. I mean, England get out of the group having scored the same amount of goals as other teams scored for the Jocks. And went through this game not looking like they were going to add to that tally of 2.
So after being told his team isn’t working – team, I say team but there’s no team just a collection of players – and changes are needed, Southgate picks 10 of the 11 who started the previous two games. The one change, Gallagher for Alexander-Arnold, yes, that change he made halfway through the previous game that didn’t work, that was the change he made. All the other square pegs were in their round holes.
People who think it couldn’t get worse, were about to find out as England didn’t even manage to take an early lead before shitting themselves. They had three quarters of the ball and did sod all with it. As the usual greed and jealousy took hold. All for personal glory and inept shots, rather than play someone in who could score and take that glory and adulation away from them.
Hello Phil Foden. Well, he ran about a lot and played all the wrong balls. He wasn’t the only one but it’s his third straight crap performance – even if City fan Lee Dixon thought he was great. Bellingham didn’t turn up again, one good half. Saka another, played well in the first half of the first game, disappeared since. Gallagher offered absolutely nothing. Rice not much more.
The failed Gallagher experiment – god I hope Levy is watching – lasted until halftime, it was a shock that Southgate again made the change. This time it was Mainoo, who actually should some life. It still took Southgate enough to time to figure out that this change alone wasn’t making things any better.
He brought on Palmer for Saka and an immediate lift. Palmer actually going forward, passing forward, trying to create. Create for others, not for personal glory. His next decision was to change the fullbacks. Yes, needing a spark, some life, a goal just in case Denmark or even Slovenia scored, he moves his inept rightback to leftback and brings on Arnold.
So fullback watch. Well, after that game Trippier and Walker have both passed the ball forward the same number of times. Yes, Trippier who has spent the whole tournament facing backwards with nobody really running ahead of him and hasn’t played all the minutes Walker has, has passed the ball forward as many times as the greatest rightback in the world. Trippier has five times the number of crosses – 5 to 1, that one cross from Walker being the one that took numerous deflections before landing at Kane for him to score against Denmark, something Bellingham apparently chose to celebrate with Walker rather than the scorer, strange that.
Still wasn’t working was it Gareth? So he waited until the 89th minute before bringing on Gordon, finally replacing the useless Foden. Go on Tone, get hold of the game in those couple of minutes. Clueless.
I bet it came as a great shock to Southgate the boos and then the plastic cups that rained down on him has he applauding to poor delusional fans who paid good money to watch this – having surely seen this all before and somehow thinking this time it’s gonna be better.
The media will do everything except say the obvious that Southgate is the problem but the also won’t call for their star names to be dropped, I mean Saint Jude. Anyway… changed my starting XI from the last one posted. Saka’s gone, as has Rice.
But again, what’s the point of changing the deckchairs when Southgate remains the captain…