The Gareth SouthGOAT Appreciation Club ft. no fun at all

Plus where's this one goal from open play come from? Four against Panama and two against Tunisia unless I'm mistaken?

I'm sure as hell not getting carried away after last night, and it's true we haven't put any big beasts to the sword (and as it turns out we won't have to until the final), but why do we need to make stuff up to make ourselves sound shit?
I think you might find that corners and free kicks aren't "open play".
 
Every time I see that stat it just astounds me. He doesn't even have the Rooney argument of having painfully inconsistent general play but still contributes with goals or assists. Or alternatively the general play of Benzema despite lacking a few goals. He actually contributes NOTHING apart from killing every attack that comes in his direction. I actually struggle to comprehend how bad he is in an England shirt.

Why is he still getting starts?
I keep hearing that he "makes great runs" and "takes up great positions". No he doesn't, he only does what a forward is supposed to do - except put the ball in the net.
 
Moaners jog on, take your misery to a different thread. This is the appreciation thread.
 
I think you might find that corners and free kicks aren't "open play".

Yes that's true :lol:. I'm having a mare but in my defence I'm listening to ep 338 of the Joe Rogan podcast where he's drunk as feck wailing at Shane Smith and it appears the madness has rubbed off on me.

By the way though I agree scoring more goals from open play would be a good sign it's at least good to see we've worked on maximising our potency from dead ball situations, something that's working for lots of teams at this tournament.

But yes I did feck up, sorry.
 
At the last euros we couldn't put in a good corner or free kick to save our life, so for us to be swinging in dangerous set pieces is a wonderful change of pace.
 
The 1 goal from open play thing is not true anyway. Lingard scored from range and RLC‘s shot got deflected by Kane.
 
Credit for winning. Altho let's be honest Columbine we're missing by far their best player. Imagine if we didn't have kane
 
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The 1 goal from open play thing is not true anyway. Lingard scored from range and RLC‘s shot got deflected by Kane.

Yup - and even then worked free kick against Panama could be argued as constituting open play given the amount of passes it involved.
 
Suddenly Colombia are a pub team, lovely stuff.

We didn't beat Colombia, counts as a draw, decided by penalties. 50% win rate so far this world cup.

Yes I'm utterly joyless, my spirit with England crushed after 30 years of disappointment.

I'm the kind of guy who will remind you we needed two penalties to beat Cameroon in 1990 and one of them was a dive iirc.

I'll celebrate like crazy if the Southgoat delivers the world cup though.

More likely we'll go out in an agonizing way v Sweden though.
 
We didn't beat Colombia, counts as a draw, decided by penalties. 50% win rate so far this world cup.

Yes I'm utterly joyless, my spirit with England crushed after 30 years of disappointment.

I'm the kind of guy who will remind you we needed two penalties to beat Cameroon in 1990 and one of them was a dive iirc.

I'll celebrate like crazy if the Southgoat delivers the world cup though.

More likely we'll go out in an agonizing way v Sweden though.

Far better to be pessimistic and pleasantly surprised than walk around thinking "this is our year" and lose to Sweden - also the points you made in your prevision post regarding our performances were spot on IMO. We've been slightly better than average in open play.
 
Southgate minimum target should have been Quarter finals. Everything else is now a bonus, because hes got a really young squad, which are playing well together and actually look like they enjoy each others companies. There doesnt seem to be divides or a collection of good players stuck into a system that doesnt suit everybody. I still have doubts over Kyle walker at CB but then when looking at other options and the style were trying to play, it makes sense why hes been chosen there.

Hes done well. And looks sharp as well :D

I was wondering if Smalling's habit of player grabbing had any impact on Southgate's decision to omit him. If it did i have to say that is the best decision he could have made regarding this world cup. If Smalling had been a starter with VAR in play, England would have conceded a lot of penalties on corners. Just a thought

That and his inability to work the ball like Stones and Maguire. Yes Smalling is a good defender, but going forward, for this tournament and for looking towards future tournaments, not taking Smalling was the right move. I remember saying that in the Smalling thread and being told Southgate is wrong because Jose, LVG, Fergie all rated Smalling. Its not even meant as a harsh criticism, Smalling cant do what others can, its just the reality.
Fair play to Southgate, he has a system, hes picked players for that system. Only thing id wanna see is:

1) RLC starting ahead of Alli next game.
2) Not bringing on Dier if we are only winning by 1 goal. 2 yes, sure, tighten it up and kill the game completely.
3) Bring on Rashford sooner esp for Sterling.
 
Every time I see that stat it just astounds me. He doesn't even have the Rooney argument of having painfully inconsistent general play but still contributes with goals or assists. Or alternatively the general play of Benzema despite lacking a few goals. He actually contributes NOTHING apart from killing every attack that comes in his direction. I actually struggle to comprehend how bad he is in an England shirt.

Why is he still getting starts?
Silent domination...
 
Every time I see that stat it just astounds me. He doesn't even have the Rooney argument of having painfully inconsistent general play but still contributes with goals or assists. Or alternatively the general play of Benzema despite lacking a few goals. He actually contributes NOTHING apart from killing every attack that comes in his direction. I actually struggle to comprehend how bad he is in an England shirt.

Why is he still getting starts?

No idea mate. Sterling should be dropped for Ox or Vardy.
 
Regardless of how things go, the FA, the media and fans need to stick by him and this squad for now. It's a young manager with a young squad who will probably peak in 2022. So give him the Euro's and the next WC and see what he does with them. Even if we got a 5-0 hiding off Sweden, stick by him and this group.

Very few of this starting XI will be too old come 2022 and with the excellent youth teams he could be on to something. If we have to take our lumps even at the next Euro's no harm.
Pickford, Stones, McGuire, Sterling, Lingard, Rashford, Kane, Alli, Loftus-Cheek, TAA will all be at or closer to their peaks, with talents like the Sessegnon's, Foden, Sancho, Gomes, Lewis Cook and Chelsea's army of ridiculously talented youth all in their early 20's. There is huge potential in the set up. Stick to Southgate, stick to his style and give them time to achieve.
Totally agree. His attitude is fantastic too. On post game interview, the journo started immediately talking about semi-finals, but Southgate brushed it of, reminding him that they need to concentrate only in the next match, against a team which has a very good record against England. And I think that attitude will get passed to the players too. It was easy to get carried away and start thinking for glory, while the right thing is to think only about the next match. It also seem that England were prepared for penalties, instead of losing them and blaming the luck, they studied for it.

I have been quite against England NT for the last decade or so and finding their inevitable elimination funny after media bigging the team up (like in 2014, when some pundit said that no Italian player would make England's starting XI, not even Pirlo; only to finish rock bottom of the group) or yesterday Danny Murphy saying that even at 70%, England should be able to easily defeat Colombia, but this group of players lead by Southgate is very likeable (despite that Henderson and Alli are there), and seem to have the right mental attitude. The win on the penalties IMO has made the group stronger, in fact, I would say that it was a better result than just winning 2-0 in regular time. Players are more united, and that mental blockade is gone. On players quality, this team is nowhere as good as the teams from the last decade, but as a team, it is a good team, and can only improve.

As you said, even if England goes out to Sweden, Southgate should be allowed to continue. Anything else would be idiotic.
 
Imagine being this utterly joyless. You're English, aren't you? How you can be so bloody miserable after last night makes me wonder what pleasure you even take from football.

I think he is right, and I'm no English. England has played a football that largely has depended on luck to work. We'll see what this team is against a good opponent, or earlier. It doesn't inspire me confidence.

On the other hand, people don't call me an optimist often either...
 
Suddenly Colombia are a pub team, lovely stuff.

The only thing in the Colombia-England match, more boring and ineffective than England, was Colombia. That sentence of course, would make much more sense if they haven't had the only goal that didn't come from a penalty.
 
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I think he is right, and I'm no English. England has played a football that largely has depended on luck to work. We'll see what this team is against a good opponent, or earlier. It doesn't inspire me confidence.

On the other hand, people don't call me an optimist often either...

He might be right, but we just had a truly magical night, we won a penalty shootout, I don't know if people who don't live in the country can understand how much mentally it means to English football fans to see us do that.

It was one of the most therapeutic nights I've had watching football ever. If people can't just take a few steps back and enjoy the brilliant moment, I feel nothing but pity for them.
 
Every time I see that stat it just astounds me. He doesn't even have the Rooney argument of having painfully inconsistent general play but still contributes with goals or assists. Or alternatively the general play of Benzema despite lacking a few goals. He actually contributes NOTHING apart from killing every attack that comes in his direction. I actually struggle to comprehend how bad he is in an England shirt.

Why is he still getting starts?
He's fantastic for Manchester City so I suppose the hope is if he can just get one goal to boost his confidence for England then he'll start reproducing, easily making him our best attacking midfielder.
 
He's done well for cultivating a really good feeling around the team. It'll be interesting to see the media reaction when we exit the tournament (really cannot see us winning it), as I feel QF is a good place for us to be. If we lose to Sweden at the weekend I wonder if people will turn on him.

Personally I thought the performance last night was really uninspiring, Colombia looked extremely poor and were there for the taking. He's settled in to a first XI that I'm not sure is quite right and for me he took way too long to make any changes. It was clear after 60 minutes that Alli and Sterling weren't working, but maybe he didn't want to risk changing it and making things worse. I know it's a tough competition and you can't be expected to put any opponent to the sword, but last night was a bit like England of old. Good start from Southgate but there are still question marks for him tactically for me. He must get great
credit for the shootout win though.
 
If you’re English and you aren’t bouncing off the walls after last night, then I’m sorry but you’re just not that fun a person. Lighten up.

This is the most positive things have been in an age for you, enjoy it ffs.
 
What's with all the hype with England in the media today ? Neville and Co ?

If yesterday's match showed anything is that England is nowhere near winning the thing. they'll be lucky to advance to the final when playing Croatia at a certain point.

They were as ineffective as a Van gaal's united.
 
What's with all the hype with England in the media today ? Neville and Co ?

If yesterday's match showed anything is that England is nowhere near winning the thing. they'll be lucky to advance to the final when playing Croatia at a certain point.

They were as ineffective as a Van gaal's united.
They celebrate winning a last 16 tie and people say the celebrations are overblown even though they had not won a knockout tie in 12 years and finally won a WC cup penalty shootout for the first time in their history.

They say they might win the whole thing and are accused of being arrogant.

England simply can't win with those that don't like them.

Croatia themselves almost crashed out to Denmark just a few days ago.
 
What's with all the hype with England in the media today ? Neville and Co ?

If yesterday's match showed anything is that England is nowhere near winning the thing. they'll be lucky to advance to the final when playing Croatia at a certain point.

They were as ineffective as a Van gaal's united.


Imagine celebrating winning our first knockout game in 12 years and our first penalty shootout win in 22 years to reach the quarter finals of the World Cup.

fecking hell, any excuse by some people to have a go.
 
They celebrate winning a last 16 tie and people say the celebrations are overblown even though they had not won a knockout tie in 12 years and finally won a WC cup penalty shootout for the first time in their history.

They say they might win the whole thing and are accused of being arrogant.

England simply can't win with those that don't like them.

Croatia themselves almost crashed out to Denmark just a few days ago.

So, my comment means that i don't like England, how did you get that from it ?

Yes, they should be happy to advance obviously, but for a team like england, winning on penalties against Columbia shouldn't be cause for celebration.

If we qualified against sevilla in the CL to the quarter, i don't think anyone here would have celebrated like they won the thing. even though it's been a few years of absolutely underperforming for united in the CL.
 
Imagine celebrating winning our first knockout game in 12 years and our first penalty shootout win in 22 years to reach the quarter finals of the World Cup.

fecking hell, any excuse by some people to have a go.

I'm not having a go, why are people on edge here, i'm just asking a question. here's my answer to another comment like yours:

So, my comment means that i don't like England, how did you get that from it ?

Yes, they should be happy to advance obviously, but for a team like england, winning on penalties against Columbia shouldn't be cause for celebration.

If we qualified against sevilla in the CL to the quarter, i don't think anyone here would have celebrated like they won the thing. even though it's been a few years of absolutely underperforming for united in the CL.