On the Manager thread I criticised Southgates domestic record and suggested he’s not good enough for us. I was told he’s matured, he’s introduced a sense of togetherness in the England squad, he was underrated at ‘Boro having a poor squad and worked wonders.

Well thanks for that guidance but based upon his tactics, the set-up, the lack of motivation in that team, his weird substitutions and the demeanour of all of them last night I’ll stick to my view. If you have a squad with Sancho, Grealish, Foden, Mount etc you should do a lot better than that. To leave Ward-Prowse and his set piece ability at home and take injured players was yet another poor decision. (For example did we all enjoy the succession of low near post corners in the second half)?

The bloke is a very poor football manager. If you cannot motivate an England team, rammed full of attacking talent against Scotland, at Wembley and instead play dull, boring, sideways and backwards football - you should hang up your badges. Let’s not forget England are ranked 4th and Scotland 44th in the World.

Edited by Helmet46 (19 Jun 2021 8.50am)

My thoughts echo most other posters, dreadful performance by England backwards and sideways walking pace football will not get the job done.

I don't understand the Scottish fans mentality, their team played to their strengths but they need a win and it was there for the taking. Their centre forward seem to win every ball in the air I would be have been lumping balls in to him in the penalty area at every opportunity.

They are happy now more because they stopped England but I think Croatia will beat them in which case this will be a missed opportunity.

Edited by Badger11 (19 Jun 2021 9.14am)

One more point

I know what you mean but in reality not beating Scotland may actually give us a better chance of doing just that!

Topping the group we'd face Fra/Por/Ger but finish second and we'd likely play Sweden.

... but I'm just searching for positives after a poor performance.

Not so much out of form, just over hyped and over rated (IMHO).

Dad and I watched games standing on the muddy slope of the Holmesdale Road end. He cheered and I rattled.

What is now called "game management" , where you can hold on to a lead or even a draw if it is beneficial, also applies to "group management" which countries like Italy and Germany are masters of.
In the past we have been naive of these tactics and been knocked out early in competitions and wondered how other countries got further than us.
I was hoping for a draw last night because it keeps us in second place and a draw in our last game makes sure that we finish second and a next game against Sweden,Slovakia or Spain, and opposed to finishing first and having possibly France or Portugal next.
I prefer to give Southgate the benefit of doubt that he knows how to get us as far in the tournament as possible.

It was like watching a Palace match.

Raised on a diet of broken biscuits