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It conveniently misses that England faced harder routes to the final because between 1990-2024 we won our group 7 times out of 18 major tournaments. 3 of which were topped by Southgate. Again, Southgate topped 75% of his groups versus 29% of other England managers. Which further strengthens my...

Correct. Yet, it unwittingly showed that Southgate’s SF opponents were on par with past England managers QF opponents. Yet, Southgate’s records in semi-finals was 66%, whereas across those previous England managers, their record was 25%. Both control groups faced opponents with an average world...

I don’t think this is the slam dunk you think it is. Southgate’s average semi final opponents were on par with previous England managers QF opponents. Correct? Southgate’s record is 66% in semi finals and in 2018, we were the lower ranked team. Therefore, why did England only make 3 semi finals...

See above, nothing random about it. Each manager needed to qualify against the same calibre of teams. Play seeded teams in WCs The fun is winning. I’d rather see Cov win 46 boring 1-0 wins than to see us have high scoring draws and losses. How do you define a spectacle? We’re scoring more...

Football is a results based business though, it’s not gymnastics where the scores are based on a judges opinion. In 1998 we finished second in the group to Romania and likewise in 2002 we finished 2nd to Sweden. Southgate has lost more competitive games because the Nations League count as...

5 goal contributions in 2. Bundesliga doesn’t really excite me. I wonder what the plan is because we’ll have 3 RW and one LW in EMC. Not a credible link imo.

Who is the best England manager you’ve seen then?

That’s assuming the EV’s batteries last up to that. A friend of mine who’s a keen environmentalist pointed out that a newly released JLR EV needed something like 210k miles on one battery to ‘break even’ and the batteries will not last that long, especially as the range on EVs wanes pretty...

Did Sven not cost us tactically in any of the KO games he lost? Winning our groups in 2002 and 2004 would’ve helped secure a ‘lucky’ draws. Likewise with Capello in 2010 - winning our group and we avoid all the top teams. How did he tactically cost against Spain? We made a defensive error right...

You’re still wrong. If I used your logic, I can justify every KO lose under Southgate: 2018 - Croatia had a ballon d’or winner and their midfield and arguably defence was better than in their team, battered Argentina in the groups. On top of this, our worst WC squad since 1994. 2020 - Italy...

You said Southgate should go even if we did win the Euros… As the older statesman, please remind me how many semi finals and finals you got to see England play in before Southgate came in?

We do, Spain tweaked their tactics against us. They typically bait teams with their pressing and didn’t do this so much against us compared to their usual games. In fact, Palmer’s goal came about when we beat their press. I do agree that this tournament, we didn’t get the right mix and the next...

… It’s only luck when it’s an achievement involving Southgate. I’ll let you and @Evo1883 battle this one out.

The teams I added to the list probably show that teams need to grind out results rather than this idealised total football approach to winning tournaments.

Revisit those games and how they played. They went 1-0 down v Australia, only beat Peru 1-0 and drew 0-0 with Denmark - they did not look like they were going to win it all. In every KO game, bar Uruguay, they did not have a game with more than 40% possession. Against Argentina and Uruguay they...

How would our team look, if for arguments sake the following players are injured/suspended: Sheaf Torp MVE Thomas/Kitching I’ve selected these players because they’ve all had issues with injuries/suspensions. All of sudden we’re looking short. Andrews will not be a first team player, Allen...

We’re not really helping to achieve net zero if all we’re doing is exporting out carbon emissions. Usually importing fossil fuels that are a) more carbon intensive and b) there’s a cost to transporting coal from Argentina, for example. It’s like a lot of EVs, the initial outlay of carbon is...

You can add; France in 1998, Italy in 2006, Spain in 2010, Portugal in 2016, France in 2018 and Argentina in 2022 all had pretty uninspiring moments in the tournament before going into winning the tournament. All these teams knew how win ugly because tournament football is just about winning the...

We drew against the USA in a game that guaranteed we qualified for the next round. Again, which is all that matters in tournament football. I don’t think any team won all their group games in Qatar and likewise, only Spain this tournament. In Qatar, we had an xG in the top 5 of teams and...

Define ‘good football’, to save time, you can’t because it’s subjective. In 2022, the team was bang on and could go toe-to-toe with anyone, and they did. 2024, by contrast, Southgate away from his usual tactics and started a team with less runners and strong dribblers around Kane. Likewise, we...