jeez, is nobody interested in this?
Thought England were slightly unlucky to lose. But the technical skills of some of the Portuguese showed us up at times. Apparently England are the tournament favourites by money lumped on. Better not to bet, if you haven't properly examined the opposition, I'd say to that.
Sweden- Italy was fun, not least because of the superb support from about 1,000 Swedish fans. Our fans were by contrast hardly noticeable, although I did see a Bexley flag.
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And why is it england women or Brazil women rather than just England and Brazil.
Enough to drive me to the Daily Fail
I watched it and i thought we were the better side. Kane had a few chances and Pritchard looked very good when he came on but our record over the last few under 21 tournaments is appalling and unless we beat Italy and Sweden that doesn't look like changing..
Its worth pointing out that although these types of Tournaments are great for experience, we have a few players that are already with the senior squad and will remain there. Out of the squad going, id imagine only a handful will ever represent the senior squad. From England's U21 Euro 2009 squad...only 4 players are currently in the England squad now and only 2 more from the Euro 2007 squad.
Also, the likes of Spain, Holland, France, Russia, Belgium aren't even there.
Other countries just seem to take this competition more seriously than us. Look at Portugal last night, their stand out player for me was William Carvalho. 5 days ago he played for the senior side in their qualifier v Armenia.
Why aren't all of our eligible players made to play, like Sterling, Barkley, Wilshere, Oxlade-chamberlain?
None of the teams here have the best squad allowed. for example Serbia are weakened by having three at the u20 Olympics where they are in the final. Yet they more than matched Germany on Wed. The Czechs ought to have Matej Vydra, but Watford shamefully refused to let him go. every team here has similar stories, read the summary in somewhere like the Guardian.
BTW why do you include Russia in your list of strong teams not there?. They don't deserve to be in that list at all.
Cant remember the name of their no.10 but he was very good indeed.
Heartened by the late cameo of Pritchard. Really expect him to be knocking on the first team door next season at Spurs. Another good youngster coming through, happy days.
Wrong system - No need to go 4-2-3-1. Portugal were in a 4-4-2 Diamond. We could have matched up and played two up front. It smacked of choosing the current trendy system and trying to fit players into it.
Wrong Tactics - Redmond & Lingard are not wingers and not likely to provide Kane with service from the flanks. Getting down the line and getting in crosses is not their game. Carroll in the middle of the three is a defensive midfielder, as are Chalobah & Ward-Prowse. So where is the service to Kane coming from? Jenkinson got down the right on occasions but Garbutt was poor on the left. Kane was having to drop deep to create his own shots. Who was there to play passes in behind for him to run onto?
Substitutions- Hughes for Carroll freed up their best player Carvalho, which opened up the midfield and cost us the game. When Ings was finally introduced, we had our best spell with two up front.
Having said all that, our defence isn't good enough for us to win this tournament, especially as Stones is out. Moore, Gibson & Garbutt are all below the required level.
Southgate looked clueless and out of his depth last night, no different to Pearce in the last tournament. On this evidence, I bet Spurs are chuffed Kane is being wasted during the close season.
I hope it improves in the next game, otherwise it will be another early exit.
Some Liverpool wonder kid
last whinge .. Southgate, the manager is an FA luvvie, he's a shoo in for the role of senior team manager/coach when Uncle Roy retires
You should also remember that a few of our 'young , spoilt, overhyped' players have accumulated maximum points in qualifying and scored one of the best England goals for years.