World Cup 2026

[AjaxAndy]

Still blaming the players for sitting too deep, nothing to do with his ultra defensive formation changes and substitutions

Bin him off now

I think he's got a point about our DNA and inability to retain possession... It's something that's plagued us for the past 20-30 years.

I think what he's failed to acknowledge though is that he did nothing to rectify this, and actually played in to it with a backs to the walls performance against Mexico after we lost a man (understandably), and the subsequent deployment of the same tactics against Argentina, which was the completely wrong approach.

You can't really complain about players not being good at keeping the ball, and then not play a system that allows it when the pressure is on.

He's a win at all costs manager though, and we abandoned the Project England blueprint to put all out eggs in this basket, so it's really the FA's decision to go down this route that is the core issue.

We changed how junior football was played over a decade ago and implemented a system that would allow English kids to grow up with an equal technical ability to the likes of Spain... Part of that was to promote under 21s managers to give continuation through to the senior team of this philosophy. Should have just carried on with it, given Carsley the tournament and beyond to carry through that DNA and philosophy.

Instead we decided that what made countries like Spain so successful wasn't right for us, and that we'd try and shortcut success instead. It didn't work, and so it was all for nothing unfortunately.

[TheRam]

When was the last time we produced a technically brilliant player?

When was our last great wide player?

Our last great number six?

Our last great creative ten?

We don’t create these players.

Our great players are all hard work, great moments, crashing the box, getting shots off.

We don’t create players that can dictate a game of football.

[AjaxAndy]

When was the last time we produced a technically brilliant player?

When was our last great wide player?

Our last great number six?

Our last great creative ten?

We don’t create these players.

Our great players are all hard work, great moments, crashing the box, getting shots off.

We don’t create players that can dictate a game of football.

I think we do have technical players but the nature of the Premier League means they don't get much experience of playing that way.

I find it hard to believe we don't have the players who can play a possession based game, but Tuchel said himself he wanted us to play a more premier league style of play instead.

To play a possession based game though it needs to start with the manager though, and playing constantly with that mindset and philosophy and do so over many years. I just don't think we have the patience or bravery to do that. Just look how quickly they abandoned the Carsley idea after one dodgy result, even though Tuchel also lost to Senegal which was equally as poor a result.

[Risky]

The analysis video I posted above really shows just how we nullified Messi pre-goal, and how we let him completely roam free after.

The difference is genuinely staggering and goes to really show how the tactical switch lost us the game.

I don't disagree that he was given too much space, but I think that was a product of sitting back as much as anything else. The way he was allowed to get the ball from corners in the 2nd half was criminal.

I just think that fundamentally Messi is impossible to mark out of a game. If it was possible we'd have seen multiple successful examples of it.

[Lazarou II]

The last great technical player I can think of was Scholes and we couldn't even make that work as we played him out of position.

[AjaxAndy]

Foden and Palmer are both technically very gifted, but they both had poor seasons and occupy the space Kane works in, so neither work even if in form in this England team.

When you look at Dowman and the Liverpool kid (no idea how to spell his name) we have a couple of young players who seem to be very highly technical, so hopefully there's more in the pipeline too coming through over the next few years.

[TheRam]

Are Palmer and Foden really that good?

[Audrey Horne]

They're handing out rings to the winning team on Sunday. Not sure how I feel about this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/ar ... mk7mnnyjeo

Superbowl shite

[AjaxAndy]

Are Palmer and Foden really that good?

Technically yes imo

[cassius]

I think he's got a point about our DNA and inability to retain possession... It's something that's plagued us for the past 20-30 years.

I think what he's failed to acknowledge though is that he did nothing to rectify this, and actually played in to it with a backs to the walls performance against Mexico after we lost a man (understandably), and the subsequent deployment of the same tactics against Argentina, which was the completely wrong approach.

You can't really complain about players not being good at keeping the ball, and then not play a system that allows it when the pressure is on.

He's a win at all costs manager though, and we abandoned the Project England blueprint to put all out eggs in this basket, so it's really the FA's decision to go down this route that is the core issue.

We changed how junior football was played over a decade ago and implemented a system that would allow English kids to grow up with an equal technical ability to the likes of Spain... Part of that was to promote under 21s managers to give continuation through to the senior team of this philosophy. Should have just carried on with it, given Carsley the tournament and beyond to carry through that DNA and philosophy.

Instead we decided that what made countries like Spain so successful wasn't right for us, and that we'd try and shortcut success instead. It didn't work, and so it was all for nothing unfortunately.

English academies don't produce players with an equal technical ability to Spanish ones. They've got no incentive to.

They produce technically better players than we've been used to in this country, but they're engineered and developed for the Premier League. This means they're tall, strong and fast, first and foremost. It's also why we've done well at international youth levels because our under 16s are grown men playing against boys. They lose that advantage when the kids grow up and ball retention is more dominant.

Max Dowman is an anomaly to all of this, who will likely have a lot of his instincts coached out of him as he gets older.

[AjaxAndy]

English academies don't produce players with an equal technical ability to Spanish ones. They've got no incentive to.

They produce technically better players than we've been used to in this country, but they're engineered and developed for the Premier League. This means they're tall, strong and fast, first and foremost. It's also why we've done well at international youth levels because our under 16s are grown men playing against boys. They lose that advantage when the kids grow up and ball retention is more dominant.

Max Dowman is an anomaly to all of this, who will likely have a lot of his instincts coached out of him as he gets older.

Yeah I'm not really talking about academies tbh, I'm talking about grass roots from under 7s upwards, and the changes the FA made to help grow players with a much greater technical ability than previously.

[777Kidnappings]

They're handing out rings to the winning team on Sunday. Not sure how I feel about this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/ar ... mk7mnnyjeo

Its dumb as fuck and its not football. Pandering to america again

[Blueomar]

They're handing out rings to the winning team on Sunday. Not sure how I feel about this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/ar ... mk7mnnyjeo

Aaaah, we love a championship ring over here! MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS, every major league does it.

Only thing I look a little sideways at, is they're always customized for the particular team and player, and usually designed over a long period and awarded at the beginning of the following season. I don't see how they do that unless they've rushed two sets of rings ahead of time.

*owner of replica LA Dodgers and LA Lakers rings here.

[Matt1878]

By technical I interpret that as Spanish. I dont see another team that adopts that DNA, portugal more so now Ronnie is past it.

We were competetive for 60 minutes, Messi was poor and Anderson was having his best game of the tournament. They had no pace to seriously threaten our ability to keep the ball and draw them out to create chances. We should have had plenty of possession with the odd chance to score a 2nd. If they did score we could respond as we didn't have 7 defenders on the pitch.

It wasnt just defensive and negative, it was 100% the managers lack of faith in the team and his assessment of the game up to that point. England were more than a match and it was working.

Drop Kane deeper a bit, bring on Rashford to run in behind and keep an eye on Rice's engine and we'd have been golden.

If ifs and buts were Candy and nuts.. of course.

[Bluedylan1]

Don't think there needs to be an inquest about English football at all. That's overthinking it in my opinion.

It's all on Tuchel for me. Kobbie Mainoo is a good technical player. Didn't use him once. Adam Wharton is excellent technically. Chose not to take him.

He chose ''Premier League power'', as Anthony Barry said, over technical footballers.

I think they should've taken one of Foden or Palmer to have that kind of technical option in the forward positions. They might not even play much, but have at least one option of a tekky creative midfielder in case you need them in certain games (which they did).

Rather than packing the defence at 1 nil with 40 minutes to go, they should've packed the midfield and played with the ball.

The semi-final was one of the worst coaching meltdowns I've ever seen in top flight football.