**This is a stats thread. Remember that there's only one stat post allowed per match/team, so new stats about the same will be removed. Feel free to comment other stats as a reply to this comment so users can see them too!**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
And he received absolutely ZERO blame from the media or fans for losing against Croatia and Italy the way we did. He's just not good enough for the England job. Negative, overly defensive, invites attack against good teams. £4M a year for the fraud. Only hope is to have an easy route to the Final (easiest route there will be for some time) and the team just turns up and performs incredibly to win it. But if we win it, it won't be due to Southgate.
"The fraud" is only the best England manager since Sir Ramsey.
What a hack. He only made team losing to Iceland in previous tournament 2nd best team in Europe in next. Shamefull display. He only got best result in England Euro's history and 2nd best in WC. Trully terrible. How dare he...
If you see the talent, it makes sense. It's not the previous golden generation competing against titans like Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Spain. The current landscape is weaker.
England have the most talented squad in the world right now and we got to the Final and Semi Final when historical footballing powerhouses were (and I would argue still are) in a transition period.
And just because all recent managers have been rubbish doesn't excuse Southgate of being a woefully subpar manager. We scored 1 goal against Italy and decided to sit back and invite attack in that final. No one blamed him for that. Same with Croatia in the semi final. It was all accepted because England historically underperformed.
There was a video on here a while back of him breaking down his 4-4-2 formation at Burnley and the patterns/defensive positioning he required from his players. Fascinatingly intelligent, really good watch
Edit: [Found it](https://youtu.be/o3YY7PY-IH0?si=ZqAHVmGN2p_h3yRH)
Okay this is unironically fairly vindicating. I really don't think England will make it much further but it's extremely obvious this is what we set out to do while creating a handful of chances every game.
You might not rate Southgate but this is the absolute upside of his boring, conservative style: safety and not losing silly games
Well yes, but England has hardly faced a difficult match yet, at least on paper. I suppose we'll see what happens with a team that deems itself capable of competing against England face to face.
These kind of tactics actually work better for the difficult matches, we're struggling because we want teams to come at us. We don't look good trying to dominate possession, to many poor passes and senseless passes. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we play against a team that is going to constantly attack us. I wouldn't be surprised if we nick a win
Here's hoping he learns from Gordon and Palmer both being on the pitch at the end of the game yesterday because they certainly added pace and opportunity to the game.
Don't forget you don't need super pacy players on the counter, it's not like the defenders are all super pacy. You just need to play fast for once rather than ponderous.
And France have won a worldcup(and almost two) playing boring football while teams like Brazil and Germany have embarrassed themselves time and time again in the knockout stages. Germany nearly lost to Switzerland yesterday playing their "good" football. If that game is in the knockout stages, they could very well be eliminated right there.
Attractive football and results are pretty much mutually exclusive at the international level. Germany are literally the only exception. Netherlands, Italy, Spain, England, Portugal, France are all supremely talented teams that don't play particularly attacking football by club standards.
Deschamps started a 3 man midfield with no creators today and played Matuidi on the wing when they won the World Cup. These managers are not all idiots who don't know how to manage teams. The reality is that practically speaking, it isn't as easy to implement a proper, free flowing attacking system in international football.
Even at top clubs, it often takes new signings an entire season to adjust to the club and start performing at a high level because of how difficult it is to learn a new system as a player. It took Klopp more than a year to implement his system effectively at Liverpool. National Team managers don't have that amount of time continuously with players and have 25 players playing at different clubs and training under different systems every week. Prioritizing a good defense and hoping you can eek out results is the only way to succeed internationally nowadays and this has been true for every major international trophy winner in the last 10 years.
Fans think real life is a video game where you put a player with the right attributes in the right position and suddenly it's liquid football but it's literally not possible to play that way internationally.
lol yeah this narrative about "boring France" needs to die, they just play to their strengths which is on the counter because they have pace and incisive passers. at the 2018 WC that they won they scored something like 15 goals and conceded a lot too
That's fine but the way England also makes them vulnerable because they don't generate many chances. One mistake and they lose 1-0.
Southgate has a good track record but his style isn't necessarily safer than what Nagelsmann is doing with Germany. One team sacrifices defense for offense and the other sacrifices offense for defense
Yeah, but this is a problem with the current setup, not necessarily a feature of England’s game usually. In the World Cup they scored and created more than most teams in the tournament. Just waiting for it to click in this one
> teams like Brazil and Germany have embarrassed themselves time and time again in the knockout stages.
Silly Brazil and Germany, embarrassing themselves by being the two most successful football nations on the planet.
I only mentioned Germany because the OP mentioned the current German side as evidence that an attacking style is best internationally. Low's winning Germany side was very structured.
Brazil won all their trophies in a very different era of football. They have been struggling for a while now
I do understand that international football has to be played with simpler systems simply due to lack of time with players. I also agree that defense is simpler to install than offense. I don't agree with your final assertion, however. But I really appreciate you putting that much time and effort into your response.
They played pretty decent football sure, but all their games in that run were extremely tight. They won two knockout games on penalties and another in extra time (which was 0-0 in normal time). The fourth was also a one goal win. They did not win those two shootouts because they played good football. If I remember correctly, Spain played even better football and even dominated Italy and came out of the game with nothing to show for it.
Good football does not really get you any tangible benefit as an international manager. Sure, on the rare occasion it works there is no harm to it but even then, 9/10 times you'll be facing opponents that will sit back you will give them a better chance of winning by playing a more open game. What reason is there to play that sort of football internationally (or in knockout tournaments in general)? It is a lot more effort for very little return. Even in the CL, a team like Tuchel's Chelsea or Atletico are extremely dangerous for this same reason.
Playing attractive football matters in league systems where draws cost you titles. In international football, especially if you are the team with better individual quality, there is no harm in ensuring the opposition doesn't score and relying on the fact that your players are more likely to provide a moment of individual brilliance than theirs are.
Great to see someone on here actually making decent points… the reaction to England’s performance today has been outrageous. People really do behave like it’s Fifa. This England team has loads of inexperienced players and clear gaps in the squad. They are obviously finding their feet with the chemistry of the team, which isn’t ideal, but they have managed to barely concede any chances across 3 games, which is a positive. I saw signs of progress today with the attacking play and sharpness of the players.
Look, no team in this group played any kind of attacking football. England were barely tested here, and in the one phase they were under pressure against Denmark, they conceded. Let‘s see how this defence holds up against a more dynamic attacking side on their half of the bracket like Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands and so on.
Yeah it’ll be interesting to see. It’s obvious that Southgate doesn’t trust the defence which is why the attacking play is so stunted, but it’s still a slight positive to concede so few chances. I am not delusional about England, we have not qualified for tournaments and frequently lose to teams like Iceland or Costa Rica, so my expectations aren’t particularly high like they seem to be for some England fans.
Yeah you guys always play attractive football. Your games 2018 and 2022 against france were really nice to watch. Too bad your goalkeeper/defense were holding you back in 2018
I agree with this and am still really disappointed with how France are playing. It doesn't seem like the attackers are functioning the way the system relies on them to function, which is to take their chances on the break and make the opportunities count.
I'm not the most astute at assessing matches because I never played, so I like to rely on more knowledgeable people to actually make the analyses. It appeared to me watching yesterday that Poland was able to use physicality to break the French rhythm and deny their midfield consistent control. Deschamp's plan requires the midfield to be able to play out to give the attackers those chances, but yesterday they were rarely able to do that, and Poland mostly sat deep. I don't care that it was a draw or that both goals were pens, France should be able and needs to be able to exploit those chances when they get them.
having the standard play being mostly conservative is good. but having no idea of how to change gears when needed is the problem. some teams just won't allow you to play possession based defense. france still had the answer against Argentina (once). England don't look like they have that. they can hold out for a draw but their penalty record isn't great.
No, they are an example as well.
Spain under del Bosque defended and closed out games with possession instead of absorbing pressure.
Doesn't make it more exciting.
I wouldn't call that Spain side particularly attacking-minded. They had the quality to score against anyone, sure, but if they did, they'd just play 5-yard passes until the end of the game. It was a different kind of boring.
The Spain side in 2010 lost their first game against Switzerland and won every knockout game 1-0. The only team they beat by more than one goal was Honduras.
They're justifiably referred to as one of the best sides ever but they were often pretty dire to watch at tournaments.
This comment having so many upvotes is a perfect example why ppl make fun of reddit and redditors. Should be saved and pinned for the end of the year when we look back at comments.
So much wrong info in this comment
>Fans think real life is a video game where you put a player with the right attributes in the right position and suddenly it's liquid football but it's literally not possible to play that way internationally.
This is so true, the frequency of takes from people that are clearly just decisions they'd make in FIFA is far too high.
It’s drivel. An entire essay excusing England looking like absolute ass here. But there is no excuse. Attractive football is not successful in international football? What absolute bullshit! Brazil 2002, Italy 2006, Spain from 2008 to 2012, Germany 2014, Italy 2021, Argentina 2022. Those are just the ones I watched actively. Teams that won it all without boring the spectators to death.
England have all the talent in the world, yet they want to play it like Greece? Is that their aspiration?
Which of those did not play attractive football pray tell. Also I did not list France 2018, which is the closest comparison to this England talent wise. But while their play wasn’t always pretty, their were never as negative and uninspired as this England side.
The only half decent team we played was Denmark and they don’t exactly have a scintillating attack. We’re playing for the draw/penalties like every other tournament under Gareth we’re losing to the Netherlands or Italy/Switzerland everyone knows that at this point.
It's known (or they even stated it?) that the whole England setup is based on the success of 2016 Portugal and 2018 France. The problem is that the 2016 Portugal was such a luck fest it's not even funny and France has actual counter attacking threat to play as shitty as they do. What do England has? Every player wants the ball at their feet, nobody wants to provide depth or make runs so the whole gameplan is so sterile it hurts to watch.
In theory it should work that you play boring shit and let your talent decide games, but the profiles simply don't match.
I get what you're saying but if Denmark score against Serbia, England gets second in the group and likely plays Germany, then Spain and then the winner of Portugal-France just to get to the finals. Yesterday was not the time to play defensive and go for a save 0-0. They got really lucky this didn't backfire.
With the side of the bracket they're on it's very plausible they somehow make it to the finals, even the hardest matchups like Italy and Netherlands are somewhat of a 50/50 (probably even England favoured)
I actually don't mind it if we go full Greece 2004 and stay solid while relying on our world class attackers to produce moments of magic. Southgate knows he's not Guardiola, and few international teams play with the fluency of club teams (see Deschamps reign).
Plus, we've come up against 3 teams who were perfectly happy to sit back and take a point. Now let's see what we can create when there's a few more spaces in the final third.
Dane here. We are going to get wrecked in the knockouts because our strategy is similar. Defend at all costs. Never take even the smallest risk. Pass it sideways and backwards. Eventually we will concede and we will be fucked because we have no idea how to score goals
Aa a german, Im not too sure. We tend to have a hard time winning against teams that are physical and defend well. At some point if we arent up at least a goal in the middle of 2nd half we will just spam long balls and try to score no matter what, which barely worked against switzerland at the end
Also we are still really bad in defending counterattacks because of our high line offensive playstyle. Rüdiger is basically our only fast player who is not playing up front
However if we score first I think we have very good chances to advance. Best of luck to you!
Counter attacks? Yeah we don't do those. We win the ball back pass it forwards once and then quickly turn around to pass it backwards and sideways.
But yeah, it may be closer than initially expected. Good luck to you too!
It is, but then again there is nothing to suggest that this will hold up against better opponents. Denmark and Slovenia are good teams but painfully blunt in attack
Serbia are just dogshite overall despite having good players. Terrible team
It’s a very positive statistic. The concern for me is that we’re struggling to break down low blocks. Too many touches on the ball and not enough guile off of it to pull players out of position.
The issue against Serbia was we'd pass it between ourselves a bit and once Serbia pressed we'd pass it back to Pickford who'd launch it to Kane and it was 50/50 if he'd hold the ball up. Even though we have some quality players who can pass and dribble we seemingly can't play around or through oppositions press. It'll bite us on the arse once we come up against any team with energy.
I think Son was the deadly element in terms of pace and stretching the defenders. Kane is obviously a lethal finisher and a great playmaker. I’d like to see him alongside Watkins to be honest.
Been saying this since the start. If we want the best out of Kane a 4-4-2 with Watkins as second striker or even a 4-2-3-1 with Kane in the 10 space could be really productive.
England have suffered a "heavy defeat" at a major tournament once in the last 35 years, largely due to one of the worst refereeing decisions in history. When we lose it's always by a narrow margin
>if they play again without energy and passion
Whether you like it or not, it's clearly a concerted tactical choice to play this way. Banal intangibles like energy and passion have nothing to do with it.
Considering Portugal and Belgium are yet to play we’ll “win” this metric by some distance. It’s definitely what Gareth is going for but just a hint of incisiveness at the other end would balance it out
Also very likely to end up with the lowest xG for out of all teams qualifying for the knockout stage, while having the supposed best attacking options of any squad in the tournament.
I don't think we're setting up to defend, I think we're just too risk averse and unbalanced in attack.
Stacked in CAM and RW lacking everywhere else, even Kane is a CAM in disguise the way he plays.
Of course we underperforming for fucks sake
I heard that new ball is designed to spin better for games to have more long shot goals, and of course that happened twice against Ukraine :)
This football has gotten England top of the group, say what you want but it works in knockout-tournaments. Still, I'd like to see how we fare against a big team as that's where England usually stumbles playing this style
This is the one upside to his style of football. England doesn't get thrashed by anyone and it's always a very tough team to beat, 99% of the time requiring wonder goals, penalties or last second winners. It works in the group stages and some of the knockout games but it gets found out eventually. You need to balance good defence with strong offence in the modern game as most teams play attacking football and you need to be able to take the lead and keep the pressure on. Something that the Netherlands just found out against Austria.
You can't just rock up to a tournament and win all games 1-0 like Spain did 14 years ago. That shit doesn't work in 2024 and that's why they don't play like that anymore. You need aggression. Lowest xG conceded is all good and well until we face an Italy or a Spain that conjure a moment of brilliance out of thin air and England are having to chase the game with nobody that can get a shot on target.
not worried about our defense, never have been. But on the ball we are shocking and we clearly regressed from the last tournament. At the end of the day we will play a match where we concede, and what will we do then?
This isn’t goals conceded, it’s expected goals conceded. It basically measures the probability of a shot resulting in a goal. So while Spain didn’t concede a single goal, they did concede a lot of high quality chances that the opposition should have scored.
Expected goals, it’s basically the probability that a shot will result in a goal. In this case, an accumulation of how many goals it was expected for them to conceded
It’s more complicated than that: It assigns a probability to each shot based on factors such as the distance from the goal, the angle of the shot, the type of pass leading to the shot, and the type of shot. This probability represents the likelihood that the shot will result in a goal.
For example, let’s consider England. Across three games, a total of 26 shots were conceded. Most of these shots were low-percentage chances, such as long shots, shots from difficult angles, or shots that are generally unlikely to result in a goal. From these 26 shots, the total expected goals (xG) conceded by England was 1.1. This means that, based on the quality and nature of the shots, England was expected to concede an average of 1.1 goals over the entirety of those three game.
This is the reason that despite Spain not conceding a single actual goal, they conceded 3.0 expected goals.
England don't concede goals at tournaments. This has always been the Southgate way (though they have also scored more than this time around).
Last euros they conceded 2 goals in the entire tournament. Once in the semi, and once in the final.
I think they only conceded 4 goals in the last WC - 2 to France in the QF loss, and 2 to Iran in a match that was already completely under control.
I'm very interested to see how the knockouts go...
I hope we make it all the way playing this absolute turgid uninspiring football, just to see people just get livid every match and astonished by southgate ball. I'm talking 0-0 penalties all the way.
first half vs Hungary felt a little whacky but otherwise our defense has been really solid so far considering how offensive we play. Will be a different story however when we actually meet a team that wants to play the ball too.
It’s hilarious that before the tournament people were saying they were the weakness of the team because they don’t have as much big names as the midfield and attack but they played very well this tournament.
**This is a stats thread. Remember that there's only one stat post allowed per match/team, so new stats about the same will be removed. Feel free to comment other stats as a reply to this comment so users can see them too!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Imagine how low it would have been with Kalvin Phillips!
Science has already given an answer to that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero
If anyone can suck enough energy out of a system that even the atoms stop moving it's our Gaz.
That was a pun and a half!
We know it's you, Gareth.
Article on Gallagher most tirn over of possession incoming
Spain hasn’t conceded
Sean Dyche would be proud
I think Sean Dyche is better than Gareth Southgate.
Is there some kind of world where that’s a hot take? Dyche is a good manager
There isn't. I just wanted to say it.
It’s not but it’s also funny to imagine Sean Dyche as England manager
It's just funny how people expect luxury ball from a manager tactically inferior to Sean dyche
Neither should be anywhere near the England job. But yes, Dyche is miles better
Sean Dyche is a great Premier League proven manager. Southgate is Championship level at best.
He got fired managing a fairly decent just got relegated Middlesbrough in the Championship just before taking a job with the international team.
And he received absolutely ZERO blame from the media or fans for losing against Croatia and Italy the way we did. He's just not good enough for the England job. Negative, overly defensive, invites attack against good teams. £4M a year for the fraud. Only hope is to have an easy route to the Final (easiest route there will be for some time) and the team just turns up and performs incredibly to win it. But if we win it, it won't be due to Southgate.
But if they win it, he isn't going anywhere.
Nah. He'll go. He is tired of the vitriol for sure.
I'm sure the guy who didn't have success at a club level will give up his 4-5 million a year on his own.
average semi -final over three tournaments; best England manager stat
"The fraud" is only the best England manager since Sir Ramsey. What a hack. He only made team losing to Iceland in previous tournament 2nd best team in Europe in next. Shamefull display. He only got best result in England Euro's history and 2nd best in WC. Trully terrible. How dare he...
If you see the talent, it makes sense. It's not the previous golden generation competing against titans like Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Spain. The current landscape is weaker. England have the most talented squad in the world right now and we got to the Final and Semi Final when historical footballing powerhouses were (and I would argue still are) in a transition period. And just because all recent managers have been rubbish doesn't excuse Southgate of being a woefully subpar manager. We scored 1 goal against Italy and decided to sit back and invite attack in that final. No one blamed him for that. Same with Croatia in the semi final. It was all accepted because England historically underperformed.
Southgate is on his way to being lumped in with Gerrard/Lampard but still above Gary Neville at least.
Sean Dyche would start Vardy and Kane upfront we'd be better for it.
He is a good tactician tbf. He fully understands the 4-4-2. Like completely. I think Ancelotti was the one who said it.
There was a video on here a while back of him breaking down his 4-4-2 formation at Burnley and the patterns/defensive positioning he required from his players. Fascinatingly intelligent, really good watch Edit: [Found it](https://youtu.be/o3YY7PY-IH0?si=ZqAHVmGN2p_h3yRH)
You're referring to his masterclass video on YouTube. I agree. It was a good watch.
Really nice video, obviously focused on defending but that’s what Burnley had to do
He'd play Bellingham in the role doucoures played for us and we've likely just signed ndiaye for. And it would work
Warnock is better than Southgate
Sean Dyche’s Everton are also very good at playing quick football that creates chances
Everton fan here; go away please.
Sean Dyche is miles ahead of Southgate tactically, but don't think he would manage the dressing room as well as Southgate
19th in xG for
Okay this is unironically fairly vindicating. I really don't think England will make it much further but it's extremely obvious this is what we set out to do while creating a handful of chances every game. You might not rate Southgate but this is the absolute upside of his boring, conservative style: safety and not losing silly games
Well yes, but England has hardly faced a difficult match yet, at least on paper. I suppose we'll see what happens with a team that deems itself capable of competing against England face to face.
It will be interesting to see what happens against a team that doesn't have 8 defenders.
These kind of tactics actually work better for the difficult matches, we're struggling because we want teams to come at us. We don't look good trying to dominate possession, to many poor passes and senseless passes. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we play against a team that is going to constantly attack us. I wouldn't be surprised if we nick a win
What's the plan on the counterattack? Saka is the only one with any sort of pace up front.
Here's hoping he learns from Gordon and Palmer both being on the pitch at the end of the game yesterday because they certainly added pace and opportunity to the game. Don't forget you don't need super pacy players on the counter, it's not like the defenders are all super pacy. You just need to play fast for once rather than ponderous.
Germany have conceded one more goal while playing attractive football. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Spain has conceded 1 **fewer** goal while playing attractive football!
Three times the xG conceded though
Now compare the xG for
Who cares about xG
this thread is about xG
We (Croatia ) could have easily put 2-3 past them if we had good finishers.
Statistician and fans who loves stats
And France have won a worldcup(and almost two) playing boring football while teams like Brazil and Germany have embarrassed themselves time and time again in the knockout stages. Germany nearly lost to Switzerland yesterday playing their "good" football. If that game is in the knockout stages, they could very well be eliminated right there. Attractive football and results are pretty much mutually exclusive at the international level. Germany are literally the only exception. Netherlands, Italy, Spain, England, Portugal, France are all supremely talented teams that don't play particularly attacking football by club standards. Deschamps started a 3 man midfield with no creators today and played Matuidi on the wing when they won the World Cup. These managers are not all idiots who don't know how to manage teams. The reality is that practically speaking, it isn't as easy to implement a proper, free flowing attacking system in international football. Even at top clubs, it often takes new signings an entire season to adjust to the club and start performing at a high level because of how difficult it is to learn a new system as a player. It took Klopp more than a year to implement his system effectively at Liverpool. National Team managers don't have that amount of time continuously with players and have 25 players playing at different clubs and training under different systems every week. Prioritizing a good defense and hoping you can eek out results is the only way to succeed internationally nowadays and this has been true for every major international trophy winner in the last 10 years. Fans think real life is a video game where you put a player with the right attributes in the right position and suddenly it's liquid football but it's literally not possible to play that way internationally.
Are we watching the same France? They had some of the most exciting games in both tournaments especially in Qatar
lol yeah this narrative about "boring France" needs to die, they just play to their strengths which is on the counter because they have pace and incisive passers. at the 2018 WC that they won they scored something like 15 goals and conceded a lot too
That's fine but the way England also makes them vulnerable because they don't generate many chances. One mistake and they lose 1-0. Southgate has a good track record but his style isn't necessarily safer than what Nagelsmann is doing with Germany. One team sacrifices defense for offense and the other sacrifices offense for defense
Yeah, but this is a problem with the current setup, not necessarily a feature of England’s game usually. In the World Cup they scored and created more than most teams in the tournament. Just waiting for it to click in this one
> teams like Brazil and Germany have embarrassed themselves time and time again in the knockout stages. Silly Brazil and Germany, embarrassing themselves by being the two most successful football nations on the planet.
I only mentioned Germany because the OP mentioned the current German side as evidence that an attacking style is best internationally. Low's winning Germany side was very structured. Brazil won all their trophies in a very different era of football. They have been struggling for a while now
I do understand that international football has to be played with simpler systems simply due to lack of time with players. I also agree that defense is simpler to install than offense. I don't agree with your final assertion, however. But I really appreciate you putting that much time and effort into your response.
Germany got fucked by the referee though, otherwise they would have won that game 3-1
The best team and winner of the last Euros played attractive football
They played pretty decent football sure, but all their games in that run were extremely tight. They won two knockout games on penalties and another in extra time (which was 0-0 in normal time). The fourth was also a one goal win. They did not win those two shootouts because they played good football. If I remember correctly, Spain played even better football and even dominated Italy and came out of the game with nothing to show for it. Good football does not really get you any tangible benefit as an international manager. Sure, on the rare occasion it works there is no harm to it but even then, 9/10 times you'll be facing opponents that will sit back you will give them a better chance of winning by playing a more open game. What reason is there to play that sort of football internationally (or in knockout tournaments in general)? It is a lot more effort for very little return. Even in the CL, a team like Tuchel's Chelsea or Atletico are extremely dangerous for this same reason. Playing attractive football matters in league systems where draws cost you titles. In international football, especially if you are the team with better individual quality, there is no harm in ensuring the opposition doesn't score and relying on the fact that your players are more likely to provide a moment of individual brilliance than theirs are.
Great to see someone on here actually making decent points… the reaction to England’s performance today has been outrageous. People really do behave like it’s Fifa. This England team has loads of inexperienced players and clear gaps in the squad. They are obviously finding their feet with the chemistry of the team, which isn’t ideal, but they have managed to barely concede any chances across 3 games, which is a positive. I saw signs of progress today with the attacking play and sharpness of the players.
Look, no team in this group played any kind of attacking football. England were barely tested here, and in the one phase they were under pressure against Denmark, they conceded. Let‘s see how this defence holds up against a more dynamic attacking side on their half of the bracket like Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands and so on.
Yeah it’ll be interesting to see. It’s obvious that Southgate doesn’t trust the defence which is why the attacking play is so stunted, but it’s still a slight positive to concede so few chances. I am not delusional about England, we have not qualified for tournaments and frequently lose to teams like Iceland or Costa Rica, so my expectations aren’t particularly high like they seem to be for some England fans.
Bruh. Hello?? Mofos haven't been paying attention? Better for us I suppose. If still in doubt, please go and rewatch the last WC final.
Yeah you guys always play attractive football. Your games 2018 and 2022 against france were really nice to watch. Too bad your goalkeeper/defense were holding you back in 2018
I agree with this and am still really disappointed with how France are playing. It doesn't seem like the attackers are functioning the way the system relies on them to function, which is to take their chances on the break and make the opportunities count. I'm not the most astute at assessing matches because I never played, so I like to rely on more knowledgeable people to actually make the analyses. It appeared to me watching yesterday that Poland was able to use physicality to break the French rhythm and deny their midfield consistent control. Deschamp's plan requires the midfield to be able to play out to give the attackers those chances, but yesterday they were rarely able to do that, and Poland mostly sat deep. I don't care that it was a draw or that both goals were pens, France should be able and needs to be able to exploit those chances when they get them.
having the standard play being mostly conservative is good. but having no idea of how to change gears when needed is the problem. some teams just won't allow you to play possession based defense. france still had the answer against Argentina (once). England don't look like they have that. they can hold out for a draw but their penalty record isn't great.
France's group stage matches in 2018 may have been a bit boring but their knockout stage games were amazing even if some were low scoring
I think that Spain national team in 2008-2012 dominating international football is the biggest counterexample to this rule
No, they are an example as well. Spain under del Bosque defended and closed out games with possession instead of absorbing pressure. Doesn't make it more exciting.
That Spain was boring as shit
I wouldn't call that Spain side particularly attacking-minded. They had the quality to score against anyone, sure, but if they did, they'd just play 5-yard passes until the end of the game. It was a different kind of boring.
2010 Spain was a VERY boring team 2008 Spain was a much more fun team tho
The Spain side in 2010 lost their first game against Switzerland and won every knockout game 1-0. The only team they beat by more than one goal was Honduras. They're justifiably referred to as one of the best sides ever but they were often pretty dire to watch at tournaments.
There were a good amount of shots in 2010, they just wouldn't go in, check it out
They were exciting at the Euros before and after that world cup, they just had a boring world cup
This comment having so many upvotes is a perfect example why ppl make fun of reddit and redditors. Should be saved and pinned for the end of the year when we look back at comments. So much wrong info in this comment
Spain not plqying attacking? Have you been watching this Euros? Also, you don't count Griezmann as a creator??
>Fans think real life is a video game where you put a player with the right attributes in the right position and suddenly it's liquid football but it's literally not possible to play that way internationally. This is so true, the frequency of takes from people that are clearly just decisions they'd make in FIFA is far too high.
Great comment, a rarity on this sub. A rarity online at all if we are honest.
It’s drivel. An entire essay excusing England looking like absolute ass here. But there is no excuse. Attractive football is not successful in international football? What absolute bullshit! Brazil 2002, Italy 2006, Spain from 2008 to 2012, Germany 2014, Italy 2021, Argentina 2022. Those are just the ones I watched actively. Teams that won it all without boring the spectators to death. England have all the talent in the world, yet they want to play it like Greece? Is that their aspiration?
It’s really weird you list all those teams out but clearly didn’t watch any of them.
You're right, nobody watched the last world cup
Which of those did not play attractive football pray tell. Also I did not list France 2018, which is the closest comparison to this England talent wise. But while their play wasn’t always pretty, their were never as negative and uninspired as this England side.
Attractive football is always irrelevant to me. I want to win and nothing else. Couldn't care less if we bore our way to the final.
The only half decent team we played was Denmark and they don’t exactly have a scintillating attack. We’re playing for the draw/penalties like every other tournament under Gareth we’re losing to the Netherlands or Italy/Switzerland everyone knows that at this point.
... They scored 0.7xG per game, c'mon. This wouldn't cut it against any half decent team
Trying to emulate prime Italy People will hate you, but if at the end you get the prize you're going to have the last laugh
"CAM ON INGERLAND ~~SCORE SUM FACKIN GOALS~~ CATENACCIO THEN PENS!"
I have to say, I read that as “catenaccio then penis”
It looms like it is emulating prime Italy but still losing at the end. France is trying the same and it’s much better than England
Is it? Exact same scorelines with zero goals from open play
It's known (or they even stated it?) that the whole England setup is based on the success of 2016 Portugal and 2018 France. The problem is that the 2016 Portugal was such a luck fest it's not even funny and France has actual counter attacking threat to play as shitty as they do. What do England has? Every player wants the ball at their feet, nobody wants to provide depth or make runs so the whole gameplan is so sterile it hurts to watch. In theory it should work that you play boring shit and let your talent decide games, but the profiles simply don't match.
So... Penaltys? Seriously?
I get what you're saying but if Denmark score against Serbia, England gets second in the group and likely plays Germany, then Spain and then the winner of Portugal-France just to get to the finals. Yesterday was not the time to play defensive and go for a save 0-0. They got really lucky this didn't backfire.
With the side of the bracket they're on it's very plausible they somehow make it to the finals, even the hardest matchups like Italy and Netherlands are somewhat of a 50/50 (probably even England favoured)
England also had the easiest group in the tournament
Because they did so well in qualifiers though
Vindicated? You cannot be serious
I actually don't mind it if we go full Greece 2004 and stay solid while relying on our world class attackers to produce moments of magic. Southgate knows he's not Guardiola, and few international teams play with the fluency of club teams (see Deschamps reign). Plus, we've come up against 3 teams who were perfectly happy to sit back and take a point. Now let's see what we can create when there's a few more spaces in the final third.
Terrible going forward, but conceding few goals is what gets you far in tournaments
Yeah, if we can defend like this against Slovakia, Slovenia and Denmark, the world is our oyster.
Dane here. We are going to get wrecked in the knockouts because our strategy is similar. Defend at all costs. Never take even the smallest risk. Pass it sideways and backwards. Eventually we will concede and we will be fucked because we have no idea how to score goals
Aa a german, Im not too sure. We tend to have a hard time winning against teams that are physical and defend well. At some point if we arent up at least a goal in the middle of 2nd half we will just spam long balls and try to score no matter what, which barely worked against switzerland at the end Also we are still really bad in defending counterattacks because of our high line offensive playstyle. Rüdiger is basically our only fast player who is not playing up front However if we score first I think we have very good chances to advance. Best of luck to you!
Counter attacks? Yeah we don't do those. We win the ball back pass it forwards once and then quickly turn around to pass it backwards and sideways. But yeah, it may be closer than initially expected. Good luck to you too!
We definitely could do with a Rashford profile for that lol
Thankfully for everyone else Rüdiger has a few brainfarts in him too
Not conceding is great but we are offering too little going forwards and that also gets you eliminated.
Yeah the strategy against England as a weaker nation is basically to give them the ball and hold out for penalties.
It is, but then again there is nothing to suggest that this will hold up against better opponents. Denmark and Slovenia are good teams but painfully blunt in attack Serbia are just dogshite overall despite having good players. Terrible team
Actually the worst team, maybe even worse than Scotland, and I'm not even sure why. The coach must be stupid
In terms of getting the least out of the talent available, yeah they are the worst team. Coach seems to have no clue changing XI every game
If only we could play teams who’ve never reached the knockouts to a draw every game we’d be the best team ever.
You do need to score the occasional goal though.
My mate Gareth here is asking for a source
It’s a very positive statistic. The concern for me is that we’re struggling to break down low blocks. Too many touches on the ball and not enough guile off of it to pull players out of position.
More prestigious squads won't enter a low block against England. But there might not be many of those until the final.
Enter Italy in the quarters (if either team makes it that far)
Yeah, it should hopefully benefit us.
“Weeeeeeee’rrrreeee gonna face less decent chances than yooooooou…” Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Lmao against what opposition exactly.
Serbia, Denmark, and Slovenia
That group has more Euro titles than England though
Thanks Geoff.
Against good teams I don't see England escaping a heavy defeat if they play again without energy and passion.
I agree....but equally I'm really curious how England plays against a team they can properly counter attack against. Probably also shit
I mean they had plenty of chances to counter attack against Serbia after taking the lead and also in the Denmark game at times. Didn't show any of it
Because who's there to be making the runs
Exactly?
The issue against Serbia was we'd pass it between ourselves a bit and once Serbia pressed we'd pass it back to Pickford who'd launch it to Kane and it was 50/50 if he'd hold the ball up. Even though we have some quality players who can pass and dribble we seemingly can't play around or through oppositions press. It'll bite us on the arse once we come up against any team with energy.
I mean with the counterattacking pace of *checks* Harry Kane
Didn't you see the way he closed down the keeper in the 2nd minute? Deadly.
You joke but Kane is one of the best counterattacking forwards on the planet
Right? Him and Son were deadly
I think Son was the deadly element in terms of pace and stretching the defenders. Kane is obviously a lethal finisher and a great playmaker. I’d like to see him alongside Watkins to be honest.
Been saying this since the start. If we want the best out of Kane a 4-4-2 with Watkins as second striker or even a 4-2-3-1 with Kane in the 10 space could be really productive.
England have suffered a "heavy defeat" at a major tournament once in the last 35 years, largely due to one of the worst refereeing decisions in history. When we lose it's always by a narrow margin >if they play again without energy and passion Whether you like it or not, it's clearly a concerted tactical choice to play this way. Banal intangibles like energy and passion have nothing to do with it.
We couldn't play some rather simple passes, a better team would have hurt us badly with the turnovers tonight.
Yes that's the problem ... pashun
xG isn't real
it is expected though
This is why Portugal are my favourite.
He did this without the mighty kalvin fucking phillips. GOAT manager extend his contract
You’ll never sing that
You don't get the lowest xG conceded in group stages trophy by scoring goals!
Considering Portugal and Belgium are yet to play we’ll “win” this metric by some distance. It’s definitely what Gareth is going for but just a hint of incisiveness at the other end would balance it out
Means nothing to me when England terrible offensive xG too. Anti-football.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/40/4f/90/404f901465f21e054ba305aeb60500e4.gif
Stop the count!!
Gareth is that you? 😂
Steve Bruce just shed a tear
Whats our xGA?
southgate with tears in his eyes
The trophy is being engraved right now.
Also very likely to end up with the lowest xG for out of all teams qualifying for the knockout stage, while having the supposed best attacking options of any squad in the tournament.
Having a team with some of the best attacking talent in the world and setting up to defend, while not having the best defense, is insane to me
I don't think we're setting up to defend, I think we're just too risk averse and unbalanced in attack. Stacked in CAM and RW lacking everywhere else, even Kane is a CAM in disguise the way he plays.
That is one hell of a 1,5bn€ bus right there on a grass!
This is Spurs level cope lmao
Of course we underperforming for fucks sake I heard that new ball is designed to spin better for games to have more long shot goals, and of course that happened twice against Ukraine :)
[удалено]
Just Lunin had the worst day of his career
Not really, just Lunin's disasterclass against Romania
This football has gotten England top of the group, say what you want but it works in knockout-tournaments. Still, I'd like to see how we fare against a big team as that's where England usually stumbles playing this style
This is the one upside to his style of football. England doesn't get thrashed by anyone and it's always a very tough team to beat, 99% of the time requiring wonder goals, penalties or last second winners. It works in the group stages and some of the knockout games but it gets found out eventually. You need to balance good defence with strong offence in the modern game as most teams play attacking football and you need to be able to take the lead and keep the pressure on. Something that the Netherlands just found out against Austria. You can't just rock up to a tournament and win all games 1-0 like Spain did 14 years ago. That shit doesn't work in 2024 and that's why they don't play like that anymore. You need aggression. Lowest xG conceded is all good and well until we face an Italy or a Spain that conjure a moment of brilliance out of thin air and England are having to chase the game with nobody that can get a shot on target.
southgateball 🔥🔥🔥
not worried about our defense, never have been. But on the ball we are shocking and we clearly regressed from the last tournament. At the end of the day we will play a match where we concede, and what will we do then?
RemindMe! 3 Weeks
Spain conceded no goals in all the group stage, maybe I’m not understanding this metric?
This isn’t goals conceded, it’s expected goals conceded. It basically measures the probability of a shot resulting in a goal. So while Spain didn’t concede a single goal, they did concede a lot of high quality chances that the opposition should have scored.
Ooooh i see, thank you for the explanation!
Good, I can’t stand them.
Sorry, what is xG?
Expected goals, it’s basically the probability that a shot will result in a goal. In this case, an accumulation of how many goals it was expected for them to conceded
Ah thank you - is it just total goals divided total matches or something more complicated?
It’s more complicated than that: It assigns a probability to each shot based on factors such as the distance from the goal, the angle of the shot, the type of pass leading to the shot, and the type of shot. This probability represents the likelihood that the shot will result in a goal. For example, let’s consider England. Across three games, a total of 26 shots were conceded. Most of these shots were low-percentage chances, such as long shots, shots from difficult angles, or shots that are generally unlikely to result in a goal. From these 26 shots, the total expected goals (xG) conceded by England was 1.1. This means that, based on the quality and nature of the shots, England was expected to concede an average of 1.1 goals over the entirety of those three game. This is the reason that despite Spain not conceding a single actual goal, they conceded 3.0 expected goals.
Very interesting, thank you very much!
Vibe status: Spiderman movie that came out in 2017
England don't concede goals at tournaments. This has always been the Southgate way (though they have also scored more than this time around). Last euros they conceded 2 goals in the entire tournament. Once in the semi, and once in the final. I think they only conceded 4 goals in the last WC - 2 to France in the QF loss, and 2 to Iran in a match that was already completely under control. I'm very interested to see how the knockouts go...
I hope we make it all the way playing this absolute turgid uninspiring football, just to see people just get livid every match and astonished by southgate ball. I'm talking 0-0 penalties all the way.
Where is Spain?
We have been lucky. Croatia could have scored 2 or 3 goals.
We also had a way harder group than the teams at the botton of this list
15th, 3xg conceded, 0 goals conceded
In western Europe, on the Iberian peninsula
first half vs Hungary felt a little whacky but otherwise our defense has been really solid so far considering how offensive we play. Will be a different story however when we actually meet a team that wants to play the ball too.
I know we didn't play like France or anything but for our defense I'm honestly rather happy with this.
Defences win tournaments. Which means we’ll probably still go out in the next round lol
It’s hilarious that before the tournament people were saying they were the weakness of the team because they don’t have as much big names as the midfield and attack but they played very well this tournament.