Laughing
Well-known member
You're right with your last sentence. The opposite may also have been true has things gone wrong for Southgate, see Warnocks defenders.Yes, I really don't get this too defensive criticism when we score so many goals. We also dominate possession. I think the general armchair england 'fan' lacks a cultural understanding of the game. They want blood and thunder football like 1980s League One, but forget that when we have tried that at international level it simply doesn't work. They want players and managers to work harder not smarter....and that leads to results like Graham Taylor had. The other thing is falling for the clamour for all the superstars to be shoehorned in, even if not fit (Grealish in euros), but we've been down that road with the golden generation and it was a mess.
I get the feeling that had we beaten Italy, these fans would still be complaining for southgate out now, and would claim Italy never showed up, italy lost their bottle or any other excuse to denigrate the job southgate has done.
It's footie, it's opinionated and its great for just that reason.