The last time we lost two qualifiers at this level in a campaign Hogan Ephraim and Craig Lindfield were playing.
Reed doesn't fill me with confidence, but I'd need a specific reason to think that he was the cause of an immediate downturn in results. Otherwise I think there are more likely explanations.
Well that's very poor. I suppose a lot of players with club commitments might not have gone to the finals anyway, but missing out on a tournament finals is not a good look, nor is it beneficial overall.
Really disappointing. Whatever the standard of coaching may be, I can't help but think that they'd have had a better chance if the 2001s had been dipped into a little more. You can't lose all of Sancho, Brewster, Foden, Hudson-Odoi, and Sessegnon and only promote Sako without your attacking threat suffering.
Not good. Gap between U19s + U21s is where we lose guys. Having even less games is never good. Should be a good indication of what Les Reed is about with his reaction to the end of this cycle.
This group were hardly convincing in the initial qualifiers so I can't see what Reed had done. Defensive resilience was always a bit of an issue with this age group they could just outscore most anyone they played against. Not had the same cutting edge as before without the missing players which seems to have cost them. The midfield also had very little defensive ability which i'm sure is part of the reason they conceded seemingly quite easily.
Interesting to note the absentees from this squad that were part of the same group that were U17 Euros runners up and U17 World Champions. Sancho, Hudson-Odoi, Foden, Smith Rowe, Brewster, Eyoma, Gibson, Latibeaudiere, Oakley-Boothe, Griffiths, Vokins, Denny, Kirby, Barlow, Anderson.
Sometimes you can be frustrated with this format when going out but this whole campaign has been woeful. Maybe if we had a clinical finisher like Solanke it may have papered over the cracks. Saying that we only gained one clean sheet throughout qualifying (against Moldova). If you are not even remotely clinical you need to be good defensively. We were neither.
So we finished 3rd in our Group at home is poor and what’s worse is Czech Republic won the group who we beat 4-1 in the 1st game and they beat Greece 3-1 who beat us 2-1. Just a kind of strange set of results tbh. Just feels very frustrating at this point as like the radio guys said, we pretty much dominated the game, had all the chances, Denmark only had two real chances on goal which ended up being 2 goals. Grrrrr, very frustrating and just not good enough!
I think it caps off a bad year for the U19s. Qualifying wasn’t good last year, the tournament itself was a waste of time and then this year has been very patchy too. Two different coaches and they’ve gone through so many players, but it does seem like England need to try pin point where the failings are.
And just to top off the disappointment, Ireland qualified for the finals with probably quite a few ( not looked at how many so might actually be minimal) dual qualified players that probably never got a look in for England.
These are tough balances because we moved a few up so they could get more competitive game-time. Bitterly disappointing all the same because now a few will miss out on important tournaments. Worth noting that the emergence of Saka is a real positive.
Some shocking defending from England there. The last Denmark goal in particular the defending is atrocious - who is the guy on the wide right who literally just stands there as 3 Denmark players advance past him, and doesn't move the entire time? You can be as talented as you want but if you're not willing to put basic effort in off the ball you're going to get punished.
That first finish 😱🔥@RhianBrewster9 returns with a brilliant brace 🙌⚽️ pic.twitter.com/9H5I2uHgeM— Liverpool FC (@LFC) March 29, 2019 Promising return to action for Brewster at long last, always a big worry when a player particularly one so young is out for so long. I remember Liverpool had Samed Yesil who was similarly lethal at youth level but never was the same after a long time out. Shame he wasn't back a couple of months earlier, really could have done with him for the qualifiers!