Surely that is Shackleton RB with James CB ? Gallagher & Willock the 2 in MF with McNeil & Sims wide & Eze behind Nketiah .
I wouldn’t rule anything out Just seems a bit silly to have James as a CB when there are more than enough CB’s that could have been selected for this tournament to play that role.
1-0. McNeil down the left again, great ball in and also excellent movement from Nketiah to create the inital chance that hit the bar. Eventually scores the rebound.
Think I gave us the kiss of death as forgot about this game, started watching when we were 1-0 up, now losing 3-1 to Portugal U19’s. Got to say our Keeper hasn’t covered himself in glory and Lowe caught out of position quite a few times and just looks a bit lost if I’m honest. I think Simpson deserves a new contract for following the recent theme of strange team/Squad selections. Why play James at Centre back when he’s been played right back or Centre mid all season. Weird.
3-1 at HT. The goalkeeper has cost us but as a team we have been really below par. Some pretty good individual stuff but it all feels like we should just let the players have the holiday break now.
The danger of 2017 was always that the kudos the FA got from it would lead to a lot of self-congratulation and a refusal to change. Essentially what lead to English football falling so far behind in the first place. The best FA's are constantly adapting, constantly striving to be the best. Staying at the top requires self reflection and a commitment to keeping up the efforts that got to those levels in the first place. I see a lot of PR from the FA essentially praising themselves, I don't see much to see how they're re-innovating and actually attempting to stay there. Which is concerning when basic standards have been slipping since. Unfortunately things like the shambles of not sorting out player eligibility betray the high off the pitch standards and best prepared teams the FA previously strived for. In general i'd question keeping any managers long term at this level anyway, it should be a breeding ground position for coaches rather than a cosy home for failed football league managers to see out their days in. Some of the squad selections seem to hint that the managers have a very poor understanding of the players - Downing for example picked a bunch of midfielders who aside from Gallagher were all offensive midfielders, leaving people like Skipp at home, little wonder they ended up being wide open and conceding a lot - is there any oversight on managerial mistakes like this? Then whatever desire we had to an "English DNA" as the FA liked to call it seems to have descended in something of a free for all at the youth level once again, there's little connecting philosophy between teams and managers there. Things like appointing Les Reed as the new director despite him previously having a development role in the FA when things really turned to dirge don't exactly give much confidence that things will improve. When I hear Southgate speak I'm hopeful, he has a lot of good ideas....unfortunately few beyond him seem as thoughtful or considered with decision making.
I don’t think the England DNA was ever embedded through the age groups. Coaches are just left to their own devices. There has never been a clear way of playing. U15-U16 you could argue it works. U17 sometimes. U19-U21 is where it is a mess. Also sometimes the DNA stuff seems quite dangerous to me. Like when Boothroyd starts talking about having to be the right type of character or person. Some of these coaches’ decision making and plans might drive players crazy. Do they have to merely accept it unless they gain a bad character mark? Most of the good work that was done was largely profited from the top few club academies in the country. I genuinely don’t think they know what they want from the U19-U21 levels. Seems most of the time to be results driven but even when we start to lose games it is ignored.
Tend to agree. Boothroyd racks up a 90% win percentage by sneaking past overmatched teams but when we get completely tactically outclassed by Germany alarms bells don’t seem to start ringing. Summer 2017 seems that it could have been a curse as much as a blessing because the FA are starting to look lazy and complacent.
I think they will no doubt use it as an excuse to distract for recent failings but even if we hadn’t won the tournaments in 2017 I think we would still be in this position. There just hasn’t really ever been much coherence in our teams from U19 to U21. We’ve just had too many coaches in the jobs that haven’t been suited to the roles. Since say 2007 how many coaches have we had in these roles that have been even half decent? Southgate started well in the U21 role and at least attempted a positive style. We’ve had some truly abysmal campaigns by numerous coaches that have merely been ignored and the same coach then continues to complete the exact same process in the next campaign.
It seems a bit ‘jobs for the boys’ in terms of both coaches and players selected. We need to be a bit bolder.
FFS Wish we had never gone to this tournament. Been a complete waste of time and now this. Just so disheartening and seems to happen so often.
The injury curse continues!!! Yeah agree with Baz, just feels like a complete waste of time and I wonder next season if even more Clubs will pull out their players due to these type of injuries. I know it’s unfortunate and you can’t predict it but I’m sure Chelsea will be pretty pissed if it’s a long term injury caused in what has turned out to be a nothing game.
Lost 2-1! Our Youth teams just don’t seem to have a back bone at the moment. I’m kind of not surprised we have crashed out with three defeats to be honest with that squad selected. The inclusion of Sims and Lowe was just weird and made no sense. What a waste of a tournament.
"On est vraiment déçus de repartir avec trois défaites..." 💬Paul Simpson, le sélectionneur de @England 🏴, ne cache pas sa déception de voir l'Angleterre terminer la phase de groupes avec zéro point #CHIENG #TMR2019 pic.twitter.com/6FG9VWVcu1— Tournoi Maurice Revello (@TournoiMRevello) June 7, 2019
McNeil played well and Nketiah looked dangerous, far more so than Hirst. James was also very good against Portugal.
I know we are all pretty much done with this tournament but we are beating Honduras 2-0 atm. Hirst and Nketiah with the goals. Also quite interesting to see a team from our U19 finals group make the U20 WC final. Congrats to Ukraine.
3-0 now and it's Guatemala rather than Honduras. Massive late drama in that Ukraine-Italy game. Absolutely worldy from Scamacca chalked off because of an elbow which looked a little soft in my opinion.
Oops sorry I was only scanning twitter so just assumed it was Honduras I’ll blame it on Simpson for giving me PTSD.