England - the future....

[bobby1413]

What a total borefest (good goal tho)

[Fluff]

What a total borefest (good goal tho)

+1

[Kitsondinho]

+2
Still in with a chance of making the S/Fs too.

[Hoop Blah]

Well that wasn't half as good a performance as the Portugal game but we just about nicked it with the late winner, although the keeper really should've saved it in my book.

I was a bit surprised with a few of the selections, especially Chalobah getting the nod over Ward-Prowse but perhaps that was just to have some extra height to deal with the main threat Sweden had of lumping it up to the front two. Hopefully Ward-Prowse and perhaps Loftus-Cheek will come back into the side for Wednesdays game against the Italians.

The most interesting thing from yesterdays game was seeing how they performed just like the Senior team have done all too often. Playing well within themselves and always taking the safe option. Part of that might be down to a couple of the changes Southgate made but as Owen Hargreaves mentioned during the BT Sport coverage it's the fear factor of making a mistake and the scrutiny that gets in the media that inhibits England players. This week the under 21s experienced that media coverage for the first time (for this team at least) after the loss to Portugal and then they come out with a stale performance.

[Handsome Man]

Admire the result from that game, but not the performance. Loftus-Cheek looked good when he came on though, and we did stay calm near the end, kept our shape, and didn't just resort to lumping it forward or give away a silly goal - that must be some sort of progress.

[TBM]

They really need to get service into Kane though - he looks lost when he tries to drop and collect the ball. He's better being in and around the box

[Hoop Blah]

They really need to get service into Kane though - he looks lost when he tries to drop and collect the ball. He's better being in and around the box

Although I agree they need to get a bit closer to him he's actually had a reasonable number of chances. He's not played badly as such, but he's been a little wasteful and missed chances you'd hope he'd take.

It's a shame Berahino is injured as he added more goal threat to this team even when playing wide.

[bobby1413]

Watching tonight but only cos I'm smashed... Better be more entertaining than the other night

[Kitsondinho]

Why the f*** are we so fearful in tournament football (and it is all our bloody teams....Women were at it in 1st half Monday, men's team have been since Euro 2004, U21s yet again).....I'm not expecting us to walk every game, but Kane has shown tonight that a bit of direct running to commit players creates openings! Every f***ing tournament with every f***ing team!!

[Stranded]

Just the English mentality I'm afraid. Doesn't help when you see the press calling it a likely 'humiliating' exit at half time. It's not, it's a hard tournament to qualify for, hence no Dutch, French or Spanish.

Having said that what I've seen has not been good tonight.

[Kitsondinho]

We looked so decent in qualifying (just like the senior side) but just fall to pieces in the tournament. I suppose it'll be good experience for these lot when they do it with the first team in a few years!

[Maguire]

I know the U21s are going to get slammed for that but I watched most of it and we weren't exactly without our chances. Would be interested in seeing possessions stats and attempts at goal - we seemed to be shooting every few mins in the second half.

[Kitsondinho]

I know the U21s are going to get slammed for that but I watched most of it and we weren't exactly without our chances. Would be interested in seeing possessions stats and attempts at goal - we seemed to be shooting every few mins in the second half.

Indeed....When we ran at them and comitted defenders, things happened.......But as we all know Southgate will be sacked....a 'new' era will dawn with a new coach and we'll make exactly the same mistakes all over again....It is something about tournament football that we need to deal with at the moment. At all levels.

[Hoop Blah]

Why the f*** are we so fearful in tournament football (and it is all our bloody teams....Women were at it in 1st half Monday, men's team have been since Euro 2004, U21s yet again).....I'm not expecting us to walk every game, but Kane has shown tonight that a bit of direct running to commit players creates openings! Every f***ing tournament with every f***ing team!!

That's exactly the problem, the lack of confidence and bottle to play to our potential just kills us every time.

Too many cautious passes, too many fearing the responsibility and, last night, 3 pieces of truly shocking defending that Italy punished. Having said that I've no idea why Southgate played Chalobah over Ward-Prowse, Carroll and Hughes, especially when he'd mad such a big thing about sticking with the group and the players who'd qualified.

Just the English mentality I'm afraid. Doesn't help when you see the press calling it a likely 'humiliating' exit at half time. It's not, it's a hard tournament to qualify for, hence no Dutch, French or Spanish.

Having said that what I've seen has not been good tonight.

It's what causes the mentality that needs to be addressed though, if not by the wider game then by the management and his staff to make sure his team goes out their confident enough in themselves and what they're being asked to do to take a few risks and play on the edge a bit more. Just like the ODI team have, we need our footballers to play without fear.

It's a bit of a lame excuse but I do think the media play a big part in that mentality and Hargreaves mentioned it during the coverage of the Sweden game. The players do, even if it's sub-consciously, fear the backlash if they make a mistake and so play well within themselves in tournaments which this under 21 side didn't in the qualifiers and recent friendlies.

I know the U21s are going to get slammed for that but I watched most of it and we weren't exactly without our chances. Would be interested in seeing possessions stats and attempts at goal - we seemed to be shooting every few mins in the second half.

We created all the better chances against Portugal as well but we've snatched at nearly every chance which again is probably down to the tension and fear.

The worst thing is people will continue to moan about the system and the quality of the players, and not taking players like Sterling and Wilshire to make our strongest side, but it hardly matters who plays, they all freeze and play well below their capacity.

[No Fixed Abode]

Pretty sure we would have potentially won the tournament had

Sterling
Phil Jones
Barkley
Wilshire
Oxlade-Chamberlain

Etc all played.

[Zammo]

Pretty sure we would have potentially won the tournament had

Sterling
Phil Jones
Barkley
Wilshire
Oxlade-Chamberlain

Etc all played.

Doubt it. They still need to be managed / coached properly. Southgate FFS. TV pundit, famous for missing a penalty. This country

[No Fixed Abode]

Pretty sure we would have potentially won the tournament had

Sterling
Phil Jones
Barkley
Wilshire
Oxlade-Chamberlain

Etc all played.

Doubt it. They still need to be managed / coached properly. Southgate FFS. TV pundit, famous for missing a penalty. This country

Pretty sure if you took Courtois/Cech, Terry, Hazard, Fabregas and Willian out of the Chelsea team last season we wouldn't have won the league despite how well coached the other players were.

[bobby1413]

Pretty sure we would have potentially won the tournament had

Sterling
Phil Jones
Barkley
Wilshire
Oxlade-Chamberlain

Etc all played.

We could have a team full of the best players the world has seen and we'd still screw it up

[Four Of Clubs]

We could have a team full of the best players the world has seen and we'd still screw it up

...whereas if you believe our woefully-out-of-touch pundits - the Swedes were merely there to make up the numbers. They couldn't see past anything less than a convincing win by at least two goals for the Danes.

Cue the Nordic chaps handing out a real tonking to their much vaunted neighbours. I think our media have about as much a clue about how to play in big tournament football, as our teams themselves.

Head of the pack, that heavily coiffured-buffoon James, who probably came very close to gobbing himself out a pundit's role (think he was most vociferous about England winning the whole thing beforehand too) - though there's some seriously big back-tracking going on post-match now.

Danish manager hit the nail squarely on the thumb - '...not clever enoúgh .... Sweden were too smart for us on the night.....'.

... oh and DJ has tipped Portugal for the Final ......

...actually he's bound to get it right eventually ....

[Hoop Blah]

I didn't watch the bits you're on about but in general I think James has called it about right over the last few weeks.

At no point has he said our team are world beaters but he has said they have as good a chance as the rest of winning the tournament. He'd also right backed the decision to largely stick with the squad that got us there and most of Southgates build up. He's also been very critical in the way they played at times as well, and some of Southgates selections.

He's called out the Germans for being pretty average from the start of the tournament as well and he's bang on the money when he's said that the players we've taken were good enough to do better at this tournament but pretty much all of them have underperformed, in typical England fashion.

Our best performance was the opening loss to Portugal where we created the better chances against possibly the best team in the tournament and the most likely winners at the moment. Both sides from our group won their semi's easily, so perhaps us missing out in the way we did wasn't quite a bad as some have made out (and at least we qualified unlike some of the other major countries).