What Southgate NEEDS To Change To Win EURO 2024.

From the UK and living in Georgia — watched the game against Greece in a fan zone in Tbilisi — and let me say, if you saw the streets here after the match, you wouldn't find their qualification meaningless
And on a sporting level, look at their group, 2nd place is not out of the question
Let me know Jim if you want to cover anything on the football here in Georgia

Jim getting addicted to Twitter at the same time its being overtaken by porn bots…hmm makes you think

You dont pick your f**king football club. Your club picks you.
Either you support the closest geographically, or you support the team your Dad/Grandad tells you to support. ((Provided their not also gloryhunters.))
Them's the rules. 🤷‍♂️

Getting rid of Samism’s?

What is this woke nonsense? First a tiny purple cross on an England shirt, now we’re losing other institutional pillars like Samism’s?

What world are we living in? Shame on you, less of that lads.

Nearly under an hour for the pod 😢 I hope Football chat is pretty much non existent this week!

Ancelotti

Horrible take my man. You will see hoe MY georgia eill go through.. thats just how big we are. Who the hell do turkey and chechia think they are.. georgia is much much better and bigger. This is morenimportant to us

Not flav again james, literally keeping a good portion of your fans away imo.

Youre better than his bottom tier, delusional and reactionary content.

10:40 and we still haven't really got into the subject matter properly yet……….

Rodri, Stones, Rice and KDB as a midfield would be illegal

What England needs to change is the manager lol. How can you be excited for a tournament with Southgate in charge? If you are, it’s delusional.. this stressful culture is also not helping the players

Pickford
Stones Tomori
Arnold Shaw
Rice
Foden Bellingham
Saka Rashford
Kane
😊

I don't see how it can't be Benitez as best non prem winning manager. Consistently in the Top 4 with a financially crippled club, pushed United all the way in 08-09, won an FA Cup and the CL at Liverpool and Europa League at Chelsea, and you are throwing Marco Silva into the chat for keeping a mid table team mid table. It's not even a discussion. I'm proud of you both for being sensible.

(I know this is long but I promise it’s insightful) Right, I hate international breaks with a passion, but selfishly. If I’m honest, international breaks are not that bad. We as fans get to switch off which keeps us hungry for more – imagine if there was no gap between seasons And constant football – the same reason we don’t want World Cup every 2 years and a factor for why we don’t want the new UCL format hosting the big games regularly.

On top of that, yes there’s already enough games for players, but only the best of the best actually play all of these games. On top of this, if we moved games to the end of the season, there would still be as many games but players would just be more fit for what fans deem “more important” games. For the majority of the league the international break is a rest. And we see the biggest players be pulled from the March break every year – city, pool, and arsenal players this year.

We also want smelly Southgate to experiment more and bring in fringe players – we saw Mainoo, Dunk, Konsa, Bowen, Gordon all play this break. On top of this, these are big moments for these players careers and build heritage, Dunk proving Southgate right, and Mainoo making his debut at Wembley, as well as Rice making his 50th appearance and captaining the side are huge moments for the player and their family who dream of these and will remember these in their old.

At the end of the day, players don’t HAVE to play if they don’t want too – look at Ben White, Southgate said he made the call and Ben declined. If players really wanted their rest or wages they could easily decline the call up, but players like Bowen see this as the chance to play themselves in.

The break also gives players the chance to get away from their squads and meet up with their national teammates and take their foot off the gas, and spend time with each other which they will value.

Also, just because we had Southgate for so long we don’t care for the breaks, but teams like Nagelesmaans Germany who are HOSTING this years Euros need time to test their system, new players, new tactics, and bond. If Southgate leaves next year I guarantee this break will be looked as good for the new manager to understand his players. One of the reasons we hate this break is because we have national team stability.

Fans will always be unhappy that their favourite fringe, niche player make an appearance, but Dunk may have proven Southgate right – RDZ said he was one of Europes best defenders! And of course one game isn’t defining but it was his chance to make a statement.

We know once the tourny starts, England will go their pragmatic boring sleeves and get results.

On top of this, Rice captaining England, being the 10th Arsenal player to do so is football heritage – things like this will make it so much better when/if England DO win a trophy.

Of course there are injuries, but these players often carry injuries and play through at this stage because it means a lot to them personally, and because of the stage of the season.

As for Southgate, it’d be nice to have a more explosive manager who’s less a company man, but international football managers are notoriously strange with selection. Look at France – Deschamps barely plays Saliba who is pretty unanimously the best prospect CB in the world. Look at the backline Brazil fielded, that backline likely won’t see the light of day in a real competition.

Patriotism in this country is pretty meaningless, but for other countries it means a great deal, think about lesser footballing nations like Peru, Slovenia, Romania to name a few. These international games will be more important than their club games. And although meaningless to us, this break for some decided qualification, and provides spectacles like Spain Brazil 3-3, which is footballing heritage.

Believe it or not I hate the break at this stage of the season, but it is very England-centric and England focused to just fuck off the breaks all together.

The only solution would be to move the games to the end of the season and have the season end earlier, but that changes the established norm and requires a reshape to league fixturing worldwide and would take huge coordination.

Everyone is so upset with Ben White (not everyone but a lot of people) declining to play for England because they would LOVE to do so and would NEVER decline the honour! I think what is missing is the realization that when he stepped aside someone who was excited to be given the call. The spot wasn't left vacant.