coalman

I'd hope we'd have learned our lesson from last season over bringing in too many midfielders. For the the love of all that's holy, Saints, get a striker.

Fucking hell. I'd have been happy to get him on loan. Well done Saints for getting him for reals

Oh my. That's a thing of beauty

You start to wonder if there are payment clauses which kick in when he has attended enough team training sessions.

Our goalkeeping coaches are world class at training the good habits out and playing as part of suicidal defensive possession unit is a surefire way to crush whatever confidence they arrive with.

It's a classic Saints season. Start slow in the league, crush an opponent in the cup and build momentum before surviving by the skin of our teeth. Or start slow in the league, get outplayed by lower league opposition in the cup and set our sights on being relegated with 5 games left. Something like that anyway...

Defender didn't get the ball. Did go through the back of the man. Penalty all day long. The attacker has every right to get his body between the defender and the ball. The only thing not in Stu's favour was he had his arm up trying to pull the defender out of the way.

I think the problem is the other 10 players aren't used to playing in Trent's quarterback system. We don't have wide receivers running the right channels and our linebackers aren't blocking their zones.

Stop Trentwanking in midfield. Play Foden to his strengths. Have width on the left. Give Kane support or pick a different player. And for fucks sake move the ball quickly and stop standing off opponents. Picking Alexander-Arnold in midfield reminds me of the dark days where Elyounoussi was undroppable. It's an international tournament - we can't afford to play a man down. Lest there be any fucking doubt - the second you want to play someone at quarterback (a position from a completely different sport) you should probably compose a long and detailed apology to hand in with your resignation from being a football manager.

It seems straightforward. Drop Trent. Play Foden in the middle. Play Palmer on the left.

Even Nathan Jones couldn't make this group of players look thus bad. There, I said it

We should try Trent in midfield. Only his passing range can unlock defences. No, wait..

Cole Palmer has to be feeling pretty hard done by here.

This is how you get Germany in the next round.

This is like watching Saints under Selles or Jones.

Oh FFS put Trent out of our misery.

Has he had a good game there for Liverpool? This is a player considered a liability in his natural position. Yet somehow he's such a genius he can stroll around and do whatever he feels like. Given how conservative Southgate is this feels particularly mental.

He's finding lots of space when they have the ball for sure.

Vestergaard versus Saka seems like a red card waiting to happen

Given he's there for passing ability....

Scotland can lay claim to being the most clinical side at this tournament. They've scored one goal from 0 shots. And now they've had a corner too.

Slovakia are playing some really nice football here. Belgium having a proper scare.

To get the best out of Harry Kane you need pacy wide players to feed off him (think Son at Tottenham or Musiala/Sane at Bayern). Saka gave us width but Foden naturally gravitates to playing as a 10. Which doesn't work when Kane also gravitates there. Have to say that expecting Kane to make something of the barrage of long balls fired his way is not playing to his strengths. Get the ball on the deck and he'll open teams up. Have pacy players breaking past him and he'll have space to play. Treating him like an old fashioned number nine and lumping it is just madness. Particularly against a physically strong time like Serbia. Alexander-Arnold is not a midfielder. If you give him space and time to spray the ball around he'll look fantastic. If you put him under pressure he'll cough up possession. For Christ's sake play a specialist in that position. Playing a man down in midfield is inviting disaster. Our midfield was too predictable. Nobody wanted to take the ball on the half turn and break (with the exception of Bellingham who looks like an utter beast). That made it easy to defend against us. There were no out balls either over the top or short. We were tidy for four or five passes then back to Pickford an punt. Then expecting Kane, Saka or Foden to compete for those balls (they aren't those kinds of player). Foden had a mare as did Kane but we didn't give any service. Rice was the glue that protected our defence. Without him we'd be in all kinds of trouble. Serbia didn't really have a sniff of goal for all their possession in the second half. The trouble is - we managed to create almost nothing. One chance for the goal which was a deflected cross. One cross from Bowen for Kane in the second half. We simply didn't play with any width with the exception of Saka. But, it's tournament football. We played badly and we top the group with 3 points and a clean sheet. So many times England have fluffed their opening lines so it's nice to be sitting pretty despite being pretty awful.

As long as it's the centre circle before kicking off, sure.

Sticking Trent in midfield is a lot like signing Rothwell on loan. Fixing a problem that doesn't exist.