knockout round

Agreed on Clyne. I quite like his game, liked him at Southampton too. Offers just as much going forward as he does tracking back and on set plays. Much higher defensive IQ in my opinion.

I don't buy the CL experience either, and the reason I don't is because even if you remove this experience from the equation, none of the opponents up to now had it either. Every team should have been dominated by England.

I do agree that they didn't have the ability to break down a packed defense. This is a problem for every team these days, but it's nothing new really. The game starts at 0-0, and this is the stage at which games are won and lost. England scored first, which forced Iceland to come get a goal...and they did! At that stage, the complaints about bus parking are irrelevant, because Iceland didn't park it. In fact, they capitalized on poor defending and goal keeping, which is a separate issue.

It's always easy to look back, but when you look further back, you can see the pattern. It's all about preparation and team selection, and it was poor from all the players. I'd almost rather they pick a less high profile squad for one that's keen and organized. I feel the team would have done better if they fielded the entire Leicester squad in most positions with English Nationals, than this. They would have at least run out a TEAM, instead of 11 positional players of the highest perceived talent.

Drinkwater, Mark Noble, Danny Simpson, Cresswell, Albrighton...I feel like if you stuck these guys in a side against the likes of Wilshere, Rooney, Ali, Walker, Rose and Sturridge, you'd probably come out a winner. Looking at the seasons these lads had compared to the others (ie Spurs players), I can't say I'd have selected the Spuds.

One of the alleged pluses of this English squad was that it had 5 Spurs players on it. That they were used to playing with each other and had had a good year. So much for that idea.

They didn't realise that Spurs ran out of gas the last month of the season and their players were a spent force. Brings up that old chestnut about the physicality of the Premier, a lack of a winter break and the too many games English players have to play.

Indeed. Plus they're a young team and as I mentioned, the main striker in Kane had a very poor start to the season. It seems to me teams in this tournaments need to ride the hot striker, and Harry Kane was not this striker.

Looks like Slippy G wrote a column in today's paper talking about the exit. Essentially saying the players made poor decisions on the back of the pressure knowing that going out like they did would be all the talk...and it is!

Interesting read given he would never offer this level of clarity as a player...which is a shame.

Kompany with similar sentiments about the excuse of the quality of the players and the league being not good enough, as an easy excuse and not true.

Anyhoooooo...the tradition repeats once again eh boys?

In the end we should be looking at why other teams win, and less at why we lost.

Concede fewer goals for a kick-off. Was it naive to have five strikers in the squad, and then use a striker as a mid?
How many well known strikers in Italy's squad? Amd the one they are using likely does not get into the England squad.

It is strange how poor some of the strikers have performed so far at these Euros

Poland, Germany and Italy have reached the quarters with practically no help from their strikers. Griezmann, Ronaldo and Lukaku have had one good game. Bale is the only striker in quarters that has had more than one good game.

bale isn't even a "striker". Frankly, Rashford isn't either, but everyone thinks he is.

Milt I agree...hence my comparisons to my points of squad selection.

The fact remains you need to have positional players playing in their positions. I believe Rooney to be an outlier (as there are a few other examples) since his performances up to this point have been quite good.

You can also look at it quite simply...If Hart made his saves and Kane/Vardy/Sturridge/Lallana scored goals, doing the jobs they're in the side to do, then we wouldn't be sitting here.

The Spains, Italys, Germans, win because they don't cock up their jobs. Simple as that. Neuer and Buffon haven't let in a goal.

It's very easy to over complicate the issue with tactics and what ever else the number hungry analysts love, but it's REAL easy to see the problems. This is a four week tournament...the best performing team always wins.

I think it is down to mistakes as well.  England gave up 4 goals, two shots that Hart muffed, the mistakes by Rooney and Walker on Iceland s' long throwin and Hart's positioning on the Russia goal. The better sides don't make those kind of mistakes.  You can not make mistakes that  give up on average a goal a game when you can't score more than a goal a game yourself.

Mistakes. IMO two ways mistakes occur.
1- lower quality players naturally make more errors than better players. Walker on the throw in. Whether they have practiced that scenario or not he should never lose his guy like that.
2- tactically driven mistakes. Rooney is the man left marking the throw in for the header. He is over matched 100 times out of 100 by that guy. It should have been Cahill or Smalling or even Dier

A couple of seasons ago when Suarez was ripping it up, almost winning the whole thing at Liverpool, the teams defenders were roundly criticsed for the number of errors leading to goals. At the time I felt it was harsh, because the first thing that was leading to mistakes was a tactical choice to essentially only two players in defensive positions when we had the ball, and then only 4 players when we didn't. Everyone else was pressing or on the front foot waiting for the turnover.
That lead to defenders being one v one with no cover over and over again, therefore exposing them multiple times to the risk of a personal error.

Back to the Euros. Italian defenders have lots of help, so even if they make a mistake, lots of cover to clean up. No shots, no goals.
Hart gives up a stupid free kick goal because for some reason he sets a wall to lock his view of a shot he knows is just hit randomly at the goal and relied on late movement. Thats a shot a goalkeeper want to see all the way. The second goal v Iceland? Shit marking from mids to allow that guy to get between the lines, then a failure to press him by either Cahill or Smalling, who both prefer the block (cahill likes to use his arms whenever possible) to the tackle. Plus Hart is fucking shit.

I don't buy argument #1. Never have. Greece in 2004...Iceland, Ireland, Rep Ire, Hungary in 2016. All average players who have had their teams succeed, relatively speaking.

Point #2, I agree principle, but in the specific case of Rooney, the head on was done by a centre half. Cahill and Smalling were marking the attacking players near the goal, which is good "tactically" speaking. Its the second ball that should be dealt with, which Cahill didn't do. Even then, Walker didn't mark his man. Rooney could have put the man off, but he risks giving away a penalty with a bad challenge. A very easy thing to do. Credit Iceland here...this was a well worked set piece, that regardless of it's X's and O's, England should be able to get one back every day of the week.

On the second goal, You can blame a lot of players on this. Rooney, Ali, Rose, Dier, all ball watching...but Hart has to save this every single time. Buffon saves it, Neuer saves it. I don't think the Iceland GK had to make a single save.

As a United supporter, I'm quite used to this over the last two seasons. VS the opposition, we outpassed, out possessed, and out shot the competition. But they did all the easy destructive stuff...out cleared, out tackled, out ran England.

I'm still shocked that teams are out there at the club and international level who have had the example of Barcelona over the last nearly ten years to watch and see how a team can break down a defensive one. But Woy is the type of guy to tell Roberto Carlos he'd never be a top level player.

I read that about Carlos. Hilarious.

We will have to agree to disagree on the throw in goal. A tall strong header of the ball should be marking that man every time.

There is talk of Bilic. That could the kind of move Slaven had in mind when he took West Ham. Personally I think Arsenal should be in for him.

Agreed on the last point. West Ham will be a good one to watch this season. Dark Horse for me. I'm assuming this give their ability to hang on to Payet.

As for the goal, I don't disagree, but outside of Smalling and Cahill, there was no other big body. Perhaps Dier, and he could be held accountable since he was watching the entire play develop in the middle. He had a poor game.