All Activity

A packed Olympic Stadium in Berlin, late 1930s. I think. German footballer Rudolf Raftl, the Germany goalkeeper, and a German defender rush in to clear the Aston Villa attack during a friendly match between a German Select XI and Aston Villa, at the Olympiastadion (Berlin Olympic Stadium) .14th May 1938. Aston Villa, who were on a three-match tour of Nazi Germany, won the game 6-3. Not sure who the teams are in the two pictures above. They are playing in the Olympic Stadium,Berlin in the late 1930s.

If Pickford hadnt made two very good saves late on and the woodwork hadnt saved us a couple of times the scoreline could have looked grotesque. As it was a possession stat of 12% late on is the sort of figure you might see when Chelsea play in the early rounds of the FA or league Cup was ugly enough. We can blame the manager and the next one but it's not gonna get us any closer to actually winning a competition.

I own it. I didn't count on England to be so miserably bad against Argentina they wouldn't get to meet them in the first place. Arguably the first time since 1986 that England came in as favourites and again England underestimated an irrepressible genius. Only Messi makes a perfectly flat square cutback just begging to be hit, followed up by a perfectly aimed cross that somehow evades 3 6ft+ English defenders to land on the forehead of the second smallest guy on the pitch. Maybe Olise or Yamal pull that off on a good day too. Tuchel built a team for the counter-press and the counter-attack and then decided to do neither. Two underwhelming teams but whereas Argentina rose to the level of its opponent, England descended to theirs. Tuchel deserves most of the blame, of course. Less for leaving out Palmer/Foden and far more for leaving out Adam Wharton who would have been a great complement or substitute to Rice or Anderson. His comments about 'DNA' are unfounded, given that he had three of the most recent PL winners, three CL winners (one of whom could legitimately be called his protege), a Treble winner, the current European Golden Shoe holder, and the form player of the tournament in Jude Bellingham. It was Tuchel's decision to play more defensively in the second half. The one thing in the world that Messi cannot do at age 39 is run, and yet, they never once required him to do it. They spent ~75 minutes denying him space only to give him the freedom of Atlanta from there on in. Firstly the wind went out of England's sails when Anderson, who pocketed both Paredes and Fernandez with ease, got a yellow card. Then it was Tuchel who ceded momentum the moment Gordon was taken off for Ezri Konsa when he could have easily switched in Rashford or Madueke or even Ollie Watkins to keep the pressure on.

Cheers, I like the pictures of the olde stadiums with vast terraces.

Barry Bridges with Sir Alf, Jack Charlton and Nobby Stiles. Looks like The Bridge terraces in the background. I know England trained at The Bridge, certainly in the early - 1960s.

Almost as if playing him for that many games n such a short time was a daft idea, especially after taking another injury prone right back as "cover".

Above: Barry Bridges surrounded by autograph hunters.

It’s such a shame he doesn’t seem able to play full back anymore not week in week out for a full season but he can still play there, in midfield or the right hand side of a back 3 like Dave did when he couldn’t go up and down anymore. With the contract he just signed I don’t see him going anywhere and with the fans feeling distant enough from many of these players those the fans have a connection too especially the Cobham boys are still important. Hopefully Levi gets back to his best and Josh gets more games too

My great grandfather was Dutch. Wanna make something of it?

Our track record in both the World Cup and the Euros is not winning the competitions, regardless of who the manager is. The players could be part of the reason. Tuchels tactics were poor v Argentina late on given the outcome, but we have hardly been in sparkling form throughout the competition, and indeed in other competitions. Clearly there's something missing. The players are probably as a group not top level. And our expectation is probably too high - mine certainly increases as a competition progresses, right up until reality cuts in. We had the World Champions in trouble at 1-0 and should have crushed any hope they had of a comeback, a top level team would have done that. Not one player, well maybe Pickford, stood firm in the closing stages they were all overwhelmed.

This is a brilliant video explaining how it went right, then the changes he made that went so badly wrong. Argentina had all the momentum, so Tuchel does nothing to change that, in fact he just completely plays into it and concedes everything taking Gordon of for Konsa. Awful management.

We had players in that England squad. Weird.

Absolute bo**ocks, these players seem to manage it when playing for some of the best teams in Europe, all the team on the weekend play for teams that get to the final few in the CL, theres nothing wrong with their mentality. What we saw was Tuchel do what he has done with his teams for years, score and shut up shop, get deeper and more compact, pull wide attackers back and in. It worked against Mexico and Norway, just, the difference is Argentina are better and if you just concede all the pitch and ball to a team like them then they will score. Tuchel said he was brought in to "fix" all that, and yet didnt, he was as bad if not worse than all our other coaches. Not even surprised hes blaming players again, its his go to when things fail.

A loss? His book value is between 60m and 70m.

Barco probably didn't realise that Jude speaks Spanish and over heard what he was saying.

100%. Tuchel was brought in to get us over the line. If we were happy with cowardice and a Semi final we should have just kept Southgate. What Tuchel did with the reputation that follows him is unforgiveable. For me there's no way back from this, he needs to walk or be sacked.

That's more accurate.

Tuchel made a point of ciriticising Southgate when he got the job, saying how he knows what were missing and how to get us playing to win. He then did everything Southgate used to do multiplied by 10, I would love to see Southgate come out and just say "Hey Tuchel, f**k you"....

Tuchel believes its the DNA of English players and they should share the blame. from sky news.. It wasn't his formation that was wrong in Atlanta, the problem instead is a weakness in the English football DNA which means the players struggle to keep possession when under pressure. "In this moment my feeling was no structure in the world could have helped us," Tuchel says, "because actually we were too passive and we were not physical enough, we didn't stop runners arriving in our box and the deliveries were wrong too. "I haven't seen the data yet, but I think just right after the goal the momentum swings completely and ball possession drops dramatically. "We couldn't find any duels anymore, that's why we dropped deeper and deeper, it was never the plan, but it happened. "(We) couldn't stop the runners from second line, the midfielders, through our gaps, and the deliveries were on the highest level. You need to get back on the ball, otherwise you cannot break the pressure and you cannot get the momentum back. "I think ball possession plays then a crucial role, it's maybe not in our DNA like it is in our Spanish DNA or in our Argentinian-Brazilian DNA, to take the ball and control the game with the ball."

Your hours poring over the Moldovan league over a pint and a Marlboro had to pay off.

Yes.

Didn't Palmer do a similar thing to the Spanish players when England won the Euro U21? After he scored he went in front of the Spanish bench to celebrate, if I recall correctly.

Looks like Dragojevic will get over the line this week, definitely an intriguing signing with the potential there. Then it’s whether we still chase that Hjerto-Dahl with the fee seeming to continue to rise. Probably ends any hope of getting Mikey Moore back for a second season unfortunately though.

X (formerly Twitter)UtdArena (@UtdArena) on XLook at what England did straight after scoring:BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS TUCHEL