So Southgate, his boring brand of football nearly won, nearly.

I’m not sure you’re demonstrating awareness of what people don’t like about him.

Most people and most pundits are split between the ‘first final for 55 years’ people who are just happy to be there and those who believe Southgates negativity and blinkered view of what is unfolding in front of his eyes cost us a real chance. I’m in the latter camp.

 

The Ukraine game is doing a lot of the legwork for your argument. We weren't all that impressive in the first half against Ukraine, and it was by virtue of the fact that we got a second goal early in the second half that we then put the foot down and ran away with it, which is why we need to be more threatening to get that second goal. It was the same pattern against Croatia, Czech Republic and Italy, and eventually Italy were able to punish us. We need to make use of our attacking players and it may be that we need somebody with recent club management experience to get the most out of those players.

 

From 20 mins on, it looked like we'd started to lose control watching on TV. We'd stopped breaking forward ourselves, and their midfield 3 was getting the better of Rice and Phillips. I wasn't too concerned about 'going for it' so to speak, but we needed an extra player in the middle, even if that was dropping Mount back, or replacing him with Henderson or Bellingham. The fact he made a change so soon after the goal was frustrating, looked like he knew something needed to change but waited till the horse bolted.

That said, the achievements under Southgate go way beyond tactics. We have a squad that have a team spirit without any of the prima donnas or club cliques / rivalries that have dogged England squads for 20 years before he took charge. Keeping it that way might be a challenge as some of the younger players' careers move on, or likes of Rice, Phillips etc... make moves to so called big 6 clubs. But can't think of anybody that I would want to take over from Southgate for the World Cup.

 

The Euro's is a side dish. England didn't take it seriously until Euro 96. Everything should be geared around peaking at the World Cup. That was my main consolation the other night. At least it wasn't the World Cup.

 

I bet you were good at twister

 

Exactly - "blowing a real chance" - we lost on penalties in the final, not an early stage knockout. Bizarre.

We had all the ability when it came down to it at the end, but as we have seen countless times we lacked the psychological edge to finish the job. I believe we will build on this though now, the squad is young enough.

 

He certainly deserves the opportunity to take us foreward, I'm sure the disappointment of Sunday will strengthen us in the long run and as for Sancho he'll get more games for England when he's at Man utd.

 

So we di

So because we lost on penalties doesn’t qualify as blowing a real opportunity? Oh it’s penalties I forget that doesn’t really count as a defeat. Let’s break out the bubbly

 

Why can’t anyone praise the Germany and Denmark game but criticize the final? Can they not be separate? What do you mean ‘which is it’? It’s the way we saw of Denmark with ball control makes the Italy game so infuriating.

 

The word "chance" indicates it isn't nailed on and to get to where we did exceeded my expectations to be honest. Some on here think it is a god given right that we should win every tournament we enter. Sorry but sometimes we will lack quality etc.

I've already said that we lacked the psychological edge on Sunday when it came to penalties. We seem to improve each tournament so maybe we will win in Qatar who knows.

I certainly wasn't celebrating at 11.30 on Sunday night.

 

I don’t and never have felt it’s out right to win as I’ve never seen us win anything apart from Le Tournoi under Hoddle. But what I hope for is a manager who will be brave to change it up when it’s clear it’s no longer working or utilize our better more creative players with time to actually do anything. I’ve never seen Southgate have a plan B. He’s done well with his starting tactics but when that doesn’t work what does he have. Show us something!

 

I hope Southgate takes a couple of things away from the shoot out and tweaks how he interprets the data given to him. Pens on the training ground should have less weighting to those in matches and shoot outs. And the fact that Italy's semi and final shoot outs saw three players brought on specially for the penalties and miss.

 

He got it wrong on Sunday by not changing it up sooner when Italy were dominating play, but I feel the Germany match more than showed he can offer a plan B.

 

Certainly credit to Italy and especially Mancini who saw that they were really shaky at the start. Southgate didn’t counter that. He just played it out. Italy are good but no one listed than among the favorites to win. Yes good. 35 unbeaten is amazing.

 

I didn’t see he changed mid game against Germany. He altered his formation to match them up and it worked but had Miller scored what would he have done? I felt England largely were better and more affective during that game. I dont recall his plan B.

 

Not being rigid and changing your formation to suit, using subs effectively is a plan B. It worked and we did it comfortably. I'm not sure what more you could ask for. He got it wrong in the final, he knows that. To suggest he is one dimensional though as some are is a bit harsh.