Now that both England and Czech Republic have qualified there's gonna be practically nothing at stake in this match. All the drama is in Croatia Vs Scotland.

And yet German TV has decided we must watch this one instead of Croatia v Scotland. :rolleyes:

 

England started brightly with Sterling missing a shot he should have scored but I’m assuming that was an accident and not part of Southgates plan. It looked too much like flowing attacking play

Raheem Sterling scores!!

And Sterling finds the net :cheer:

Kane has actually had a shot!!!!- Straight at the keeper.

Can't see one goal being enough for England, Czechs are making plenty of chances

We are so open defensively, not sure if this is a by-product of playing Grealish/Saka, I can't remember us giving up as many chances vs Scotland and Croatia.

 

Still our midfield is weak as pish.

Could still go either way I think, plenty of good chances for both sides, for a second I thought that chance from the Czechs earlier in the half was going in!

Apart from a few Czech chances, I think its been pretty easy for England so far and I think they could have been more goals up by now. I think I will watch the Scotland v Croatia match second half.

Useless 20 minutes from England.

At least you’ll have Germany next round probably :cheer:

What a boring second half this has been :zzz:

Southgate continually trying to bore us all to death, we're absolutely dreadful is second halves.

@1407439016417505292

I can't see England getting past Germany/France/Portugal in the next round. Raheem Sterling is doing all the goalscoring for England so far.

Well that was a mixed bag, but hey, we can still score at least x Let's hope Sterling doesn't have to isolate at any point :lol:

 

Hungary to somehow come 2nd tomorrow please :basil:

I just hope England can score more goals when they play the big teams in the next round, 1 goal is not enough :D they do get boring after awhile

 

Mind you Henderson did score but it was disallowed

The overreaction is a bit much (in general, not on here). Top of the group with zero goals conceded is about as good as we could expect. We're not gonna blow every team away 4-0 which is what the consensus seems to expect.

 

Defensively we've been pretty sound which is not what I expected pre-tourno. But we're offering almost nothing whatsoever going forward despite all the attacking flair. That has to be put on Southgate I'm afraid. Kane needs dropping for the next match, completely disinterested. Favouritism over form creeping in there.

It’s ridiculous the pressure on Southgate this tournament all of a sudden everyone his granny and her dog have an opinion as if they know more than anyone else and it’s all down to success at the previous tournament when there was no expectation now all of a sudden he gets criticised for not winning every game easily. I swear never change English public!! Build them up just to hit them down ASAP!!

It’s ridiculous the pressure on Southgate this tournament all of a sudden everyone his granny and her dog have an opinion as if they know more than anyone else and it’s all down to success at the previous tournament when there was no expectation now all of a sudden he gets criticised for not winning every game easily. I swear never change English public!! Build them up just to hit them down ASAP!!

 

Well yes there is a point here. Personally I find the social media criticism all a bit too much, there is this huge glamour for Grealish from the media. I like him a lot, but it was noticeable in the first half how many chances we kept giving up with him, Rice and Phillips. Henderson coming on shored up the midfield and gave a bit more protection. And certainly the OTT to Saka playing over Sancho - I like Sancho a lot but Saka always looks dangerous.

 

The bigger problem is we just seem to revert back to shape and we look disjointed and unsolid. My worry is that we are too conservative and risk adverse that if we have to open up and chase a game we will be unable to do so..

The biggest weakness of England in recent years and in this squad is definitely defensively and the protection it gets from midfield. I think we've been incredibly solid so far, having been to watch us play 5 times in June we haven't really looked like conceding. The chances the opposition have been getting have been both limited and of poor quality, to limit Czech and Croatia to the chances they had when we were 1-0 has been superb. It'll be interesting to see how this way of playing holds up against a better side, but I am quietly a bit more confident of beating a decent team than I was four weeks ago.