England National Team

Who got the Vatican, Narnia and The Shire, then?

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I can’t remember the last time we faced an easier group than this.

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I was thinking that are they spreading the teams thinly or something.

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seriously…

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Not sure why this is surprising. Two major finals and a 4th finish at a World Cup. By far the best England coach in terms of results since Sir Alf Ramsay.

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Still, ultimatey a loser.
Always found wanting at the final lap.
A nearly man who’s heavily rewarded.
But then. you don’t need trophies to be a winner…at least according to the great Moyesiah.

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During and soon after the tournaments, I may have agreed with you.

But upon reflection after a time, I have to disagree.

Southgate did the best with what we had. Yes, he could’ve been more attacking. But we failed to take into account that England have a significant lack of quality left-sided players for a long long time.

We also have a significant lack of top class defensive players, especially central defenders. The fact that we’ve gotten as far as we have with Maguire is a minor miracle in itself!

For that alone, Southgate deserves huge credit. Before him, we used to visibly shrink at the face of inferior opposition, at least on paper, at the summer tournaments. He has gone beyond that and has had us compete with actual big teams. The truth of the matter is, we just haven’t had the combination of players to be able to either compensate for defence through a suffocating attacking force, or a very strong defensive midfield presence. It will be interesting to see what Southgate’s German successor can come up with. I’m still not convinced by our central defensive choices or options at no 6.

At least Lewis Hall from Newcastle seems to have provided us some option on the left-hand side. He’s not exactly a world beater but he will do, I suppose.

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Who has today been awarded an OBE.

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His best is just not good enough. Failure is failure.
This is over-rewarding for non-achievement.

This I do agree…to a certain extent.
He do deserve royal honours but a KBE is over the top.
A CBE is only borderline palatable, with OBE more acceptable.

Anyway, just my lowly-informed opinion.
If I were to be richly rewarded just for doing my best everytime, which is plenty, I would have been a millionaire long ago.

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Sounds about right.
He deserves it, if not for his perseverance, than at least for his longevity at the managerial periphery
A winner without any need to win trophies.

He won the Europa Conference League with Westham

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He’s already a winner without it. :slightly_smiling_face:
He don’t need it, really. Still, because of it, he gained the new nickname of Moyesiah which he likes.
image

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I read a story once about Moyesy… A guy wrote into the local paper and criticised him about something or other. Moysey did some detective work with the journalists from the paper, and found out where the guy lived… He went to the guys house, and over a cup of tea, he put the guy straight…!
He was passionate for the game when he first went to the Blueshite though… Ferguson fucked him over by inserting him at Old Trafford.

My dirty secret is that once he stabilized them I think his Everton side were actually quite enjoyable to watch

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What is the actual reward of a knighthood? New stationery? As far as I know there is no material gain or actual prize.

If it is about recognition, Southgate’s achievements were plastered all over the back pages. Everyone recognizes what he has done.

If it is to do with who recognizes him, then what difference does it make what King Charles, Keir Starmer, or whatever committee they assembled, thinks?

Everyone knows the score. Depending on viewpoint either a failure because he won nothing, or a success of some degree, because he went close, twice,

Seems meaningless to get a bauble now.

A Nobel prize strikes me as very worthwhile, as that is about a significant, genuine achievement. It also comes with a monetary award (granted, that may or may not be relevant to the recipient).

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Then again that died a bit when Kissinger got the peace prize.

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True.