LogFAQs > #965816598

Another top team doing crap as we are is not an excuse for our own NT's poor performances. It's like people in 1993 going "At least the French didn't qualify either" in response to England failing to qualify. Trust me, I would've probably made a comment about France's run thus far in the Nations League yesterday, but held back knowing we are doing just as bad.

I recall Luka Modric the other day saying something along the lines of "playing for the NT is important regardless whether or not it's a friendly", which is what the Nations League is: a glorified set of friendlies (with a mini tournament the following year for the League A Group winners). The fact that Modric is considered one of the best players of his generation, helped take Croatia to the final in 2018, just won the UCL with Real Madrid while still playing really good at his age, and given that Croatia are doing well thus far in their group, makes me believe that he didn't say that just for the sake of it.

Not to mention, friendlies are still important in terms of building and maintaining momentum heading into major tournaments. A month ago, many people actually believed we were one of the favorites alongside Brazil and France, and this came off being Runners up in the Euros, convincingly winning our qualifying group and additional victories in the March friendlies.

Now? Unless we win the two matches in September (and that Italy game is an absolute must win if we want any chance of not getting relegated) we'll be entering Qatar as a side that looks to be on the downswing (worse if Southgate is already gone by that point and/or someone like Harry Kane (who is far and away the biggest contribution to scoring goals) gets injured beforehand) with little momentum, probably having been relegated, and only being the favorites to win our group by default in the minds of the bookies/media.

The United States (whom we have never beaten in a competitive game), Iran (located close to Qatar and whom many consider to be an underrated side), and Wales (Gareth Bale) are not going to be walks in the park. Those teams are all very capable of getting a result against England even before this, and we've already lost previous groups to two of them in recent years when it SHOULD have been easy. Then we got destroyed by Germany and embarrassed by Iceland. Do not think for one second this England wouldn't lose against Senegal or even Qatar if we meet them.

And completely agreed with England's luck in 2018 and 2021. For our 2018 run, we had two easy group games for Kane to get his Golden Boot, a loss to Belgium, almost went out in the round of 16 when Colombia scored a last minute goal in the second half to bring it to extra time and were briefly losing in penalties, a win against Sweden in the Quarter Finals when it could have easily been against Germany had they not messed up in the groups, losing at ET to Croatia, then another loss against Belgium.

For 2021, we played all but one game at home and were effectively the defacto host nation that tournament, coasted through the group with two 1-0 wins, beat a Germany that were in the middle of rebuilding (and as you said, a manager who was on his way out), probably the most comfortable victory we've ever had in a knockout stage match against Ukraine, ET winner against Denmark via a rebounded penalty take, and the loss against Italy, a side that followed up their victory by failing to qualify for the World Cup.

We were definitely due for a reality check, but I was hoping it be against one of France, Denmark or Argentina in the Quater Finals (since I never felt we winning the whole thing anyway). It appears we couldn't wait that long. There were a few players that normally should've played this month but for one reason or another didn't (Jordan Henderson, Phil Foden outside of the last quarter of tonight's game) and Southgate is obviously trying out some different players against stronger teams, but losing 1-0 and 4-0 to Hungary in the same month (the latter being one of the worst home defeats in England history) when those were supposed to be an easy 4/6 points is inexcusable. Even if we rebound, the good faith England had built last year has definitely vanished.

As for Southgate, I would keep him on for now as manager and see if he can turn things around in September. But if we do poorly in Qatar I'm all for the manager role moving onto someone else.