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Predictable result in the end bottling it on pens.

England had Italy on the ropes the first 15 mins then tried to play for a 1 nil win. Italy were not that great, Chiesa was their shining light...great player. Southgate's choice to go defensive was the deciding factor, had he chose to change things up when Italy started 2nd half bombarding us, it would have been a different result.

Sterling let himself down not taking a pen. It was the wrong decision bringing Rashford and Sancho on just to take pens when they were ice cold as far as intensity of the game play.
Always amazes me how defensive players seem to take pens before strikers/forwards, even though Maguire scored he should not have been taking a pen before the likes of Sterling.

Now back to Boris shutting the Country down again, how dare you minions have fun whilst the Deep State are taking over the world.
Back to obeying and wearing your masks and no holidays abroad this year!

pen lineup was a strange one. Youngster Saka as 5th? too much pressure for a young lad. your best pen taker should be 3rd or 5th. Hendo, Stirling and even Grealish should've been in as well.
Southgate blew it right at the final hurdle.

England got at Italy early and then...just defended. Anyway, getting closer, semi final, lost final...who knows, maybe SP will see them lift the cup one day

A great tournament for England and definately the most assured I've ever seen them. They need to take it and make sure they keep getting to semi finals. All the top teams loose finals but the more you get the there you will probably win 50% of the time, Englands problem has just been a crazy lack of consistency spread over such a long time but this might just be a springboard for you lot.

To the actual game I thought England played really well and didn't let themselves down, had Italy on the ropes for large parts of the game.

When scoring so early on and being completely on top for the first half you would like to think you could have given yourselves 2 goal cushion.

Grealish and Sancho should have come on smack bang on extra time and had 30 minutes to work with, you were the better team in extra time and should have just gone Sh*t or bust in extra time, much better than going out on penalties.

I prefer the best penalty takers going first, as if they take later on, they may not even get a penalty if the earlier (non specialist penalty takers miss).

Saka should not have been taking a penalty when the likes of Sterling & Grealish are on the pitch, experience counts allot in penalties.

Scoring early actually hurt us Southgate allowed Italy to attack us while we sat back and invited them on. Sancho and rashford were cold for penalties and saka too young. But we lost (and deserved to lose) due to southgates negatively totally gutted we will never have a better chance to win a major honour Italy were well beatable with the right mindset

England played well? No they just defended after scoring early and yes, they probably had the better squad but Italy the better manager

I pretty much called it for how it would go...defensive minded and get to Final where we get beaten by Belguim / Italy.

Trying this in Qatar, will ensure an early plane ride home.

If we want to have a shot in Qatar we should ditch Southgate and bring somebody in with far more technical nous. Utilize this unusual camaraderie before it's gone. Although I have my own take on this being because of COVID prison sentence and the real virus sweeping the globe = virtue signaling.

No experience in penalty takers was a joke. Only Kane was a regular taker. The rest of them I've never seen them take penalty for their clubs. I would have chosen Kane, Trippier, Henderson, Walker and Sterling. Players we have actually seen take penalties. Southgate should of brought attacking players much earlier to kill the game and avoid penalties if they are that nervous about taking them. Congratulations to Italy they deserved the win, they were fantastic throughout the tournament.

I don't think Henderson has taken any penalties at Liverpool? it was always Gerrard, Milner, now Salah, he took 1 for England pre-tournament he missed I think?

I agree about having experienced penalty takers to take the penalties if on the pitch, someone like Sterling has played well and score goals in the tournament, winning huge games for City, he should be taking penalties before the likes of Saka.

That's where decent management should step in and organise it, how can you go into a final, with a good possibility of penalties, having it in your mind as a manager an inexperienced 18 year old in his first PL season and first tournament is one of the main penalty takers for the national team???