Our man at the Euros – Reporting from Germany

I landed in Germany on Saturday the 15th of June for the 2024 European Championships, this is my second international tournament having attended Euro 2020 (held in summer 2021), time around I provided regular articles as England made their way through the tournament.

There hasn’t been a lot to talk about this time, so I thought I’d hold off until the group concluded.

What a load of tosh it’s been so far.

When I chatted to friends before the tournament, I picked pretty much an identical England starting line-up to Gareth Southgate. The only differing selection was that I would have played Foden in the number 10 position (otherwise known as the main position he played in whilst winning the Premier League Football of the Year).

I would put Bellingham alongside Rice. Then right back Trent Alexander-Arnold would be right back on the bench, not in the centre of the pitch. And you guessed it, that man Flash would be on the left wing.

Anthony Gordon is precisely what this team has been missing. With no natural left winger, we have had no width and no threat. England is essentially utilising three-quarters of the pitch.

I said before the tournament that Gordon would terrify full-backs, just as he has done all season. If he played every game, he’d pretty much guarantee you at least one penalty too.

Foden doesn’t like it out there and has kept drifting in. During the Slovenia game, he seemed to be rotating with Bellingham, who looked even less comfortable. Genius.

The first twenty to thirty minutes of the England match versus Serbia was decent. Everything since has been so dull and unimaginative and I doubt such conservative football will win this tournament.

We saw more threat in the minute plus added time that Gordon had on the pitch than we had in most of the rest of our games combined. Palmer made a difference on the right too and must be pushing to replace or at least rotate with Saka.

Typically, we have topped our group, and although it appeared to be Holland that was due to be our next (last?) opponents, instead Southgate luck has seen us paired with Slovakia. No disrespect to our mate Martin but we should be beating them.

What’s the expression? If you can’t be a good manager, be a lucky one. Something we all remember from our own period of dreadful football under a certain chap from Corbridge. The difference between our old gaffer and Gareth is the level of quality at their disposal.

Somehow France ended up runners-up in their group to join the hellish half of the draw with Spain, Germany, and Portugal.
We play Slovakia and, if we progress, will meet another pal in Fabian Schar. Switzerland has guaranteed a place in the last eight after dispatching our nemesis from three years ago, Italy. Presuming we get past Slovakia, I will see all four Newcastle players live during this tournament. A nice touch.

In the semis, it will be Turkey, Romania, Holland or Austria. I would not be at all surprised to see us bumble past Slovakia, Switzerland, and Romania, to get to another final where we get stuffed by any of the teams I mentioned on the other side of the draw.

The tournament will once again be regarded as a resounding success by all but the sane members of society, Gareth Southgate will get the green light for another two to four years of grossly mismanaging an astonishing pool of talent.

One thing that has been fantastic out here is the fans.

It can be a mixed bag following England. I took my kids for their first England game when we played Brazil in March. Two of them are half Brazilian (and full Newcastle fans) so it felt fitting to take them to a match that combined their two heritages and would have Newcastle players on both sides.

They tend to wear ear protectors at St James’ Park as the crowd is loud for them. I told them they wouldn’t need them for Wembley and they didn’t. Home games are deathly quiet, especially friendlies. It’s mainly families and casual fans and nobody bar a couple of blocks try and get any sort of atmosphere going.

On the road it’s different and this tournament the fans have been magnificent. I haven’t sat down once in any of the games.

Against Slovenia was probably the best atmosphere I’ve witnessed at an England game. We had to entertain ourselves somehow! There was a spell of at least ten, but maybe as long as twenty minutes, where we sang the Great Escape theme tune repeatedly.

Ironic really as we were midway through completing the naff escape from our group. It’s a jaunty tune though and had everyone bouncing up and down, clapping, jigging, or swinging shirts over their heads.

There were boos for Southgate.

Firstly, when the team was announced, every player got a cheer, but he got booed. Then at half-time and full-time there were boos again, that were clearly intended for one person.

It was later reported that cups were thrown at him too. I don’t agree with that at all and likewise, I didn’t take part in the booing. It was only two or three fans that did the cup throwing so not indicative of the behaviour of the vast majority. The booing, although I didn’t participate, didn’t upset me too much. The football has not been acceptable thus far and we need to change things up drastically if we’re going to have a shot at this. We as a fanbase have not been entertained in the slightest. If your favourite artist came on stage at a gig you paid loads of money for but was completely hammered and played terribly, showing a complete disregard to their paying customers, they’d probably get booed too.

Gallagher was just as woeful as Trent Alexander-Arnold as Gareth Southgate made his one adjustment to his first two starting teams. Harry Kane at times was as deep as the back four as he desperately tried to get involved in play. Everybody needs better coaching and instructions.

Southgate gets accused of not being bold enough but he’s pretty brave to keep sticking to his principles and not playing the team that virtually all fans and pundits are calling for. I guess you could also call it stubborn rather than brave.

We have the Premier League, Bundesliga, and La Liga players of the year in this team. Play them all in their correct positions, tell Kane to stay high, and get a player who is natural out left to give us that width that we’ve lacked so severely.

I am still hopeful for this tournament.

I think today will be the day that Gordon starts and I think we’ll see the first comfortable England victory of the tournament (let’s see how well this ages).

My desire is an England/Germany final with us coming out on top. Ideally on penalties. Wouldn’t that be something?

You can follow the author on Twitter @billymerlin