England Senior Team General Discussion Thread

For him, mabe yes, but still, England switched back to 4 defenders after the World Cup, mainly to accomodate the wingers - Sterling, Sancho, Hudson-Odoi who are central to the system. If you want to play with wing backs, then you should leave out the wingers. Alexander-Arnold is great, but not that great to adjust the whole playing system to him.

 

Chillwell, Maguire, Gomez and TAA is a pretty good backline.

 

Still think he would be very effective in Beck’s old position on the right ..swinging in crosses .

 

That basically is his current position. In 2019, Beckham would also probably be best suited to playing as a right back.

 

I don’t agree with this at all. Beckham would be a central midfielder like De Bryune. Becks covered 16km in some games. He’d be perfectly suited to a high press high intensity role in the middle of the park and would have plenty of opportunity to play in crosses and shoot from distance.

 

Don't disagree with that either. Not sure you can't hold both opinions. Either would suit him. My point was more how Beckham's role doesn't really exist anymore.

 

This. To be honest, he was a bit of an obstacle of switching to a more adventurous system, but Beckham was only effective in 4-4-2 on the right.

 

Beckham was also very good as an attacking wing back in Hoddle's 3-5-2.

TAA would be a natural in that same position, but in the modern footballing world the position isn't that different to that of an attacking full back. A midfielder (Fabinho for Liverpool, Fernandinho for City, Rice/Dier/Henderson/Winks for England) sits deep, the "wingers" are actually forwards, and the full back has the whole flank to play - much like a wing back in a 3-5-2/3-4-3 or variant thereof.

 

When he was young, yes. But I've spoken about the Eriksson years, when he should have changed the system to something else to accomodate Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes together - like 4-3-3, 3-5-2 or the diamond, but he did nothing. Not just because Beckham, but it's easy too see he could have been useless in every other systems, his legs were mainly gone by then to play wing back, and as a central midfielder he was not as good as the others.

 

When we play 3 at the back he is basically going to be a winger

 

We saw the limitations of Rice against Holland. Stones came in for a lot of criticism but he wasn’t helped by Rice’s inability to link play and transition.

 

The problem is that only Winks has that ability in the current squad.

 

Southgate was mocked by McCarthy for considering Rice as a defender but I think he has more long term value to us as a CB.

 

I think I’d agree .... Gomez and Rice as CBs ...

 

I think Southgate will be more ruthless in his squad selection come September.

If/when they’re fit; RLC, Hudson Odoi, Winks, Maddison and Grealish are must picks as they address key weaknesses. Even if it means leaving out established names such as Delph and Lingard.

Other names like Gunn, Henderson, Shaw and Wan Bissaka might be in contention if they start the season strongly.

 

Dark horses: Mason Greenwood & Karamoko Dembele.

 

Dembele for the senior Squad next season? Seriously or am I missing your sarcasm

 

Greenwood must be a joke too.

 

Believe.

 

Has stones ever played as a deep cm/dm?

 

Pretty sure he has .. he’s great in possession ... I’ve always felt he’d be a great holding midfielder or maybe the central CB of three ??

 

He has for City last season. Not sure he was good enough. Pep didn't persist with it.

 

Becks is better playing at the flanks than in centre. His crosses is phenomenal as we've seen for so many years.

But today's game no longer revolves with long ball crosses because it's much more complex involving short passes and one-two movements. The marking is more compact using man-marking & zonal marking inter-changeably meaning long ball crosses have become minimum.

To suit in high press high intensity role. A player needs to be technically good, creative both with and off the ball. For example, De Bryune, the Silva's etc.

So, it'll be difficult in today's modern game.

 

Would be better if he could be a DM though, we need midfielders desperately. Having said that, we also need centre-backs I suppose.

 

There's no chance CHO and RLC will make the September squad given their serious injuries. I really hope Wan Bissaka is more than just in contention for selection. He was one of the best RB's in Europe last season and has top clubs chasing him. I fear he'll defect to Congo if he doesn't get called up in September. Whilst Walker isn't as undeserving of a call up/place in the team as some of the other members of the most recent squad(Delph, Lingard, Dier) etc, he also isn't one for the future which is what we need to be looking towards now. I feel in a few years AWB will be a much better player than him so it's crucial we make him feel he's an important part of our plans.