England Senior Team General Discussion Thread

I am amazed that he started for Huddersfield.

 

Sorry for harping on about Stoke but before he came off the best player on the pitch was McEachran for Brentford. I'd swap him for Allen in a heartbeat going by that performance.

The Championship is a terrible standard. The good players look like they are in a sheep draft. I forgot just how poor it is. It's unnaceptable given the amount of money some of the teams have. No wonder Southgate is weary.

 

Sorry about this, but this sounds like sour grapes. Leeds played excellently against Stoke last week, I saw that match, and Stoke were terrible, not the Championship standard. Brentford are a good footballing side too. Rowett should ship out the crybabies who think they are too good for the Championship, still a lot of them are playing for Stoke.

 

I find the Championship and the lower leagues in general borderline unwatchable. If this is the sort of environment that new coaches cut their teeth in then it's no wonder we're not producing any. The amount of physicality and fouls that are let go by the referees almost dictates that it'll stay as primitive as it is too.

 

There are some lower table Championship teams which are overtly physical, but there are a lot of good managers or coaches there. What are you writing could have been true 10 years ago, but for me now it's a much better league to watch than the calculable and boring Premier League.

 

When was the last time a top manager earned his stripes in the Championship?

 

You should know that this question is not about the quality of the Championship. "Top managers" come from foreign countries because being a coach of a Portuguese or Greek top club looks much better than winning the Championship. In this climate a top Premiership club will never trust a manager from the Championship, when they can get someone like Klopp or Emery. Or if you think Bielsa or Potter are crap coaches just because they are working in the Championship than we should leave this subject.

 

You're not answering the question. Your subjective view of the quality of the league is neither here nor there, I'm talking about what that stone age environment produces in terms of coaches, and the answer is clearly not a lot. It's probably not some sort of cosmic coincidence that the lower leagues indirectly incentivise kick and rush football and that type of coach is all we produce. If you watch Spanish or German football all week and then switch on a Championship game it is truly jarring how primitive it is by comparison. I think that needs to change if we're going to produce progressive coaches, either that or aspiring coaches simply need to leave England and try plying their trade elsewhere.

 

'If you watch German or Spanish football all week'

What you mean by that is that the top Sherman and Spanish teams play better football than the Championship sides. It's not like you're watching Levante v Valladolid or Hertha v Nurnberg.

 

Sour grapes? About what? I agree Stoke were terrible they'll probably get it together and be in the play-off mix because they have a deeper squad and there are 46 games. They played against perhaps 2 of the better teams in the league and so many 5 yard passes were going astray. I just think it should be better given the money available what's wrong with that?

 

I think less has changed in 10 years than you think. A manager like Warnock has the Championship down. It's depressing.

There was an idea a few years ago of an epl 2, I used to hate the idea but now I'd be keen. I also see no reason it has to be 24 teams, it just seems so archaic.

 

These are the highlights, for people to make up their own mind.

 

Yes, I'm really baffled by this comparison myself. Why should we compare the Championship to Bundesliga 1 or La Liga, why not the second divisions there?

 

I do not think that, say Brighton, Burnley or Huddersfield play much better football than the best Championship teams now. If Stoke would have been played against Rotherham and Bolton I would say I understand your opinion, but Leeds and Brentford are not playing hoofball, nor a lot of other teams there.

 

Yes, there are some old type of coaches like Warnock or Pulis, but even a few years ago the Championship was full of the likes of Lee Clark, Dougie Freedman or Russell Slade, the typical lower league managers. Now there is Dean Smith (Brentford), Lee Johnson (Bristol) or Lampard at Derby for example, all of them are bright and forward thinking coaches. Also there are some good foreign ones. So as someone who follows the Championship closely, I can see some improvement.

 

Because we're not talking about the attacking talent or the entertainment value, we're talking about how teams are coached. Just look at the team shape, how they press, what they do when they lose the ball. The English lower leagues, and to some degree the Premier League too, are all over the place. I firmly believe the root of all of it is how the game is refereed in England, personally.

Sure, but I never made the point that there was no improvement, I compared the state of coaching in English football to elsewhere, and the difference is stark in my opinion. We're still seemingly 10 years behind down there at best.

 

It's an extremely tough ask to change the football culture outside of the Premier League. Your average Rotherham or Bury fan will still be screaming at the players all game to get stuck in, stop messing about with it at the back etc. The fans will still celebrate a hoofed clearance into the stands as if it was a goal. I don't see how that can/will ever change to be honest.

 

Been away for a bit:

- Thought Shaw was decent against Leicester City. Hopefully he keeps that up and forces Southgate into calling him up as we don't look so sharp at LB atm.
- We got two of the better RB's in world football with Trippier and Alexander-Arnold.
- Alli had one of his best games for club/country in a while against Newcastle.
- Southgate should contemplate fielding the team around Sterling.
- I'd like for Loftus-Cheek to go on loan to Schalke.
- Not much of a goal keeping crisis if you still have your No. 1 available.

 

I just think you're overreacting and you're comparing the 20th-44th best sides with the top 5 sides in Germany + Spain. The 44th best side in Germany is a midtable 3rd tier side. England has a unique amount of pro sides.

Also, I don't know how you can have watched Dortmund or Leipzig last season and if previous ones if you think they're well coached. The Bundesliga is often really poorly coached, sides have no structure and it's just 11v11 trying to dribble past eachother through the middle of the pitch.

 

Give me English refs rather than continental ones who seem to think football is a non-contact sport.

I find a lot of the top European teams borderline unwatchable when it is full of diving, feigning of injury and refs allow it to be played at so slow a pace with stoppage after stoppage.

Whilst we all would like beautiful technical football, it is entertainment and ultimately it needs to be fun. Championship football generally is, especially with its unpredictability

 

Ali doesn't suit the way England play . He is overrated anyways and if he is not scoring goals he is a very ordinary player. He should essentially be judged as a striker because he doesn't play as a midfielder at all.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ate-looking-england-youngsters-freshen-squad/

Copied in for anyone caught by the paywall:



Gareth Southgate looking to England youngsters to freshen up squad

• Matt Law, football news correspondent

15 AUGUST 2018 • 10:30PM

Gareth Southgate is keen to freshen up his England World Cup squad with some the country’s best young players as soon as possible.

And that could be good news for Ryan Sessegnon, Joe Gomez, Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho as Southgate plans for England’s Uefa Nations League games against Spain and Switzerland next month.

It is unlikely all four players will be part of Southgate’s squad, but the England manager is monitoring their early progress this season.

Sessegnon and Gomez started for Fulham and Liverpool, respectively, on the first weekend of the Premier League, while Foden was on the City substitutes’ bench against Arsenal.

Foden was superb in City’s Community Shield victory over Chelsea, in front of Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland at Wembley, but needs regular first-team football to force his way into the senior squad.

Southgate can easily free up space for Sessegnon and Gomez, with 27-year-old Danny Welbeck and 32-year-old Gary Cahill in danger of losing their England places.

Both men are out of favour at Arsenal and Chelsea, and are expected to be sacrificed for younger blood. Gomez would have gone to the World Cup ahead of Cahill had it not been for injury.

Sancho regularly forced his way into the Borussia Dortmund team for the final two months of last season and the forward’s new campaign is due to start on August 20 in the DFB Cup.

Another player Southgate will take a look at before naming his squad for the Spain and Switzerland games is Chelsea midfielder Ross Barkley.

Barkley missed the World Cup after injuries ruined last season for him, but the 24-year-old has returned to full fitness and started Chelsea’s first game of this campaign against Huddersfield Town.

The former Everton man faces competition from another of Southgate’s England players, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and Mateo Kovacic, but new Chelsea head coach Maurizio Sarri has already made it clear that Barkley will be an important player for him this season.

Barkley has not played for England since May 2016, but he has the talent to bring creativity and drive to Southgate’s midfield that has often been accused of lacking a genuine playmaker.

Asked about England’s World Cup campaign and the prospect of winning back his international place, Barkley said: “I watched it. It was a disappointment for myself not being there, but it is what it is. The team did really well and the team's going far. You can see the direction the team's going in.

“Hopefully, with the performances that I put in early on, I can get back in the squad. That’s my aim, but to be doing well for Chelsea is first thing.”

 

Mawson is out until September, but there is Tarkowski, Lascelles or Dunk to choose from.