Also reinforces how much of a waste Toulon was under Boothroyd. Choudhury, Connolly + Pearce are nowhere near this squad. In Pearce's case, he's not even in the U20s.
I doubt Winks will go since he's too important to the seniors now and probably Gomez will be too. Potential starting XI: GK: Gunn RB: Alexander-Arnold CB: Gomez CB: Fry LB: Chilwell RCM: Foden LCM: Loftus-Cheek CAM: Maddison RW: Sancho ST: Abraham LW: Gray 2nd Team: GK: Woodman RB: Wan-Bissaka CB: Tomori CB: Clarke-Salter LB: Sessegnon RCM: Onomah LCM: Cook CAM: Mount RW: Nelson ST: Solanke LW: Lookman 3rd Team: GK: Henderson RB: Kenny CB: Kelly CB: Konza LB: DaSilva RCM: Davies LCM: Oakley-Booth CAM: Dowell RW: Roberts ST: Calvert-Lewin LW: Hudson-Odoi
Rightly or wrongly, the senior squad takes precedence over the U21s Some of our best eligible players may not be used next summer. The likes of TAA, Chilwell, Maddison, Winks are highly likely to play a lot of football this season. Having a rest over the summer might be more beneficial to them - especially, any players that Southgate has in mind for Euro 2020 qualifying.
IDK the answer to your questions but I know Wolves have a Portuguese midfielder called Ruben Neves, who if he was English we'd all be drooling over. He's my favourite Premier League player.
The #YoungLions side facing Italy tonight. 👊 pic.twitter.com/QCQS7FTipQ— England (@England) November 15, 2018
Only 5 outfield players on the bench, including just one defender! Cant believe Boothroyd hasn’t called up extra players.
Two keepers on a seven man bench The two man midfield of Cook and Davies has looked pretty awful to say the least all campaign. But we persist with it. This is why it’s pretty criminal to not have called up some other CM’s. We all know by now what these midfield options can and can’t do.
It just looks amateurish and embarrassing! I wonder how much depth the Italy bench has just out of interest
With Onomah out I'd have called Ejaria who's playing well at Rangers and played well in his last u21 appearance
Need to see a wider view of things, but where the hell was Davies for either of the cut backs? Cook had charged off to help Dasilva, but there was no England player in the middle at all.
Hope Clarke-Salter is ok. Davies has been playing a lot higher than I expected. Its left a gap behind to exploit a few times. Foden has shown more tactical discipline in a similar role.
Nice headed goal by Solanke though. I must ha e missed Clarke-Salter being injured? Anyway, just thought the depth of the benches is interesting:
The midfield is a sieve. Seen too few games where Cook has played in a midfield that's looked defensively sound.
It just seems like such a naive overall approach. Five players standing off the ball high up with mass amounts of space between them and the defence. What exactly do they coach when they are with the players? We look lost at times when they have the ball.
Must admit, especially in this second half we look good going forward, some of our football has been very good imo.
There have been some good individual displays but it seems like we haven’t really learned much about our flaws. The balance of our midfield is still too messy for me. When we won the U19 Euros and U17 WC we had complimentary options that knew their roles. We are nowhere near that still and I don’t think Boothroyd has any idea of what needs to be done. Imagine bringing on Dowell in that role to try to close a game at the finals?
Some good things in spell. I wish Foden saw more of the ball but he showed his class again. Tbh I think Dowell in a deep role is interesting and he started very well. 15 last mn were terrible though, defenders kept hoofing it forward and the ball kept coming back, lack of coaching IMO. We had the players to keep it better.
I wonder if Boothroyd was standing by the side of the pitch shouting ‘ Hoof it ‘ but yeah I agree, last 10 mins there was to much of that when some composure was needed and if it was I’m sure counter attacks would have been on.