England Senior Team General Discussion Thread

Very good point. Even if Southgate's intention behind that statement was what it said on the tin which is to try and get more English players starting for the top 6, he's wasting his time. Ultimately these clubs have huge financial clout, worldwide scouting networks and more often than not, foreign managers. This means that it's always going to be a fight that England managers and fans unfortunately can't win.

What he can do though, is send out the message that simply playing first team football is the most important factor in getting an England call up. Not just playing for a big club. Just look recently, where Delph was called up last summer despite the fact he almost never played for City last season. Dier was also regularly featuring ahead of Winks until recently despite it being the other way round at club level for quite some time. Also, in September, the Ox got a run out despite having not played regular football for Liverpool for over a year at that time whilst Maddison was left to sit on the bench. Even in this break, CHO does not warrant being picked ahead of either Barnes or Grealish no matter how exciting as he is, especially given he's slipped below Pulisic in the pecking order now.

I just think that he needs to get his own house in order with regards to selecting the most in form, match fit players available to him before he goes moaning on about a lack of opportunity for English players at top clubs.

I've just graduated with a business management degree. Do I expect to just instantly land a top management job at Apple or Google? No, I realise I must work my way up, prove myself and earn it. This is the elephant in the room that's almost never mentioned. Clubs like Chelsea, United, Liverpool, City etc are amongst the very best football clubs in the world so just like an unproven young employee would expect to work their way up in any other industry, why should it be any different with young players in football? That is something I admire in the likes of Alli, Maddison, Grealish, Sancho etc that they've not thrown a strop and have instead decided to work their way up and establish themselves the hard way.

 

It looks like Heaton has picked up an injury, so Henderson may come in. Also no Grealish in the Villa squad.

 

Yeah was hoping Grealish would play today but with him being out, Southgate won’t call him up to replace anyone.

 

This is the biggest gripe with Southgate-- he seems to set too much store by from which team a player plays rather than whether he is playing at all and, if he is, whether he is playing well.

 

I dunno, I think he just wants English players to have experience playing at the highest level. The Champions League is much, much closer to international tournament football than the Premier League is.

 

You're missing the point. The crux of my long post was that a much better message for Southgate to send out would be to tell players to go to a lesser prem club, move abroad or even go to the championship more often and make an impact at these sides, prove themselves IN ORDER TO earn a move to a CL club. Rather than just sitting and waiting in hope at a big club for your chance. How many top teams in the champions league are made up of say 75% academy graduates? Barely any, and it's almost always been that way. KDB, Salah, Mane, VVD, Laporte etc some of the best players in the PL grew to where they are at smaller clubs so that by the time a team with CL aspirations came in for them, they were already of the standard required to be a starter.

I'm not saying that players can't make it at a big club or that moving is a failsafe path to becoming a world class player. However, I believe that moving to a club with less pressure and more focus on young players is a much more reliable pathway to "making it" than waiting for your chance at a big 6 club. Generally, you have to be extremely special to breakthrough at these clubs.

 

Rashford is in the form of his life. If we can keep him kane and sterling scoring goals, we will have a hell of a front three

 

The frightening thing about Rashford is that despite the impact he's already having, you still get the impression he can go up several more gears. Given he's still just 22, there is still so much time for those sitters to go in, those free kicks to go in more regularly etc. In fairness to Solskjaer, he's given him the opportunity to become a key player and to start every week. I just hope that as someone who was a great goalscorer, he ensures he's working with him day by day to improve his finishing.

 

For that to happen we could do with some more of our players moving abroad. France have players at Barca, Madrid, Bayern, Juve etc...

 

Sure, but I didn't saying anything about waiting for your chance at a big six club and neither did Southgate as far as I can tell.

 

Barkley & Heaton out, Dean Henderson deservedly in. Should be a chance for Maddison to debut now.

 

Surely!!

 

When did I say you did? Southgate actually inadvertently did though. He's basically arguing that the top 6 clubs should be giving English players more minutes just because they're English and not on merit. I'm arguing that the best way for them to get these minutes and opportunities for top clubs at the "CL level" is by proving themselves at other, smaller clubs first or clubs where there's less pressure to win. To simplify it and spell it out for you even further, Southgate wants English players to get more opportunities at the top pl sides. I am correctly and relevantly stating that will happen if they prove themselves elsewhere first. Really not a difficult point to understand if you think a little bit and don't just take things literally.

 

On another note, I hope Southgate doesn’t play Stones! Would rather start any of the other Centre backs truth be told, he’s not kicked on from when we bought him from Everton. He just doesn’t seem to do what defenders do, get blocks in, organising or even get aggressive or have a physical presence. I just don’t get him at the moment.

 

No word on Delph yet but you'd think he would be out too.

 

On form and recent performances he should be, but I don't think he will be just because Southgate will probably want cover for Henderson and Rose due to their suspensions.

 

The team I'd like to see against Montenegro

Pickford
Chilwell
Maguire
Stones
TAA
Rice
Winks
Maddison
Sterling
Kane
Sancho

 

On another note, given City are now basically out of the title race, surely this is the opportunity to now give Foden more chances? I said this a few weeks ago that if, as was always likely, they lost this game given the state their squad is in, surely it would be better for them to go all out for the CL and use this as an opportunity to give Foden more minutes.

 

Some folks on here are going to be upset if he starts Hendo y Ox as the 8s. That would be my guess anyway.

 

I have no problem with Hendo or Ox starting. Just don't want to see Ox start BOTH games over Maddison (Henderson is suspended for the Montenegro game anyway.)

 

He said nothing of the sort, you've come up with that all on your own.

 

English players famously just don’t seem to do well abroad ..

It seems like there’s been less than twenty successful English players playing abroad over the last 30 years or so .. Sancho apart who was the last success ? Becks ??

I saw some stat saying that there were around a THOUSAND Brazilians making a good living playing professional football OUTSIDE Brazil !!

 

That's only because Brazilian players earn far more in Europe than they do in Brazil. Why should english players want to play outside of England when they earn millions here? My own personal view is I wish more English players would go abroad to widen their horizons

 

So Sancho hasn’t pulled out of the Squad as yet so that might indicate that he was substituted off after 35 minutes yesterday for tactical reasons! Crikey, that isn’t good if that’s the case.