England Senior Team General Discussion Thread

It's not about being happy as an England fan, it's about taken a realistic look at things with regards to Southgate going.

It is utterly inconceivable that he will be gone before Euro 2020/1 - he is judged on results in competitive games and they have been very good since his appointment.

If you are going to belittle every achievement he makes with talk of lucky draws in tournaments, and lucky wins then he'll never get the credit he is due, because if he wins we are either lucky or the opposition is rubbish, and if he loses it's because he's got everything wrong.

You can count on the fingers of one hand how many times England have beaten quality opposition in a competitive game in the last 15 years - there's an argument that the Belgium result is in our top 5 results in the last 15 years.....but yet 3 days later because we've lost a game where we've had a 1st half red card and a dodgy penalty against a side that has barely lost a game in 4 years people are calling for his head - it's utter madness.

I am not a fan of the 343, I'm not a fan of Maguire at LCB and a right footer playing left wing back as shuts off the pitch, I think grealish should play more, Dier's pace worries me, Pickford looks dodgy - I can pick as many holes in this setup as the next England fan and when i see the team it doesn't excite me........but Southgate is the very definition of a manager with credit in the bank and deserves a fairer view from the fanbase (which on the whole he gets).

If we win in Belgium in 4 weeks time, we'll likely win our group again and be of to another Nations League finals, it's not particularly unlikely if we play how we did in the second half when we took over the game.

The comments before the Belgium game, when the team is announced, and during the first half are pretty embarrassing from plenty on this thread when the game ends with a good win - too many would rather be right than see England win

 

I dont have an issue with 343 or any other formation, but you have to get the balance of the team correct.

I'm not sure what Kalvin Philips has done to warrant a place in the starting 11 (whilst I wouldnt start him when everyone is fit, Harry Winks has played well in that exact position in the same formation in higher pressure games for England). Philips seems to make a lot of one touch layoff/passes rather than checking his periphery over both shoulders, which catch the eye but aren't always necessary. He also seems to be on set peices (I would of prefered Mount or James), with the instrunction to mainly delivering driven crosses with little success.

I like Mason Mount, and think his pressing and intensity might be the best in the entire squad (and would not be aginst him starting in a Midefield 3) but he does not warrant a start over Sancho, in the right of the front three. Its about as defensive of a viable option as you could possible pick in that position. And is just not required when you have 8 players behind him whose main responsobilities are defensive.

Going forward I would like to see a front 3 of Sterling - Kane - Sancho when possible. In the last qualification campaign these three linked up well, and are probaby the closest to Son and Moura in terms of profile, who Kane works so well with. They have pace and can isolate fullbacks but are also capable of making runs beyond Kane, allowing him to drop deaper if required. Rashford and Mount barely made any runs in advance of Kane in either the Belgium or Denmark game as far as I can recall.

Also play a Left footed Wing Back! Shaw or Bertrand whist maybe not favoured by Southgate, would bring needed balance, and would be so much better than a fudged RB or Midfielder like Trippier or AMN. The 11 he picked for the Denmark game wasn't particualrly adaptable to a change of formation mid game. And for a time after Maguires sending off Southgate seemed confused as to his best option to play at LB/LWB (which might have have lead to a small amount of causation/undue panic with regards to the highly dubious penalty) How about the only left footed Wing Back in your Squad, who you inexpclicable left of the Bench the entire game!

 

I think a lot of these becomes issue of the formation - if you play 3 CBs, then having 3 out and out attackers is very difficult and probbaly why Mount got the nod to make us a bit more adaptable.

But with 3 CBs, and 3 forwards it limits your options in midfield to either deep lying guys or true box to box players, the latter of which we don't really have who have the discipline to sit and get back, plus to actually get up and into the box.

I'd also argue we don't have the personnel for the wider roles in it when Sterling isn't fit either, Rashford struggles with the other side of the role and ends up frustrated and not doing well at what he is good at.

They are part of the reasons why i don't like it for us.

I can see why he wants to get 3 defenders on the pitch though, and think the double pivot is the best way we can play if e do that - what I'd give for a JT, Rio, Sol at the moment to enable us to play in a 4.

 

What you don’t get is that people don’t want to be right, they want England to do well this summer, more than grinding out a result in a super friendly. I might be wrong, but the aim is not to say I told you so, nobody cares about that

 

@roverman

Barcelona have just promoted Braithwaite from shirt number19 last season to shirt number 9 this season, so he is going nowhere, in any case he was team captain when he played in France and had he not also been a huge success in La Liga, then Barcelona would never have signed him in the first place, so no reason to pretend that he is just some average "clown" in a Barcelona shirt

As for his presentation, then Barcelona (and the top Spanish clubs) are notorious for having some of the worst presentations in history :




As for the Danish team in general, I think people who only watch the English PL most often underestimate players from the other top leagues, because they do not really know much about them, so you only know about a player like Schmeichel (who was officially selected among the top-3 best goalkeeper of the world in 2018 by FIFA, after the WC-18)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_FIFA_Goalkeeper

And if you did not already know about Eriksen from his time playing for Tottenham, you would just think he is an average bench sitter in the Italian Serie A, and I'm pretty sure you do not know, that no other player is even close to have as many appearances for RB Leipzig in their history than Yussuf Poulsen who is still only 26 and also a vice captain for them.

And did you know that the 25-yo Danish NT bench sitter Pione Sisto was among the assist kings in the Spanish La Liga back in 2017/18 at the age of 22 ?
https://www.worldfootball.net/assists/esp-primera-division-2017-2018/

Unfortunately he suffered terrible from homesickness and then had some sort of breakdown which made him move back to Denmark to be close to his family, but that does not make him less of a player, having played 110 La Liga games at the age of 25.

There are a lot of experienced players in this Danish team from the top 4-leagues, but also plenty of new talent. it's not by chance that Denmark has qualified for the UEFA U-21 Euro finals the past 4 times in a row, unlike Belgium, France, Spain, Croatia, Portugal and The Netherlands, so the future is looking bright for the Danish NT as well as for the English NT when you look at the past years results at U-21 level :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_European_Under-21_Championship#Participating_details

 

If that were the case why is there such a need to downplay the victory? Whilst also making a big deal about losing to Denmark who were awarded an even more dubious penalty and weren't able to put the game to bed against 10 men.

It's just massive double standards.

 

Because the performance vs Belgium wasn’t good ! It wasn’t better or worse than vs Denmark, in both games we created very little and massively struggled to bring the ball forward

 

The second half was a more than decent performance against a good side who had caused us a lot of problems in the first half, we got into the game, we had possession in good areas, and we fashioned chances - especially when the game opened up.

If we were to try and go toe to toe with them in this stage of our development we'd lose, their attackers are far superior to our defenders. If we could put two halves together like the second half there then we'll do well against good sides.

 

I'm not dismissing Denmark. Theyve done really well qualifying for tournaments for a country that size. They're produced some great players over the years. Just with the players we have we should be doing better

 

We won against Spain and Croatia without 8 defenders. We shouldn’t have this inferiority complex we have good players. Only KDB was truly world class in that team. Besides it does not make us more solid, they had like 5 one to one with our keeper

 

Apologies for mocking Braithwaite ...a to be fair he’s very unlikely to get much playing time this season again whatever his shirt number says but if it’s any consolation Michael Laudrup is in my top 10 players EVER !

 

Yes the clear chances missed by both Belgium and Denmark seem to have been disregarded completely... we COULD easily be looking at two heavy defeats

 

No they didn't - this is what I mean about downplaying anything England do, and exaggerating what the opposition do.

 

There are 2 teams in the game, and how each one plays effects the other - that's why we made the adjustments against Belgium to stop the balls in behind our wing backs which were killing us in the first half.

I've said above I'm not a fan of the 343, so am not going to defend it - just trying to be realistic as to what is actually happening with the national side - and realisitcally these international breaks shouldn't even be happening at the moment - the last one with Denmark and Iceland games should just be written off in reality.

But, if we are to play 343, and the opposition have our wing backs pushed back, and press us at CM and DM then it's going to take decently executed straight and long balls to leave us 3 on 3/4 with Sterling, Kane and one other player from a high quality list. I hope this isn't how we go into tournaments, but if it is then I won't be too downbeat.

But getting a side to gel across these international breaks is next to impossible - you've not got any real opportunity for shape as at any one point you have half the squad on recovery days - I imagine there has been about 3 days across 2 international breaks where we have had 20 outfielders training. There seems to be very little allowance for Covid in the current situation

 

Yes, if opposition score all their chances (which you will exaggerate to be clear chances) and we don't score any then it will be a heavy defeat - kind of how football works.

Expected Goals vs Denmark was England 1.52-1.51 Denmark
And 0.78 of Denmark's was from the nothing penalty. It would be pretty unlikely to have a heavy defeat in a game like that.

 

Not embarrassing at all. I was very happy with Southgate at the WC and was even moderately happy last year when he was picking decent teams and we were scoring for fun.

why should I be happy that we are now playing awful football, not scoring, players out of position, overly defensive, and to top it off he thinks we are playing well? That Belgium game was not in our top performances of the last 15 years, nowhere close. Let’s be honest it was a drab game with missing players and played out like a friendly.

I am not going to support Southgate and simply accept his moronic mistakes just because of his prior success 2 years ago.

 

I think Southgate has lost his nerve ( and confidence) partially due to so many key players either making mistakes , being well out of form or simply being injured forcing changes in personal and formations. Then we have all the embarrassing off field incidents that have the media suggesting that the young players simply don’t respect him.

All this is when there’s nothing at stake !!

Imagine what he’ll be like in a major competition with all the extra pressure to get results

 

I've always been a big supporter of Southgate, and will continue to be into the next tournament. But for me, it seems like the honeymoon is over and he's almost becoming a victim of his own 'success', for lack of better word. He took the job when confidence in the national team was at an all time low, when the player pool was at its smallest and when all the big name players had started to disappear.
There was no pressure on him to succeed. The fact he made it to the semis of the world cup, it's given the nation new hope and expectations and I think this is what will end up losing him his job.

 

Yeah that’s a fair assessment I’d say

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/...3qFEYrqzBBrIYg1jS1u9fLadwK8d6aPmnieZbRWqJAYQw

Rodgers is right

 

Rodgers is probably our best option for next manager (assuming the FA stick to the hiring policy for the mens team - notable we didn't for Phil Neville's replacement).

 

Nothing is impossible, I strongly agree with this. Rodgers would be great.

 

Used to think Rodgers was overrated but hes done an incredible job at Leicester. Hes got the best out of vardy. Bought really well. He took the easy road at celtic but hes proven to be a top coach