FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022: England Tournament Thread [R]

It will be a close game. England have had the better tournaments so far. We have a better midfield. Better fullbacks and a better keeper

 

Better tournament because of Second place Euros 2020? Eeeeeeh I rate a worldcup win 2018 higher.... Sorry.

And position wise..... We will see Saturday on the field

 

I'm sure you'll be equally as gracious if you don't get the result your desperate for.

 

I do wonder if Rice being absent will push Southgate towards a back five and replace him with Trippier rather than Phillips.

 

Abraham was the only other option and he is poor form. Toney was not viable unless the FA wanted to go to war with politicians over gambling,

 

If he's missing training through illness, seems a bit of a jump to assume he'll be out on Saturday.

 

I should have said if he is absent would that push.

 

I don't think Phillips would be seen as an exact fit, so suspect he would.

 

Big if true.

 

I really don’t see him going back to a five, he will just replace Rice with Phillips imo. Why risk disrupting a formation that has so far been pretty effective. If he changes the system knowing how poor we have been in that system over the past year then we deserve everything we get if it fails spectacularly.

 

Kyle Walker basically said today as it stands it will be a back four but who knows if he will panic and change things.

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Asked why England have enjoyed more possession and been more entertaining at this World Cup, Walker credited the change to a back four and hinted that is now the team’s preferred formation.

“The reason we've got more [possession] is maybe down to the tactics,” said Walker. “We played a [back] five in the Euros and in the last World Cup. So maybe we can control the ball a little bit better when we've got more men further up the field with attacking minds.”

On the chance for England to prove they can beat the very best, rather than trying to hang on, Walker added: “It’s a great opportunity to put a stamp down and to say that we are a good team and we can achieve great things.

“And to give us the belief that we can win this [World Cup]. I’m not saying we don’t believe, but to beat a big team in a quarter-final, they’re the reigning world champions, that will give us great confidence; not arrogance but confidence.

“I feel that the manager makes the right calls on whether to play a four or a five. Nobody was complaining about us playing a [back] five before we reached the Euros final. We got to the final and it was maybe not as attacking as people would like to see.

“I think at this tournament we have been playing good attacking football and scoring a lot of goals. The last game was a comfortable win I feel, so let’s just move on from there.”

Oddly he also says he didn’t know Rice was unwell until he didn’t turn up to training which seems to hint it was either sudden or the squad is not as close as we think.

 

Rice won't be absent. Its illness not an injury

 

Hopefully he won’t but some illnesses can take a few days to recover from. At least to be fit enough to start.

 

Surely Phillips/ Henderson/ Bellingham would be nearly as good .. his loss isn’t exactly causing a vacuum.

 

Shaw also went on to say something similar on TalkSPORT.

We've been threatening so much, we're probably going to have to outscore them which frankly isn't the worst idea in the world.

 

Well it’s either outscore them or go to penalties and I would rather the first as I am not sure my nerves can take penalties again.

 

Raheem Sterling considering returning to the England camp. Final decision not yet made but optimism he could be back in camp by Friday evening ahead of France game https://t.co/vEhxD9uxJ6

— Matt Law (@Matt_Law_DT) December 7, 2022

Sterling might be returning soon.

 

Feel sorry for the guy, but shouldn't start against France. Same team as last match for me, if we need to change things I'd bring on Grealish/Rashford/Sterling in that order. Form is more important at the moment

 

No way can I see him starting. Great option on the bench. I would rather have our options than France's. Sterling rashford maddison grealish compared to coman thuram muani

 

Out of curiosity.... Why would you? Thuram and Muani are both top scorers in BL currently. Comans quality.... We don't have to talk about I guess. Not to mention the injurie crisis with a guy named Nkunku who left. Or diaby who wasn't even called up

 

Muani only has 5 BL goals? Regardless the BL is a very attacker friendly league and players moving from the BL to the PL are shown to have a significant reduction in xG and output on average. There are outliers like Haaland of course but on average you should expect a pretty big reduction like we've seen with Sancho. Remember that only Messi and Mbappe were getting more goals and assists than Sancho across Europe's top leagues whilst he was in the BL.

[2/3] Basically we shouldn't blame neither Werner or Sancho (continue the list) for not matching their Bundesliga numbers. It is fine for everyone who moves from there to Premier League (-38.1% of 'expected metrics') pic.twitter.com/3MVu38zrcZ

— markstats (@markrstats) September 3, 2021

I think if France had all their options available then I'd lean to their attacking options being better. Benzema and Mbappe are pretty awesome options. As it is Benzema and Nukuku are not available so I don't think Roverman preferring our options is controversial. Personally I think Nkunku will find goals a lot harder to come by when he comes to the Premier League. I think like Rashford he thrives on space in behind which is available in abundance in the BL but a lot more scarce in the PL. When United put 5 past Leipzig in the CL it was a perfect demonstration of how attacker friendly the BL is with high defensive lines and how players like Rashford, Sterling and most of England's attackers would fill their boots in that league.



I do agree that France are the favourites in this game. I'm not sure that many non-England fans will be picking us to win and plenty of England fans think France will win as well.

 

Does it confirm the eye test? Bar Costa Rica game, Spain were poor and created next to nothing but it shows them as most creative side - whatever stats he has used for that it needs to discount the massive outlier that drags Spain so high with a weighting model or similar

 

I think so yes. Most of the best performing teams are roughly where you'd expect them to be. If you're expecting it to be a perfect reflection with no outliers then no, but then few datasets will offer you that and you do have to apply some context. I think it supports the point that England hadn't been the best performing team up to that point despite having the best GD, although they had been one of the best performing.

 

I get what you mean. Out of the bench options on England side I rate Rashford. Iam not so sure about maddison or especially sterling and grealish because of their recent club level Form

 

I think Grealish is a good tactical player at international level. You can bring him on late on in games and players struggle to get the ball off him without fouling him This can be invaluable if you want to see a game out and relieve pressure. A lot of his qualities at club level and not reflected in goals and assists, he's brilliant at progressing ball up the pitch which along with relieving pressure it also makes it more likely that his team will score. I agree that he's been disappointing overall at City though.