It's utterly ridiculous that they're even playing club friendlies between the end of the season and a major international championship. Even more so that they were moaning about fixture congestion with the FA Cup replays.
Tottenham have played very few games this year (relatively) so am less surprised, but given Newcastle's UCL campaign and deeper runs in cups, I'm amazed they travelled/agreed to go.
People keep saying this (not just you so not attacking your point). I do feel this point pretty much creates an excuse for Southgate’s madness on the issue. It is just absurd. Plenty of teams better than ours who have actually won things have always picked options that aren’t particularly great. Role players, decent pros that know a specific role. You don’t create a mythical high bar that all options have to pass to make a squad. If you did we probably would have about two midfielders in our squad. We are picking a 26 player squad. There should be more than enough room for a left footed left back. We shouldn’t be in this position of solely relying on the injured long shot chance of Luke Shaw. How can he ‘rate’ Trent as a midfielder either? There is no way that he can. He’s taking huge risks and hoping that works out but can’t even comprehend the thought that having a left footed left back might help the squad at some point in a bloody international tournament
Men's Player of the Season: Jordan Pickford. 🧤Three years in a row for our number one! 💙 https://t.co/nJLLfAOvtR pic.twitter.com/H24ISuh6BS— Everton (@Everton) May 22, 2024
If I was a player I'd have it written into my contract that the only friendlies I'd play in are pre-season. Loftus-Cheek had his career derailed because of an injury in one of these games. Imagine a player missing a major international tournament because of an injury in one.
There should probably be a rule that prevents players called up to tournaments, playing in friendlies before the tourament... They can play Skipp and Longstaff if they want to etc, not Hojberg and Trippier.
Hojberg didn't travel but I take your point, there were 80,000 people in attendance amazingly. Apparently they pocketed around £3 million a piece, and with PSR concerns (especially for Newcastle) you can kind of see why a 5 day trip would be tempting.
You might be right re: Southgate's thinking, but does a good performance in a friendly against the Scots override all the times Dunk has been found lacking when asked to step up for club and country since? I don't think it does. I said it previously but I think there's a big double standard in the way he's treated Dunk and the way he's treated Tomori. Guehi being fit is a big bonus though. If one of Stones or Maguire gets injured I think his mobility will be a very welcome addition.
Neither did Longstaff actually but that’s because his partner is heavily pregnant - efen with his chronic injury if that wasn’t the case it sounds like Newcastle would have took him.
#NUFC #EFC Eddie Howe calms fears. 'That was all planned. We spoke [to] Kieran and thought [the] best thing to do was start him. He is still in the early stages of recovery, so we didn't want to take risks. Half an hour was always the aim. He did well and is not injured. Let's… https://t.co/NroZH8X7fk— Ben Dinnery (@BenDinnery) May 22, 2024
Southgate didn’t even seem to rate Dunk for ages and then arguably after his form dips he just randomly turns him into a squad player reserve option.
Dunk's continued selection is a bit of mystery to me and I hope he doesn't make the 26, as you say he was out of the squad for ages (he was playing at a similar level and was younger) and then comes back in (probably because of the way Di Zerbi used him) and has been found out when playing against higher level opposition in both Europe and Friendlies. I can't think why someone like Dier wouldn't be preferred
I’m not sure. I think it might just be the fortune of being in squads at the right time and a theory in Southgate’s mind that he can cover a specific CB replacement role.
Lack of x factor players gonna bite them against France or Portugal https://t.co/LD6fjLXkzx— 🍃 (@k0thamali) May 21, 2024 13k likes on this tweet and I really don't see how Portugal have more X factor quality than us. Jude, Foden, Trent, Saka, Palmer are all X factor players at varying ends of the scale. Portugal have Leao, Bruno (now and again) Bernardo and who else? Joao Felix is dead inconsistent, Cancelo takes as much away as he brings, you could argue Pedro Neto but then I'd argue Eze (both unproven at int'l/European level). I think England and Portugal are very even on paper but I'm not having that they have more X factor than we do.
Its just such a banal comment that doesn't really mean anything. Kane, Foden, Bellingham and Saka are all in the top 10 in terms of goal contribution in this seasons UCL. Four of the others in the top 10 aren't at the Euros (Haaland and a few Brazilians), and the other 2 are French (Mbappe and Griezmann) but yeah no X Factor.
Do France even have many either. Mbappe and Greizman but Giroud is 37 now and Zaire - Emery is a teenager. The rest of their attackers are very talented but none scream exceptional and exciting.
Not in terms of numbers but Mbappe and Griezmann alone (at their best) are probably worth more than most other side's best five or six. If Mbappe plays like he has in this year's Champions League though then no.
Dunk is the most unlikely option out of all the defensive options to play left back. Hence the point of him bringing it up.
Seems like many people mocking Gordon which seems odd! They mustn’t have seen much of him this season then.
It's just the nature of any squad that you'll get people complaining who is and isn't in, regardless of how silly. I'm 100% sure if Rashford was in the squad there'd be a tweet with thousands of likes complaining about it also. At any rate Rashford has never scored or assisted a goal in the knock out stages of the previous 4 tournaments he's been at so it would be difficult to imagine him dropping out is some great blow to the sides tournament chances.