England Senior National Team General Discussion Thread

Fire burn I think you need to step away for a bit.

You’ve been talking England into the ground all tournament and now you are saying it’s written in the stars we’ll beat them??

 

I'm glad that we're in a Nations League group with Spain and Croatia. I think playing this level of side regularly is what we need.

 

I'd like to see what Anderson Wharton and Scott can do against Spain's elite midfield

 

I do think failing to play a top team for 2 years did ultimately haunt us. Certainly would have given Tuchel a chance to stress test his tactics in a knock out format, instead we went in pretty blind.

We have also had a pretty dismissive and arrogant attitude to the nations league in general. Spain have made 3 finals consecutively, play their best team against top opposition and compete as a real tournament, their side is getting constant high level knock out experience as a result. The quality in the last nations leagues knock outs was extremely high level, and teams were really going full out for it, yet here the notion persists it's meaningless.

Obviously it's hardly the only reason they are now back to back tournament winners but it is a revealing mentality contrast. Here on the other hand we are still stuck in a "glorified friendlies" mentality where we should be instead more bothered about resting players and avoiding unnecessary games. Just show up to tournaments every 2 years and assume it'll be alright on the night. Southgate was pretty bad for this and used his last two Nations leagues to keep experimenting with that awful 3 at the back system, and of course we ended up in league B and remain the only recognised "big" team to have been relegated there.

Hopefully Tuchel takes it seriously, and I would assume he will given the cloud over his head over his tactical acumen against big teams now.

 

It just feels like something that will happen. Tuchel magically getting a big win over Spain but the team also looking poor in other matches,

 

UEFA selling the rights to the first two to Sky had a big impact on this. Had the 2018 one been on ITV I think the reputation would have been a lot better. Tuchel sounds up for it but can never fully trust Tuchel’s words considering some of the u turns he has made.

 

Well it's one thing for the fans not to be up for it but it clearly has been a position held by the England set up as well previously.

The obsession with treating everything outside tournaments as pretty meaningless does also mean we have a repeated tendency to go into summer tournaments having failed to nail down tactics and starting line ups beforehand. Then we wonder why we are a moments team who look incoherent.

 

One of the other things that seems to go against us in tournaments like this is our general lack of a thin skin. Whilst 'rising above it' is seen as a virtue generally for a side like Argentina being extremely thin-skinned to the point of patheticness really fires them up for games. A lot of the handbags after the final whistle seems to have stemmed from Laporte's criticism of the way Argentina have been refereed in the tournament. Perhaps only Bellingham in our squad seems to have this kind of aspect to his character.

 

The NL where we got relegated was a bit of a special case though, although we should never have been so poor as to have finished bottom.

It replaced the friendlies in the run up to the World Cup and, as well as us, both France and Germany underperformed as they were all tweaking their squads for Qatar.

I wonder though if part of the problem is that club managers treat them as friendlies. My knowledge isn't as in depth as a lot of you guys but I wonder how the rate of squad pull-outs compares between England and Spain for NL fixtures.

 

Playing Spain should increase the attention and focus. That is a massive first game because of the opposition irrespective of what people think of the competition. Qualifiers have lost importance due to the numbers that qualify, even since the first Nations League. The NL should step up to fill that gap.

 

I think the FA opposed the launch of the Nations League and the reduced amount of friendlies it brought which are more financially lucrative.

Particularly as it’s at Wembely and in a nice primetime Saturday night spot. But unfortunately I suspect a lot of the talk will be how horrible two weeks of international football interrupting the
season is and fans begging their club players to pull out.

Spain don’t seem to have a lot of pull outs, Hopefully Tuchel being stricter will try and stop us getting loads this autumn but I am not 100% confident of that

 

Arsenal are considering signing 32-year-old England defender John Stones on a free transfer if 25-year-old France defender William Saliba's injury turns out to be long term. (Sun)

Ezri Konsa and Real Sociedad's Jon Martin are two other names on the Gunners' shortlist for replacement defenders- The Sun

Everton could rival Inter Milan in the race to sign Tottenham’s 25-year-old England defender Djed Spence. (Football Insider)

Tottenham's Djed Spence wants to leave the club to join Inter Milan- Gazzetta dello Sport

 

So Spain won the World Cup and now has won 5 major tournaments since 2008. In those 5 finals, only one player has managed to score against them ...

I know most people don't appreciate Southgate efforts in 2024, but to me it was the best attempt England has had since 1966. The low energy cost playing style Southgate adapted got us very close. Yes, before the semi, we looked like ****, but then when it was time to step up, we still had something left in the tank. And the semi final win against the Netherlands is arguably our best knock out win since 1966. Yes, we lost the final, but it is not like Spain steamrolled us and scored twice in 7 minutes.

 

Looking back on things , I think we can say that being based in Kansas was poor judgement.
This lead us to do way too much travel.
Somewhere like Maryland or Penn state would have been better ?

 

England are really, gravely going to miss John Stones.

In spite of our Midfields limitations continuously being shown against the very best sides over his England career. Stones has still remained one of the biggest (not the only) reasons England have kept the ball a lot better over the years.

And as much as our tournaments have come up short and resulted in a bridge too far. If you compare how we looked in possession from 2020-2024 to all the era's beforehand, all the way back to the days of Sven, Capello, & Hodgson. The difference is really remarkable.

 

Stones is 32 he could definitely play in the next Euros, if he chooses his club situation well.

 

Looking back, I think Atlanta would have been good, as that would have meant no travel at all to two games. The possibility of staying at higher altitude eg Denver is also interesting, but of course with even more travel. Staying in Kansas looks stupid, because we had no games there. Argentina also stayed there, but had several games there.

 

Has he retired? I missed this.

 

Simon of Spain showed how much we need to level up at goalkeeper. He looked so much more comfortable than Pickford with the ball at his feet and was also out lightning quick to deal with through balls. Particularly when Messi looked favourite. We need to replace Stones and to upgrade Pickford.

 

I don't think so but he surely won't be around for long. We can hope that he will be fit for 2028 but that is hardly guaranteed. If he moves abroad that would help. Arsenal is not a good option.

 

Yes and being a defender, he may even stretch his career out until 2030 WC. Pickford too.

But England are never again going to have the same version of Stones, which we've been so used to seeing at every tournament - during what has been the best era of our lives watching England.

 

Colwill is the next defender to step into that role

 

Yes and what people under estimate, is just how challenging replacing Stones and Pickford is going to be for England. Same with Walker/Tripper to a lesser extent.

Pickford isn't the best goalkeeper in the world with his feet, but relative to England's previous keepers, he represented a significant upgrade. Not even close actually, when you think back to how bad previous keepers like Robinson and (later on) Joe Hart were with their feet.

Same with our defenders before Stones. Because we had the likes of Pickford, Stones, Walker and Trippier forming Englands defensive core for so long that we forgot how bad things often were before they came on to the scene.

 

Oh yeah he’s probably got another two years maximum if he’s lucky with injuries. I think we have a lot of options going forward and really need Guehi to become that leader of the defence and when we have Colwill fit and ready along with many other options. Despite him playing for my team, I’ve never really been as enthusiastic about Stones compared to others. I think he’s a liability in defence and his one and one defending has always been dodgy as far as I’m concerned. As far as leaders go, he was on the pitch the other night against Argentina and should have taken control of that situation and pushed the team forward instead of letting his midfield sit back and sit on the penalty area. I personally think we will be fine without him.

 

He's a similar profile, but he's not got the ceiling of Stones. We also dont quite know yet, whether the likes of Colwill and Trafford will be able to carry the pressure of playing for England in high stakes tournament games like Pickford and Stones did all them years.

The Goalkeeper position plagued England for years, before Pickford.