Game is on the video in this link - https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/sporta...etuvos-19-meciai-pries-talentinguosius-anglus
1-0 Mheuka pen. Dowman won the pen some will say he left his leg in I'm sure but the defender bundled him over as well and didn't complain. I thought the earlier one on Dowman was a pen too but the ref called it outside the box.
It seems a bit pointless a lot of the time. We can end up with nothing on that side if we get countered and Dowman rarely has an overlapper to create space. Also limits Amass on the other side.
That would be my critique of the system. We should be making the pitch bigger but have so many players central almost sitting on top of each other. Ngumoha as usual can be a bit frustrating because he kills momentum by holding onto the ball.
Thought Moore was a bit quiet today in the middle but has looked a lot more lively since moving out to the left, pretty much the opposite of how its been at Rangers.
2-0 FT. I’m not very keen on the system tbh. End up having to do a lot of tactical fouls. A win in competitive games is always a positive. Some good play overall and a much deserved win.
Saw quite a bit of that second half but missed the goals. Thought Lithuania defended very well against us to be fair or we weren’t quite on it. Really didn’t watch enough to have a definitive view.
Pretty poor performance I thought, kind of par for the course of England youth team performances of the current era of trying to cram in too many attackers at the expense of a coherent system. As is often the case when we do this we don't really get any attacking benefit (often we look worse because we lack different profiles) and end up looking very shaky off the ball. Despite being a very limited side Lithuania still get a fair amount of joy on breaks where better sides probably would have punished us. They actually had 14 attempts to our 10 which is very poor really. It seems at the moment there's a real overvaluing of dribbling ability and ball carrying at the expense over absolutely everything else pervading through all the youth teams and set ups, outside of Carsley's under 21s anyway which does value central midfielders who pass the ball. Today for example what was really to be gained putting a dribbler like Moore in the middle against a low block side? It's just pointless. I'd be interested to hear the logic we have in player development at the moment, its actually interesting how our youth teams are, outwith the 21's all so hyper-individualistic in approach to the detriment of all shape and structure, when premier league sides have almost the exact opposite problem having mostly all become extremely regimented and rigid in approach with almost no freedom allowed for individuals. Maybe there's method to it I don't know.
I think the coaches are just replicating Tuchel’s system with the 4-2-3-1. Our youth teams rarely look good playing with 10’s. Always looks a bit disjointed and feeble defensively. The other issue is we have raided U17 and U18 levels for options when Derry and Moore could be starting these games. I still don’t think that was right.
he has played a variety of roles at youth level (for Spurs). out wide, even up front. seems like he's more of a wide player when playing at a senior level, but we (England youth) orient him more towards that attacking midfield role. good exposure and experience, but i think of two things: (1) is that his best, most impactful role? (2) are there 'better' options in this stacked U19 setup that could/should play there?
I saw about 70% of the game and didn't think it was that bad. They could've been 2-0 up in the first 5 minutes and must've had 25+ shots in the game. As Barry mentioned Lithuania defended manfully and carried out their gameplan pretty well. On another day it could've been 6-0. edit @MrSnrub Where are you getting your stats from? Certainly seeed like we had more than 9 attempts. I also think it will probably be best for this group if Moore goes to the u21s soon, if he continues to improve for Rangers he should be playing at a higher level than u19s. Ngumoha, Monga and Moore is overkill for the left side. Shea Lacey could drop back in.
Mheuka has 9 goals in 392 minutes this season for the U19s - basically averaging 2 goals per 90 minutes.
They played against each other back in February 2023 at U16 international level of course. Current members of this U19 side: Amass, Mfuni, Noble, Shahar, Rigg, Mukasa, Mikey Moore, Mheuka were also present. Jay Robinson who was initially selected for this U19 squad also played. So about half this U19 squad featured in that U16 fixture. A couple of others from that U16 game, Lacey and Josh King, have been moved to older squads whilst Chido Obi went back to Denmark. Scotland have a similar retention rate between those U16/U19 games although one of their players, James Wilson, has been promoted to their current U21 squad and is the only player from that U16 fixture to have played at Senior level. Perhaps that is why Harrison Armstrong and Monga were on subs bench. UEFA website has 10 attempts for England, 14 for Lithuania. 6 on target for England, 4 for the hosts. Mheuka has now scored a dozen goals for England U19 overall, drawing level with...Dane Scarlett! Not sure who has record at that level.