I think it’s way too early to start that sort of speculation tbh until that becomes official but that sort of rumour isn’t good or helpful.
A half-fit player is of no use at all. Think back to Beckham for England in 2002 and 2004. Wish all the best for Eriksen. Bloody hell that was a harrowing watch.
I'd imagine the average modern day footballer is putting much more dodgy stuff in their systems than vaccines when you consider the supplements, medicines and whatever else that are common place. Then again, who knows whats going on in a person's body, this sort of stuff can and has happened to high level athletes. Scary that something like this could happen a guy whose health and fitness is no doubt one of the most monitored in the world, but thank God he looks like he's out of the woods.
So I remember doing this once for Carrick where I took f365 website ratings to show how poor he was for england. So here are the ratings for the 6 caps Walker has had after the Iceland games. Walker isn't as bad as Carrick, but he has never eliminated the brainfart. Belgium 1-2 England Dig the waistcoat out from the back of your wardrobe, dust off that Atomic Kitten CD and prepare to wastefully launch your beverage in the air because it’s 2018 all over again, baby. It feels like a bit of a sideways step to stick Walker in a back three, particularly considering his international career was over only six months ago. And there will be a game in which his tendency to rely on pace to rescue any situation will result in montage-fodder hilarity. But he was actually pretty excellent in a defence that really needed him to be, helping weigh the balance of that battle against Lukaku back in England’s favour when both Dier and Maguire toiled. Should a 30-year-old right-back be our best centre-half? Does it matter? England 0-1 Denmark Put off by his keeper and fouled by his opponent before apparently conceding a penalty. Continued to look a conspicuous point of weakness after becoming the fourth right-back to play at left-back for England in the last week. The year of our lord 2020 remains thoroughly and resolutely off its tits. Belgium 2-0 England His distribution in the first half was genuinely very good. There was one ball in particular, drilled through the lines diagonally into the feet of Grealish, that was delightful. Then within a few minutes of the restart he decided to try a no-look pass to someone about five yards away that was intercepted by Mertens and resulted in a De Bruyne shot. Everything after that was terrible and should never be spoken of again. Iceland 4-0 England There is something in the way Walker plays that just seems so incredibly lackadaisical. It’s as if he feels as though his pace can atone for any and every mistake he ever makes. He must be an absolute nightmare to live with as he just strolls around doing no chores whatsoever before sprinting headfirst into the fridge as he hears your keys jingling and he realises he’s been at home all day and done no housework. His booking – turning back after running out of passing options then losing control of the ball and launching himself into a slide tackle – was a case in point. Albania 2-0 England Perfectly fine on his return to right-back duty, but if England are moving away from a back three he could selfishly have done with something more to catch the eye given the intense competition for places at right-back. Getting himself booked for a clumsy foul after giving the ball away attempting a trick was sub-optimal. Poland 2-1 England The legal obligation would be to say he defended his flank diligently while providing support in attack. The statistics tell us he made no tackles and no interceptions while having no shots, key passes or dribbles. Yet he did nothing wrong whatsoever and that late display of recovery pace to retrieve the ball from Kamil Grosicki will be justification enough for Southgate when it comes to his choices in the right-back position this month.
So basically he made a bad decision which didn't result in any goals. I think every defender has those games
Sounds like typical conspiracy theorists... I’m half expecting Uri Geller to take the credit for Eriksen’s recovery
Watching all these videos and feeling English pride im so desperate to succeed this year. Can't take another tournament of failure. I don't think any other country exudes this much passion when it comes to football
Not winning isn't a disaster, we could probably get through with just 3 points against Czech but I'd like to see us play well and take the game to them tomorrow. I'm expecting a draw
I'm expecting a win. We should have no fear over Croatia. Belgium and Italy have shown the way so far. If we want to be taken seriously at their level a draw is no good.
I’m wary of another debate being sparked and don’t want it to ruin the focus of this thread. If you have anything to say about the taking the knee issue please do it in this thread. - https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/taking-the-knee-debate.2115718/ Any talk of it (within reason as somethings might overlap) in here will get deleted because it is a topic that tends to overwhelm with responses.
I'd be happy with a good performance whether we win, lose or draw although obviously I'd prefer us to win and, frankly, I think we can win. The thing is, it might just come down to some refereeing blunder or pure luck.
True but, tbh, even in tournaments where we HAVE done well, our first game is usually a pretty stale draw, most notably in '66 of course.
Agree about our past but this defeatist attitude that we should settle for a point because Croatia are so big and scary. We should set a marker down. I feel no fear over any team in this group. 9 points should be our target. Its not arrogance, its the fact we have far better players than anyone else in this group
This sort of attitude hasn't served us well in the past. I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself here, Croatia are still a good team and England haven't beaten a major team at a tournament for a long time.
I was expecting that and I know the past. I was thinking we have seen this before. Always being let down. But we have to go in with a positive mindset and stop thinking about previous tournaments. The determination of the last world cup in scoring a last minute winner against Tunisia. We need that
This tournament couldn't have been better set up for us compared to had it been played last year. We have more games at Wembley than we would have. We had injuries to kane rashford and a few others then. We wouldn't have dreamed of having the quality of mount sancho saka foden james grealish a year ago. Theres no better time. So this negative outlook can get to feck
Well, hang on... they were the WC finalists 3 years back so they're obviously a good side Assuming we're right in thinking who plays, their midfield play for the CL winners, (Kovacic), the CL semi-finalists, (Modric), and the Italian champions, (Brozovic). Ours play for the CL winner, (Mount), West Ham, (Rice), and Leeds United, (Phillips). We probably have more going forward but our defense is a bit suspect with Maguire's injury. I mean, it should be a good game and we can definitely win but, y'know... let's keep our feet on the ground against Croatia at least. The other teams, sure, we should be beating them. I just don't want to get too down-heartened if things don't go our way in the first game and we only get a draw. We often start a bit slow anyway.