The College Dropout

People suggest massive changes to accommodate 2 players who have not done it for England in TAA & Foden. TAA didn't go to the WC right? That was the right move.

RIP

Love that we have 3 former players in the Spain squad.

If it would work so well why hasn't Howe tried it? This is the thing about balance. We'd probably be better off with Lloyd Kelly at LB with Gordon in front of him than Trippier. But everyone wants to hamfist a non-LB there.

Yeh he’s ducking it up. He had a side that was balanced and pretty much worked. Now he doesn’t and is looking clueless.

Don’t mean this to be a defence of Southgate. He’s fucking this up. Im glad he took Gordon. But he might as well have brought Rashford or Sterling - he would’ve actually used one of those by now and he knows they can play well for him. He doesn’t trust Gordon like that.

He doesn’t have ideal profiles at LB or Central Midfield. He can either pick players of less repute/ability or shoehorn a big name into those roles. He’s ham fisting the front 3-4 though aye. People talk about this squad like it’s France. France have multiple ideal profiles at CB, CM, AM, ST. Wingers and decent enough fullback options. I also think there’s less quality and depth of profiles than Portugal. Way less balance than Germany or Spain in the squads. England narrowly beat this Denmark side 3 years ago at home via a last minute penalty in extra time. I don’t remember that game much but the result was the same at 90 minutes iirc.

Howe could start a combination that includes Isak, Wilson, Barnes and Gordon our most talented players. But he doesn’t. He’s rather play to the strengths of 3 of those and have a more balanced team with inferior talents. That’s team building.

This is where we get too caught up in individual players. Burn, Longstaff, Almiron etc. wouldn’t start for a lot of other PL teams. In other setups I don’t know good Joelinton would be. But we have a system that plays to their strengths and works as a team.

The players are already bereft of confidence. Rice has been so bad.

TAA needs someone to play Hollywood balls too. A proper LW, a striker going in behind or an AM going in behind. None Of the starting options provide that. Schars range of passing needs someone to make the Joelinton run. this is what I’ve been trying to say about midfield. From the little I’ve seen I think Wharton is best suited to that. You can play rice and Bellingham in there and it might work but I don’t think it gets the best out of either. Rice+TAA or Gallagher is not it. Kante and Pogba as a 2, I thought might not work. But Pogba’s distribution from deep was masterful and Kante is better with his back to goal and linking play than he’s given credit for. and they had runners on the wing.

We don’t have any unit bar the right hand Side playing with balance. The front 3-4 don’t work well together. The central midfield is a mess. The left hand side is a mess. Central defence looks suspect under pressure. Left hand side is completely broken. We would be better off with a mid table left back and Gordon. You can’t get the best out of Rice, Bellingham and Foden imo at this stage. You have to drop 1. Give me 11 players playing to their strengths over 11 big names who don’t.

I don’t think we have him. Wharton maybe. He seems to sit deep and distribute forward quickly. bellingham x Rice should be tried

Bellinghams not a conductor type player. We lack a midfield passer (that’s actually a midfielder)

Now he’s spoilt for choice in some areas so shoe horning them in weaker positions.

Spain playing players in their best position? Love that.

Lewis Hall

Yeh it was pants. I agree with that. Argentina started slowly at the World Cup too.

4 points from 2 games. It’s ok tbh.

He had a settled side then a lot of the key players fell off at club level or got injured. So he dropped nearly all of them. would’ve been better off playing Sterling and Phillips. That was at least a balanced side. Gallagher and Rice is his second choice CM pairing and it stinks.

We don’t have played in their right positions so you get disjointed performances.

Think the squad is over rated.

England with an unbalanced but talented squad. Fans with crazy expectations. ENGLAND IVE MOSSED YOU

Recoba is another fav. Not Serie A but Pablo Aimar

Liked Lehman way more than any other German GK. Error prone and a eccentric.