The College Dropout

Ability alone? Pope TAA Campbell Ferdinand Cole Gerrard Scholes Wilshere Barnes Kane Rooney

Pique said recently most GKs and Defenders couldn't play in this era and I think it's true. David Seaman wouldn't get into the current England team based on his feet like Nick Pope.

My Huddlestone shout is coming from how well Jorginho works with Rice. Rice's biggest limitation is his passing through the lines and general deeper progression. Huddlestone could do that brilliantly and Rice would cover for his lack of legs. Conor Gallagher running around like a headless chicken doesn't cut it.

Spurs Scott Parker just sitting in front of the defence and letting the rest play - I think he could do a better job than what Conor offers as an 8 or whatever he was doing on Saturday.

That's my point. I think Huddlestone would start in this squad. At least make the squad. Peak Huddlestone was better than this version of Henderson or Philips. And he's better suited to international football than Conor Gallagher in this role. Conor Gallagher isn't good at that deeper role man.

Which tournament was he great at? Sol & Ferdinand were better in 2002 than Terry ever was at a major tournament for England. I remember thinking Terry was at fault for Portugal's goals in 2004. 2006 England for some reason I struggle to remember any goals except Joe Cole's against Sweden.

We wouldn't have qualfiied for the CL for finishing 4th either.

Carrick would be perfect. That Jorginho & Rice balance works really well. You get all of Rice's athleticism all over the pitch and someone sitting deeper focussing on distribution.

Peak Tom Huddlestone would get into this team. Scott Parker would get into this team.

U21's do count towards HG. It's just typically no point including them because they don't need to be registered anyway.

Again Scholes - even at CM, never really did it for England. I think he said himself he struggled physically with summer tournaments and could only play 60-70 minutes if the weather was too hot for him. As good as he is - has Foden ever truly shone for England?

Terry was never excellent for England imo. Rio was the better player at international tournaments. Sol too. At club level I might have Terry at #1. But international? Nope.

There can't be more than a dozen players that we could sign that would immediately play and score at the level Isak does for us.

I'd start Foden LW.

Thats not really the case. His 3 best seasons he has 30+ G/A. He's shown he can perform at a very high level. The season before last and this season - he's largely been awful. You don't find many players who have such massive swings in performance and output. At his best he's not one-dimensional, he's pretty unstoppable.

He's low on confidence. When he's low on confidence he's absolutely useless. When he's in the zone he can look an elite talent. Can beat players in tight spaces, excellent finishing etc. As he is.... he just walks around doing nowt.

I don't think higher scoring = more exciting fundamentally. High scoring games can be more exciting because it's rare. It speaks to a certain attitude. If it happened every game it wouldn't be exciting. It changes the game fundamentally. In all likelihood it makes tactics more defensive. There's potential of the opposite happening and the game descending into basketball type.

Agreed. No football club should be allowed to monopolise a division through limiting the competitiveness of other clubs through Insane spendig.

Foden Kane Saka for me.

Liked the look of him. Poor finish at the death though.

It’s notable that Brazil put out what I think is their strongest side that’s actually fit. And they played a lot of the game. There’s always this attitude in England that friendly games don’t matter. But England doesn’t win trophies. We don’t routinely beat top sides. Should take the opportunity to get a nice win. This England team has so much talent that Gareth is on to a loss. He’s also not very good. We had lots of the ball but Brazil has the better chances and looked the more incisive. I like Gallagher but he doesn’t offer much offensively or defensively.

Even when his team is on the ball he doesn’t make many runs. He comes alive in moments but mostly plays disengaged from the game.

At the highest level I question if he’s got that real ability. But he always keeps the ball welll and is mentally sharp.

Fundamentally if you have owners that are willing to sustain losses and continue to invest what’s the problem? Uber, Facebook, Amazon etc. did that for years. Leicester can only be a competitive team in the PL sustainably if they are in the CL more often than not. Thats not fair. If their owners want to bankroll them (pegged to a European or division limit) what’s wrong with that? If I was a gazillionaire and wanted to open a supermarket chain. I could invest as long as it took to catch Tesco and co.

Aye there was speculation the family had difficulties with the business and could no longer fund Leicester. But aye - it was just them falling shy kf FFP. For Leicester it was the wages and modest revenues. To be FFP compliant they would need to sell a star player every other season or qualify for the CL. They never got the big money for Tielemans or Maddison and didn’t get CL. Only the top 6 can do that and not fall foul of FFP.