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3 hours ago, Sibierski said:


We had Gallagher in a more defensive role yesterday, get regularly bypassed by Brazil and defence exposed loads by simple balls. So it wouldn’t be any more exposed.

 

Sick of watching England in the games against ‘named’ sides, and Southgate take the cautious, pragmatic approach. Why our record is so poor in them, like 4 wins in 25 against top 10 ranked countries at the time? 

 

Argument mostly comes down to, a defensive approach wins tournaments. But how about trying our own approach and changing that narrative whilst we’ve got an abundance of exciting attacking talent. Maguire is Maguire, we’ll concede one from a mistake in big games regardless, but at set up to create more and hopefully score more. 

I think the idea you should be defensive to win tournaments is a bit backward tbh. France weren’t great to watch in 2018, but I think it’s fair to say they were playing to their strengths. Portugal were pretty unwatchable in 2016, but I could understand as even with Ronaldo they didn’t seem to have the quality of other teams. On the contrary I would say Italy in 2021 were, perhaps uncharacteristically, not that defensive and the same with Argentina in 2022.
 

I’m all for balance and being sensible, but surely an element of playing to our strengths comes into it. Often seemed Southgate would overcompensate by removing attacking players and play more defensive players. 

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On 23/03/2024 at 20:46, gbandit said:

Watching Rashford’s work off the ball and his reading of the game when the other team is in possession is a deeply distressing experience 

 

Is it aye? :lol:

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On 24/03/2024 at 07:22, leffe186 said:


He didn't play two holding midfielders though. Rice was holding, and Gallagher was pressing - sometimes even near the opposing penalty area. He even popped up on the RW occasionally.

 

It could work with Foden doing that job, but then I fear that the defence as a whole is simply not good enough at either recycling the ball or defending any breakdown. Would be fun to try, but yesterday you had a back four where three players weren’t quite up to it after Walker went off, which is a disaster waiting to happen.

It also didn’t work because of that

 

one of our better recent performances was v Macedonia and we had Trent Henderson rice all in there

 

football isn’t about throwing on multiple attackers you need to actually win the ball and be able to track counters

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15 minutes ago, tgarve said:

He looked alright when he came on v Brazil its complete bias

 

I didn't watch it, was just reading through the comments here. Not entirely sure it can be attributed to bias as I watch him every week and can confirm the criticisms. His defensive work and game awareness are shocking. He's a player built on explosive match-winning ability, but I don't think he's a good enough match winner to build a team around. 

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Rashford is ridiculously overrated. Besides being lightening quick and hitting a ball really well he’s practically useless. He’ll get goals based off those attributes alone but the lad has zero football iq, work rate or off the ball skills. Classic flat-track bully build.

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3 minutes ago, McCormick said:

Rashford is ridiculously overrated. Besides being lightening quick and hitting a ball really well he’s practically useless. He’ll get goals based off those attributes alone but the lad has zero football iq, work rate or off the ball skills. Classic flat-track bully build.

He scored 30 goals last season. You don’t do that in whilst playing in the best league in the world by being practically useless

 

he’s not ridiculously overrated, he gets slagged from all quarters

 

 

Edited by tgarve

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4 minutes ago, McCormick said:

Rashford is ridiculously overrated. Besides being lightening quick and hitting a ball really well he’s practically useless. He’ll get goals based off those attributes alone but the lad has zero football iq, work rate or off the ball skills. Classic flat-track bully build.

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.

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He has his uses but doesn’t bring enough to the table to be considered an “elite talent”. He can have times where he looks like he could be knocking on the door of being world-class but it’s situational. The lad’s certainly got some very good attributes but on average he’s a 10 goal a season winger (which isn’t bad at all tbf) with a weak mentality and very one-dimensional tactically. 

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3 minutes ago, McCormick said:

He has his uses but doesn’t bring enough to the table to be considered an “elite talent”. He can have times where he looks like he could be knocking on the door of being world-class but it’s situational. The lad’s certainly got some very good attributes but on average he’s a 10 goal a season winger (which isn’t bad at all tbf) with a weak mentality and very one-dimensional tactically. 

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.

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27 minutes ago, McCormick said:

 he’s practically useless. He’ll get goals.

14 minutes ago, McCormick said:

He has his uses 

 

 

Edited by RS

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@The College DropoutHe averages around 9-10 league goals a season. He’s at his best is when he’s deployed as a counter attacking threat and is full of confidence (like you said). A super confident Rashford gets on the plane, for sure but even then he’s not a player that helps you control games or gives enough defensively for his strengths to be worth it imo.

 

 

Edited by McCormick

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36 minutes ago, tgarve said:

He scored 30 goals last season. You don’t do that in whilst playing in the best league in the world by being practically useless

 

he’s not ridiculously overrated, he gets slagged from all quarters

 

He had Bruno Fernandes behind him and he was the focal point of the attack. I know a lot of you don't like Fernandes, but he has staggering creative ability and put the ball on a plate time and time again for Rashford. If we had Haaland or Salah instead of Rashford last season they would have scored 50. Don't forget he played nearly 60 games last year.

 

Rashford has ability. Silly to say otherwise, but his lack of defensive capabilities outweigh his attacking output IMO. So many goals we have conceded this year have been down our left side where the left back is doubled up on because Rashford won't track back, and when he does track back he doesn't even bother to get close to the opponent. Just look at the Barkley one against Luton, or even Quansah in the FA Cup quarter final which led to a goal.

 

If I was offered Gordon for Rashford right now, I'd struggle to say no. I know quite a lot of us are hoping for a huge PSG bid in the summer as Garnacho is already a better player and players are being shifted out of their natural position to accomodate Rashford to the detriment of the team. 

 

 

Edited by Froggy

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He scores goals. Is lightning quick and hits a ball really well. He’s that useless he’d get straight into our starting 11. 

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1 minute ago, RS said:

He scores goals. Is lightning quick and hits a ball really well. He’s that useless he’d get straight into our starting 11. 


Over Gordon? Massively disagree.

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18 minutes ago, gbandit said:

There’s no way I’d play Rashford over Gordon in our side, wouldn’t even consider it based on form over the last 12 months 

 

Imagine Burn coping on his own :lol:

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Task for anyone with some free time :)

 

So much hype about the current squad, disgrace if we don't win Euro's etc etc... pick an England 11 choosing players from Italia 90 to now, selecting based purely on ability rather than how they performed for England, how many of the current group are getting in that team? 

 

For me back 5 can only really consider Walker, front 6 is interesting...

 

 

Edited by mondonewc

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21 minutes ago, mondonewc said:

Task for anyone with some free time :)

 

So much hype about the current squad, disgrace if we don't win Euro's etc etc... pick an England 11 choosing players from Italia 90 to now, selecting based purely on ability rather than how they performed for England, how many of the current group are getting in that team? 

 

For me back 5 can only really consider Walker, front 6 is interesting...

 

 

 

 

What era are they playing in? Present day? I think I'd only bring Terry and Cole in for Maguire and Chilwell (lolz) in the back 5. There's an argument for Rooney but you can't drop Kane. Bellingham, Rice, Saka, Foden all start for me too. I'd stick Gazza in to complete it.

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