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Group D (Croatia, Czech Republic, England, Scotland)


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12 minutes ago, NEEJ said:

The continued omission of Sancho is straight-up weird, man. Is he leaving turds under Southgate's pillows or something? 


Southgate isn’t a fan of the Simpson’s is the only thing I can think.

 

 

Edited by RodneyCisse

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11 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

 

Fair enough, I haven't seen enough of him I must admit. But I'm struggling to get my head around Sancho not featuring so far. And Foden being dropped would also be disappointing. 

 

Just want to see an exciting performance tonight given all of the attacking talent we have available, both games so far have been pretty boring and there's no excuse for that. 

I'd also say, from what I have seen, Saka is a lot better off the left and getting to the by-line/crosses in but that doesn't fit massively with England.

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8 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 

What makes you think that? 

 

There's no reason at all to panic; we're already through and first place is still totally in our hands. I don't see why he would and it would be pretty out of character.  

 

There's a lot of chopping and changing. Feel like he hasn't got a clue what his best team is. I don't blame him like. There's such a variance from team to team in the PL these days that it's got to be difficult tactically to knit everything together. 

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Think Grealish is a good shout to start tbh, he's one of those who can carry the ball and make things happen. Although the biggest problem against Scotland wasn't the players individually, it was the lack of tempo. 

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Not sure I agree. You don't want the hardest route to the final. You have to beat good teams eventually. No reason to do it in every knockout round.

 

Having said that, England can barely turn it 'on' - let alone turn it off and on at their will, so think they need to keep winning and growing if they're to get anywhere.

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2 hours ago, Kimbo said:

 

I'm not just shitting on the team. I rate some of them really highly, Foden is fantastic and Mount is very good. Grealish is very good (although people have gone overboard in the last few weeks), and I think we have really good fullbacks. That said, I'm not sure many of them have much of a reputation outside of England. We're looking at other countries teams and there are comments about a lack of star names, and I just expect we're seen in a similar way abroad.

 

Cant remember who it was but one of the foreign journos on the totally football show was saying England are thought of as a much better squad throughout Europe than most in this country rate them. I tend to agree. A side like Portugal have a 38 year old Pepe, Semedo and Guerreiro making up 3 of their back 4 along with two average defensive mids. Belgium have been playing Alderweireld, Boyata and a Vertonghen who can barely run anymore in a back 3. At international level pretty much every nation is going to have deficiencies and weaknesses and I'd say we look better than most on paper. 

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34 minutes ago, Wullie said:

 

There's a lot of chopping and changing. Feel like he hasn't got a clue what his best team is. I don't blame him like. There's such a variance from team to team in the PL these days that it's got to be difficult tactically to knit everything together. 

 

I wonder what value there even is in having continuity in these environments? Do you need to have a settled team to win a tournament, or do you use the squad? I'm not going back to look at all of Portugal's and France's starting line-ups from the last two tournaments but I'd be surprised if - spine aside - they didn't chop and change. 

 

Before the performance that transpired against Scotland (which skews and obstructs any theory you might have about Southgate's methodology, given how bad a game it was), I'd have said he was picking teams based on the opposition/occasion, hence two completely different sets of full-backs. I still think that's probably the case, given today's rumours, and the concept of a 'best team' isn't even entering his thoughts. 

 

That's used to be a stick I'd beat Pardew with back in the day, but the contexts are totally different. If you've got a talented first 12 or 13 players going into a long campaign, the onus should be on you to establish an identity and not be 100% reactionary/setting every team up based on the opposition. But with an intense fixture list like this, with a bootcamp of 26 people to keep happy, I think rotation is far more justified. 

 

I think we can expect Pickford-Stones-Rice-Phillips-Kane throughout. Everything else is up for grabs and I think that's fair enough. But if he makes the wrong choices in those positions then he'll be rightly criticised. But I don't see him panicking, I think he's very methodical and a useful point against Scotland (considering a defeat clearly wasn't beyond the realms of possibility) won't have got him rattled.

 

We need to win and ideally to win well tonight, cos clearly patience is wearing a bit.

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I didn't particularly rate him as a club manager but I feel like Bobby Martinez gets massively disrespected on here as an international manager :lol:

 

Belgium were the 2nd best team in the last world cup beating Brazil on the way in the best performance of the tournament before eventually losing to France in a tight game. They're ranked number 1 in the world and won their 3 group games so far this time. 

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14 minutes ago, Beren said:

 

Not sure I agree. You don't want the hardest route to the final. You have to beat good teams eventually. No reason to do it in every knockout round.

 

Having said that, England can barely turn it 'on' - let alone turn it off and on at their will, so think they need to keep winning and growing if they're to get anywhere.

 

We face France/Germany in either the last 16 or the quarters. Might as well be first cos that's at Wembley.

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If we had beaten Croatia and Scotland, I would have been happy with us playing a weaker side tonight and settling for second, like in 2018, however with the result and performance on Friday we really need to going all out to put on a show and win. If we end up drawing this and limping into the last 16 we'll have absolutely no momentum at all and it wouldn't shock me to see us go out in the last 16 there.

 

If we can get a good win tonight and face one of the big guns at Wembley, full of confidence with a decent crowd behind us, then who knows.

 

For the record I think we go out next Monday or Tuesday, but we have to go into it with a bit of momentum to have any sort of chance in my opinion.

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4 minutes ago, James said:

Sancho is meant to be quite a bad trainer at Dortmund so this might explain his continued non-selection 

 

Hasn't cut his teeth on a rainy Tuesday night vs Brewcie's boys.

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2 hours ago, Disco said:

Saka is class like. Proper love watching him. 

 

Could make a more than reasonable argument for him carrying Arsenal this season and for being one of the most exciting players in the league albeit to have him ahead of Sancho would be slightly odd.

 

Yeah, I rate Saka. He looks to have the right temperament as well as technique and he won't let us down.

 

I don't understand the clamour for Sancho. I've never seen him play well for England, though presumably he must be showing some club form.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Cronky said:

 

Yeah, I rate Saka. He looks to have the right temperament as well as technique and he won't let us down.

 

I don't understand the clamour for Sancho. I've never seen him play well for England, though presumably he must be showing some club form.

 

 

 

16 goals and 20 assists for Dortmund this season.

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The main thing that frustrates me is both Rice and Philips playing in the centre, far too defensively minded. I actually think Saka is class and I haven’t seen Sancho play enough so I can’t really comment but clearly Sancho’s record for his club is exceptional 

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