[Archived] England World Cup Campaign

[speeeeeeedie]

3 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

What about this team

                   Pickford

       Jones Stones Gomez

Tripper Lallana Dier Ali Rose

            Rashford Kane

What do people think?

           

I could live with most of that team.

Trippier is a no - see a few pages back.

Rose and Lallana need to prove their fitness and get their groove back - they both have time though.

Maybe Sterling in there as part of a front 3 with Rashford and Kane.

Cahill would probably get in as he is experienced.

There's a lot of time before June 2018, I'll probably change my mind 50 times before then.

It's easier for me to give you "no's" at this point. Walcott, Young, Hart, Livermore, Clyne, and if Loftus-Cheek is the real deal Wilshere is gone too. I have a soft spot for Oxlade-Chamberlain, but he's on borrowed time. I said that he should have signed for Liverpool, and he did so hopefully that pans out.

Welbeck is perennially injured but has done very well for England. He's not a pure striker but has the physical tools for international football.

My wild card for a squad place is Andy Carroll. On his day nobody can defend against him in the air.

 

[Oldgregg86]

For me Maguire is the second centre back on the sheet after Stones. Trippier has to keep his place above walker. Butland is an all round better keeper than Pickford but Pickford is an excellent shot stopper. Sterling is in the form of his life. I just don't know where he fits in. Agree with a fit Carroll as a different option to throw on if where chasing a game. Wilshire is finished. I just hope loftus cheek has a great second half to the season and could be a vital player for us come summer

[Rover_Shaun]

9 hours ago, speeeeeeedie said:

 

My wild card for a squad place is Andy Carroll. On his day nobody can defend against him in the air.

 

Sadly his days are few. Avoid

[philipl]

I'd pick Crouch over Carroll as a disruptive last minute hoof and get him on the end of it sub. You can be more certain Crouch would get it on target.

Seriously, there is promise in England but I cannot see us beating Belgium, Germany, France, Spain or Brazil in almost any circumstances and England would struggle to win against Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Portugal, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Nigeria, Mexico, Japan and South Korea.

 

 

 

[philipl]

The four pots

Pot 1: Russia (hosts, Group A), Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France.

Pot 2: Spain, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia, Peru.

Pot 3: Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran, Denmark.

Pot 4: Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Serbia.

Russia are the team everybody will want out of Pot 1.

 

Nigeria the nightmare from Pot 4.

 

Stunned to see Spain in Pot 2 but at least we cannot play them.

 

This is the first extended World Cup Tournament where there are no real rabbits going into the draw.

[Dreams of 1995]

3 minutes ago, philipl said:

The four pots

Pot 1: Russia (hosts, Group A), Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France.

Pot 2: Spain, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Croatia, Peru.

Pot 3: Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran, Denmark.

Pot 4: Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Serbia.

Russia are the team everybody will want out of Pot 1.

 

Nigeria the nightmare from Pot 4.

 

Stunned to see Spain in Pot 2 but at least we cannot play them.

 

This is the first extended World Cup Tournament where there are no real rabbits going into the draw.

The dream draw would be Poland, Iran and Panama.

Probably end up Brazil, Sweden and Nigeria though.

[philipl]

Don't under-rate the Poles. In Lewandowski they have a striker who only needs one chance to score. I'd take Russia any day- their 0-1 loss to Argentina could have been 1-10.

Ditto I'd probably take Costa Rica over Iran.

Agree with you on Panama- the other teams in Pot 4 will all be a threat in a one-off game. 

[Dreams of 1995]

Just now, philipl said:

Don't under-rate the Poles. In Lewandowski they have a striker who only needs one chance to score. I'd take Russia any day- their 0-1 loss to Argentina could have been 1-10.

Ditto I'd probably take Costa Rica over Iran.

Agree with you on Panama- the other teams in Pot 4 will all be a threat in a one-off game. 

I just don't want to be playing Russia in Russia. I'd always aim to avoid the home nation where possible.

Costa Rica did ok at the 2014 World Cup! Held us to 0-0 in the groups if I remember. The South American teams are another banana skin for me, some incredibly talented players. 

Tunisia don't have a particularly good WC record either but definitely wouldn't like to be playing them in a must-win group game.

[philipl]

Russia's most recent home results:

Spain 3-3 (6 Spain regulars missing, Russia came back from 0-2 and 2-3, Pique showed his age)

Argentina 0-1

Iran 1-1

South Korea 4-2

Mexico 1-2

Portugal 0-1

 

 

[islander200]

16 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

What about this team

                   Pickford

       Jones Stones Gomez

Tripper Lallana Dier Ali Rose

            Rashford Kane

What do people think?

           

On current form I'd find a place in the side for Harry Winks,excellent at keeping possession.50-50 between Trippier and Walker,Walker has more pace but Trippier has the best delivery of the two

[chaddyrovers]

2 hours ago, islander200 said:

On current form I'd find a place in the side for Harry Winks,excellent at keeping possession.50-50 between Trippier and Walker,Walker has more pace but Trippier has the best delivery of the two

Who would you drop? 

Dier is the holding midfielder, Lallana is playmaker and Ali scores goals. 

Or would you drop Rashford and play Ali just off Kane?

[Dreams of 1995]

3 hours ago, philipl said:

Russia's most recent home results:

Spain 3-3 (6 Spain regulars missing, Russia came back from 0-2 and 2-3, Pique showed his age)

Argentina 0-1

Iran 1-1

South Korea 4-2

Mexico 1-2

Portugal 0-1

 

 

Fair enough. I'd still like to avoid them though, if only for avoiding the trouble it would cause in the stands!

[islander200]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Who would you drop? 

Dier is the holding midfielder, Lallana is playmaker and Ali scores goals. 

Or would you drop Rashford and play Ali just off Kane?

Probably Rashford. It's a tough call.With Lallana's injury record he might not be fit anyway

[philipl]

2 hours ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Fair enough. I'd still like to avoid them though, if only for avoiding the trouble it would cause in the stands!

Russia is going to be hell for supporters.

The locals are mostly very nice but racist. However, every city has a large enough minority of thugs, hells angels, drunkards and football yobs that any fan visiting will inevitably meet wherever they go. And that's just the local police and three paramilitaries... who will be looking to generate situations they can use to extract bribes.

Quite a number of games will be in cities with a lot of extreme poverty- got to remember that the average Russian citizen is poorer than the average Tunisian. So theft and pickpocketing will be a nightmare, often with violence.

Then don't be lulled into thinking there are no games in Siberia so distances will be manageable. Kaliningrad to Yekaterinburg is over 3,000km. Even north-south St Petersburg to Sochi is 2,500km. That's like having the World Cup in England and chucking in games in Mauritania and Anatolia.

And don't forget that those gorgeous looking Svetlanas who are easy are living in the country which now has the highest incidence of new STD and HIV cases in the world.

 

 

[roverandout]

11 hours ago, philipl said:

I'd pick Crouch over Carroll as a disruptive last minute hoof and get him on the end of it sub. You can be more certain Crouch would get it on target.

Seriously, there is promise in England but I cannot see us beating Belgium, Germany, France, Spain or Brazil in almost any circumstances and England would struggle to win against Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Portugal, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Nigeria, Mexico, Japan and South Korea.

 

 

 

Noncense. We could beat any team outside the top echelons of world football

[philipl]

1 minute ago, roverandout said:

Noncense. We could beat any team outside the top echelons of world football

Think we are saying the same thing.

I didn't say we couldn't beat the second list but I am saying it would be a struggle.

We had an easy qualifying Group. Even beating Malta 4-0 was very hard work and the score was boosted by three goals in the last six minutes when cramp had reduced Malta to seven fit players.

[Audax]

Malta has played some competitive matches vs. major powers before, I think one was against Germany some years ago. Recently, Malta has not been too good.

[Audax]

On 11/16/2017 at 09:39, philipl said:

Russia is going to be hell for supporters.

The locals are mostly very nice but racist. However, every city has a large enough minority of thugs, hells angels, drunkards and football yobs that any fan visiting will inevitably meet wherever they go. And that's just the local police and three paramilitaries... who will be looking to generate situations they can use to extract bribes.

Quite a number of games will be in cities with a lot of extreme poverty- got to remember that the average Russian citizen is poorer than the average Tunisian. So theft and pickpocketing will be a nightmare, often with violence.

Then don't be lulled into thinking there are no games in Siberia so distances will be manageable. Kaliningrad to Yekaterinburg is over 3,000km. Even north-south St Petersburg to Sochi is 2,500km. That's like having the World Cup in England and chucking in games in Mauritania and Anatolia.

And don't forget that those gorgeous looking Svetlanas who are easy are living in the country which now has the highest incidence of new STD and HIV cases in the world.

 

 

I think Russia will be okay; because they can ramp up their police force, hooligans are really the least of their worries, when they held the Olympics in Sochi, they were worried about terrorist attacks.  I don't want to use severe language  like "police state" but that's exactly what they will be able to do.  They will certainly keep their own populace in place, in fact, because the hooligans are probably pretty friendly to Putin,  they probably won't want any trouble either. Sochi Olympics had no problems at all. Russia knows how to put their foot down.

In 1990, after the countries got off Sardinia, meaning Netherlands, Ireland and England (they all advanced), notice the Italian police on the boot didn't take any of this hooliganism and they really got after people.

Certainly, you will have merrymakers coming in from other countries and lots of vodka too, to boot.

 

 

[Audax]

All of Malta's recent matches, see, okay, lopsided scores to Scotland and Czech Republic but some of the results are respectable.

http://eloratings.net/Malta.htm

England clinched early, they were not under great pressure in playing Malta.  They may not have been that concerned and Malta can be competitive, I saw Croatia only defeated them 1-0, 2 goal wins by others.

 

 

[joey_big_nose]

On 15/11/2017 at 09:02, Dreams of 1995 said:

Rashford over Vardy. Bring Vardy on when legs are tiring and play that ball over the top/through the channels.

The team itself isn't exactly devoid of any quality but I am less than inspired with the tactical setting up of Southgate. Friday wasn't much of a marker as Germany weren't going at full rate but at least last night you could see that Brazil wanted to score. We held up ok defensively but showed little in attack.

They could have easily scored a couple too. A couple of good saves by Hart and then there was the incorrectly flagged offside decision of Willian when he had left Young in his trail - it had goal written all over it

Much as I hate any united player Rashford is one of only a few players we have who looks like he could be a match winner at international level.

Vardy isn't going to score goals against the best.

If he could a CL club would have bought him long ago.

[islander200]

Shelvey having a great game so far at Old Trafford. Like someone mentioned above how on earth did Jack Cork get in the squad before this fella

[joey_big_nose]

26 minutes ago, islander200 said:

Shelvey having a great game so far at Old Trafford. Like someone mentioned above how on earth did Jack Cork get in the squad before this fella

Agree he is a quality player. Like Carrick put him in a weak team under pressure and he will look poor (because his entire game revolves around picking others out, so they need to make the runs) but if the rest of the team is firing he can pick a pass excellently and improve the team hugely.

I think he will go on to get a lot of caps. We have no one else like him, and we need someone like him.

Edit - if he'd played against Brazil he would of got absolutely mullered by the press and been a total liability, but against teams we can compete with he would do much better than the likes of Henderson or Livermore.

[Norbert Rassragr]

I think shelvey doesn't get in as he does like to have a mental every so often, and kick the crap out of someone and shout at the ref. He has a bit too much mongrel about him.

[perthblue02]

Panama , Belgium and Tunisia in Englands group, could have been worse

[K-Hod]

The state of that starting line up. 3 actual centre halves on the bench, but nah, let’s play Kyle Walker in a position he’s never played before so he doesn’t have to make a decision on whether to drop Walker or Trippier.