England

[chaddyrovers]

Just now, roverandout said:

Shows their world cup performances werent as good as we thought. We are still at least 15 years away from competing with teams like spain france and germany

Did either Spain or Germany make it the semi finals in the world cup 2018? 

France arent anything special either. 

 

[Husky]

Welbeck is to England as Nuttall is to Rovers.

 

[roverandout]

3 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Did either Spain or Germany make it the semi finals in the world cup 2018? 

France arent anything special either. 

 

Did u watch spain tonight? Utterly superior in every aspect to england...france are the best team on the planet...do england have players like kroos or ozil to call on?

[Husky]

I'm struggling to find any positives about that performance.

Er. . . possibly that we 'stayed in the game' score wise . . .apart from that . . . .well nada.

[Cherry Blue]

England played like we did under Coyle.

Someone needs to teach Rashford to keep his head up - pathetic for an international behaving like a schoolboy.

Ref was poor. If goal was disallowed for De Gea's acting we need to re write football rules. 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Cherry Blue

[chaddyrovers]

8 minutes ago, roverandout said:

Did u watch spain tonight? Utterly superior in every aspect to england...france are the best team on the planet...do england have players like kroos or ozil to call on?

Spain played well at times but did we. Not trying to say England was outstanding tonight but we werent poor. I would have like to see us go 4-3-3 second half. With Kane up front and Welbeck/Rashford either side of him. 

Didnt do Germany must use having Kroos or Ozil in the world cup did it?

[blueboy3333]

England play half decent team and get beat shocker. And to think Deli Alli was in the paper the other day saying we could win Euro's in 2020. Deluded. 

[roverandout]

We are 2 or 3 quality midfielders away from being a good team..everywhere else is fine but midfield is woefull

[Sparks Rover]

Kane has been anonymous the last few competitive games.  Needs dropping

[roversfan99]

4 hours ago, roverandout said:

England have regressed under southgate.  He bottled the chance to bring in some youngsters and stick with tripe like henderson.  The ref is also a disgrace

What hyperbole that is. 

Henderson was as good as anyone in an England shirt at the world cup. A key player to give experience to what is otherwise a young side. Didnt have his best game tonight but neither did anyone really, especially Kane.

Which brings me on to your other point. It was a side that did well in the summer and is very young. Didnt we have one of if not the youngest sides in the tournament? And he brought in only Joe Gomez and Luke Shaw. Bottled it? Regressed? Pack it in.

Our problem is in the centre of midfield, Henderson is the only natural central midfielder and for me the balance is slightly off. Against big teams I think we need only 1 of Lingard and Alli and someone next to Henderson. Dier is shite so id have someone like Will Hughes who is tidy in possession. But thats a problem area, Foden has done nothing to suggest picking him bar doing well at youth football so lets not get carried away. Either way, we simply dont have the personnel to dominate against teams like Spain centrally who have such resources. Busquets, Saul, Thiago, Isco etc all top top class.

Pickford should have done better for the first, I dont think he is the best keeper, yes he made the save in the shootout v Colombia and hes excellent on the ball but he makes so many mistakes for all the hype.

 

[roversfan99]

4 hours ago, roverandout said:

Balls..henderson isnt up to it. He had a moment when there was an england player in loads of space...instead he turned back and played a short pass into trippier who was surrounded. This is the problem..england have no one who has that eye for a killer ball..southgate should have addressed this in the summer..players like maddison and foden have that vision. Foden is inexperienced yes but if you are good enough you are old enough...look at spain 5 or 6 midfielders who have that eye for a killer ball. All good in posession.

 

How could Southgate have addressed it in the summer?

3 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Did either Spain or Germany make it the semi finals in the world cup 2018? 

France arent anything special either. 

 

How arent France anything special? World Cup Winners and quality in literally every position. And so much depth in every position. You wouldnt swap Varane, Kante, Mbappe and Griezemann for basically anyone in world football.

[Audax]

France, great team of a great World Cup.

 

 

 

 

[Mattyblue]

I’m not particularly arsed either way, but you do make me laugh roverandout.

During the World Cup you were pretty much calling people traitors if they even made a slight criticism of the team, two months later and they are woeful!

[roverandout]

8 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

How could Southgate have addressed it in the summer?

How arent France anything special? World Cup Winners and quality in literally every position. And so much depth in every position. You wouldnt swap Varane, Kante, Mbappe and Griezemann for basically anyone in world football.

Im talking about after the world cup..scouting etc

[roverandout]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

I’m not particularly arsed either way, but you do make me laugh roverandout.

During the World Cup you were pretty much calling people traitors if they even made a slight criticism of the team, two months later and they are woeful!

Hindsight is a wonderful thing...i was caught up in the euphoria but even then i made it plain that our midfield wasnt up to it..the rest of the team is fine..midfield is a huge problem

[den]

That was pretty poor stuff. Once Spain levelled and fell into their passing game, we showed the deficiencies that have been there for a long, long time. We couldn’t react to it, we couldn’t offer anything other than the slow build up from the back followed by apparently hoping that what was failing might attacking wise, might miraculously click into place. 

It wasnt unseen how Spain would play, but you would think we didn’t know it. What’s the answer? Search me.

[joey_big_nose]

13 hours ago, roverandout said:

We are 2 or 3 quality midfielders away from being a good team..everywhere else is fine but midfield is woefull

This is bang on. We're second tier nation until we produce a few world class central midfielders. That's just brutal reality. For the players available Southgate is doing a very good job. No point jumping off a bridge about it.

Question for me is where from? Wilshire decided he'd rather play relegation football than go abroad and play Champions League which is such a British thing to do. Also too injury prone, and not really a creative mid, more a number 10.

Honestly you look across all of the Premier League and the only English creative central mid is Shelvey. There's a lot of scrapers, a lot of players who can play behind the strikers, a lot of box to box types. But he's the only one who you can say had the allround passing game to dominate the ball from deep.

He's got flaws but I think we have to give him a shot. He's another who should be asking how to get regular CL football, potentially looking to move abroad to do so.

That said - do I think putting Shelvey in the XI will make us competitive against France, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Spain? Of course not, he's maybe the best we've got but he wouldn't get anywhere near their squads. It's going to take time. To be competitive we need to have the extraordinary talent pipeline those countries have, and start exporting large numbers of players to other leagues like those countries do.

10 years at least I would say.

[47er]

In the English game the values are inverted. Strength, speed and stamina rate above skill and vision and technique.

If you are of the latter type it will be coached out of you or muscled out of you.

Duggie wouldn't have stood a chance if he'd been 25 today---too slow, too greedy, too light-weight and no-one to latch on to those mesmerising through passes anyway which would have simply gone through to the keeper.

Sad but true!!

[joey_big_nose]

1 minute ago, 47er said:

In the English game the values are inverted. Strength, speed and stamina rate above skill and vision and technique.

I would have agreed with this 10 years ago, but not now. Lots of skillful high technique players coming through (Sterling, Kane, Wilshire, Rashford, Trippier, Stones etc.). Think we've turned that corner on skill and technique. What we do lack though - like you say - is vision. Not had anyone who could pick a pass and control the ball like Pogba, Kroos, De Bruyne etc.. We've just got a massive hole there.

[roversfan99]

4 hours ago, roverandout said:

Im talking about after the world cup..scouting etc

Scouting who and where? Theres not a hidden gem or 2 hidden away who can compete with Spains midfield.

Henderson for all the grief you gave him is our only good central midfielder. He had a superb season at Liverpool, plays quite a lot of forward passes for someone in his position and had an impressive World Cup in which I felt the media started to appreciate him more. Southgate playing how he does, Henderson as a pivot with Alli and Lingard either side advanced of him is for me an admission that we cant control games in there so its him saying lets try and at least enforce our own strengths, playing between the lines, and giving Henderson at least the respite of a third centre back behind him.

I do think he got it wrong tactically yesterday in that he needed to compromise on the above, play one number 10 and give Henderson a bit more help against 3 top class central midfielders, and Isco sat inside helping them. One way would have been to put Dier next to him, someone who basically would have been there to stop, without being able to impact the game on the ball. My choice would have been Will Hughes as I said, ticks all the boxes, good on the ball, technically good, fiesty, young, in excellent form. Shelvey is I think injured but for me he would have been shown up. Wilshire is in poor form and has done nothing to deserve a place, Lewis Cook isnt in Bournemouths team, Maddison is a number 10 so that wouldnt improve the situation, Delph hasnt played for ages either, Loftus Cheek hasnt warranted a place for me and again is more of a 10, as is Barkley who again struggles for game time. Foden is one who is always mentioned to be fasttracked but hes barely played senior football. Winks another with injury issues and hardly any experience of senior football. Mount maybe a bit more deserving after his spell at Vitesse. For all of these names though, Spain would still have dominated yesterday. Spain, like a few other teams, Croatia being one of them, have midfields far superior not only to our own but to most. When you play them its important not to play them at their game, you need to instill your own style on them.

For me the frightening thing yesterday was the subs bench. Only Sterling really missing who may have been available and we try to change the game by bringing on Eric Dier and Danny Welbeck.

Edited September 9, 2018 by roversfan99

[Waggy76]

6 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Scouting who and where? Theres not a hidden gem or 2 hidden away who can compete with Spains midfield.

Henderson for all the grief you gave him is our only good central midfielder. He had a superb season at Liverpool, plays quite a lot of forward passes for someone in his position and had an impressive World Cup in which I felt the media started to appreciate him more. Southgate playing how he does, Henderson as a pivot with Alli and Lingard either side advanced of him is for me an admission that we cant control games in there so its him saying lets try and at least enforce our own strengths, playing between the lines, and giving Henderson at least the respite of a third centre back behind him.

I do think he got it wrong tactically yesterday in that he needed to compromise on the above, play one number 10 and give Henderson a bit more help against 3 top class central midfielders, and Isco sat inside helping them. One way would have been to put Dier next to him, someone who basically would have been there to stop, without being able to impact the game on the ball. My choice would have been Will Hughes as I said, ticks all the boxes, good on the ball, technically good, fiesty, young, in excellent form. Shelvey is I think injured but for me he would have been shown up. Wilshire is in poor form and has done nothing to deserve a place, Lewis Cook isnt in Bournemouths team, Maddison is a number 10 so that wouldnt improve the situation, Delph hasnt played for ages either, Loftus Cheek hasnt warranted a place for me and again is more of a 10, as is Barkley who again struggles for game time. Foden is one who is always mentioned to be fasttracked but hes barely played senior football. Winks another with injury issues and hardly any experience of senior football. Mount maybe a bit more deserving after his spell at Vitesse. For all of these names though, Spain would still have dominated yesterday. Spain, like a few other teams, Croatia being one of them, have midfields far superior not only to our own but to most. When you play them its important not to play them at their game, you need to instill your own style on them.

For me the frightening thing yesterday was the subs bench. Only Sterling really missing who may have been available and we try to change the game by bringing on Eric Dier and Danny Welbeck.

The bottom line is , we over achieved in the World Cup due to a good draw.!!!

[Husky]

23 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

France arent anything special either. 

 

They are a decent team with better players than England... .  though I've always thought they are a bit of a soft touch and had they not had the rub of the green in the WC or gone a goal down I think they could have easily lost the plot and crumbled.

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by Husky

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, Husky said:

They are a decent team with better players than England... .  though I've always thought they are a bit of a soft touch and had they not had the rub of the green in the WC or gone a goal down I think they could have easily lost the plot and crumbled.

 

Think they were very efficient and did go 2-1 down v Argentina thanks to a screamer and a lucky deflection and had the answers.

Quality all over the pitch (even Giroud for all his limations was such a perfect foil for Griezemann and Mbappe) and all across the bench. Belgium were the best team to watch when it all clicked but had players like Chadli starting knockout games. 

Not the basket case of years gone by.

[joey_big_nose]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

Think they were very efficient and did go 2-1 down v Argentina thanks to a screamer and a lucky deflection and had the answers.

Quality all over the pitch (even Giroud for all his limations was such a perfect foil for Griezemann and Mbappe) and all across the bench. Belgium were the best team to watch when it all clicked but had players like Chadli starting knockout games. 

Not the basket case of years gone by.

Yup, France are a fabulous side who can go on to dominate the next two or three tournaments. Quality absolutely everywhere.

A lot of players who they left out of their world cup squad would not only make the England first XI, but also be amongst our best players - Benzema, Poyet, Koscielny, Lacazette, Martial, Coman.

Mad and terrifying.

[jim mk2]

We should copy the French method of developing players. Most of them are from the Paris area.  Brilliant article in the FT magazine on it back in the summer.