Todays Games
- Thread starter qprbeth
- Start date
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Who's your starting eleven in a 4-3-3 Col. Assuming everyone's fit of course.
I thought Sako did well when he came on Jeff. He's young and has bags of potential.
Must admit I'm beginning to warm to grealish as a player, he's come on in leaps and bounds since the resumption after lockdown, kept villa up almost single handed, damn him, but is now an exciting player who England should build around.....if he's injured at any time then Eze is his ideal replacement....
I just think Southgate gives the opposition too much respect, he always plays two defensive midfielders which is totally unnecessary with the quality of attacking players we have. Many of our players work with exceptional coaches at their clubs who are tactically so much more astute than Southgate, it must be so frustrating for them to be held back by his lack of vision, can he not see what they could be capable of?...
I'd play this as a more attcking option:
Pickford
Alexander-Arnold Coady Maguire Chilwell
Phillips (holding)
Maddison/Mount and Grealish
Sterling, Rashford and Kane.
Add a second holding midfielder with Grealish in front of them against the better sides, or possibly always play that, with Henderson or someone alongside Phillips, who I really rate.
Grealish is on a hot streak, but he goes cold for months at a time as well. You can’t build an international team around an individual unless he is as freakishly good and as consistent as Maradona, Ronaldo C or Messi.
Didn’t see tonight’s game, was it entertaining? I see Ireland 0 were consistent.
We played well considering the amount of players we had missing and probably deserved a draw.
I wouldn't build the team around Grealish, but I'd pick a formation to compliment him and at least give him a chance of playing.
Unfortunately, Southgate is rather defensive and has blind spots concerning Mount and Declan ****ing Rice, plus the formation.
Grealish was very, very good tonight.
Grealish should be first name on the team-sheet for me (maybe after Kane).
Phillips, Mount, Dier, Rice, Maguire (and more) all bang average.
Phillips, Mount, Dier, Rice, Maguire (and more) all bang average.
The thing I’ll give Southgate is that he got a much weaker squad than this one to a World Cup semi final. He’s almost spoilt for choice now, and it shows in weird selections. As you know, I would always play 4-3-3 with a strong enough group of players, as all the great, and most entertaining, teams have done, and I think we have that. 2nd CB alongside Coady is the biggest question mark for me as I don’t rate Maguire and don’t really know how good Gomez (when fit) is. Shame that Stones really hasn’t got the head for it as in an ideal world he would be perfect for an international CB.
Not winning this has no impact on anything else, does it?
Just means we don't qualify for the last 4 of the Nations League.
Euros next year anyway.
We have a really good chance of winning that, if Southgate can get the best players on the pitch and be a bit more adventurous.
We have immensely talented attacking players and should go for it more, because, as you say, we're not great at the back ,although we have excellent full backs.
I don't think it really matters which centre backs we play imo, as I think they're all much of a muchness. I do like Coady though.
Gomez gives us raw pace.
Listening to Southgate, he's in denial a little imo.
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I think I'd go with Michael Keane and Conor Coady. Maguire is a good goal threat. Maybe Gomez and Maguire, or any combination of the four. I thought it odd that Southgate went with Dier as centre back when he had a dedicated one sitting on the bench.
None of the Belgium starting eleven play football in their own country. All of England's starting eleven do, with the exception of Trippier ( A. Madrid. ) Just an observation.
Funny how we all see things differently.
I really don't rate Kean at this level, with his distribution being particularly awful.
Dier has played cenre back all season at Spurs and is ok. I agree he's not good enough at international level. Nor is Rice imo.
I believe we have immensely talented players and a very strong attacking squad, with loads of very good young players.
Sadly, we don't have any world class centre backs.
I don’t go along with immensely talented players, we have about 4 I can think of, the rest are bang average
I'm only talking out loud Col. I really don't know what the perfect mix is for the players we have at our disposal. I think sometimes we're spoilt for choice when they're all fit, hence why I asked for your opinion on our best starting eleven. I think you have more insight into the game than I do, as I wasn't aware of Keane's poor distribution. As Stan said above, it's a shame Stone's gone off the rails as he was heralded to be the great distributor from the back.