Clyne was injured, but he'll be back for Liverpool. So, he wasn't injured, basically. He's not as good as Walker anyway, but it would be nice to have the option, wouldn't it? Spurs trainee, of course. Dier and Drinkwater shouldn't be in competition for places. They're very different players. Why did Southgate only call up two central midfielders? That's the real question. No balance to the squad at all.
Has England scored yet? Also who do we blame for being ****, Cant blame Rooney this time, so must be the Tottenham players being utter ****
The whole team was ****, barring Hart. Focusing on the Spurs players is utter nonsense. Lingard was ****, Rooney played for virtually no time and was still ****, everyone was ****.
Buy you so called England fans always blame Rooney, but this time you cant. Just admit, Spuds players were the worst.
Who said that I was an England fan or that I blamed Rooney? He's **** now, but he doesn't pick himself. The manager's ultimately responsible for the team's performance. Lingard was still the worst, though. ****e.
So is focusing on just United players Same old bollox. Can't blame one United player bcos he's benched, lets blame another. Lingard was far from the worst player. There were far worse and they all stemmed from midfield.
Lingard shouldn't be anywhere near the team, but I'm not blaming him. Like Rooney, he didn't pick himself. If he wasn't in the squad, then nobody would've suggested that he was unfairly left out, would they?
I doubt many would agree with what you've just said about Lingard. And I repeat, he was far from the worst player for England. The problem stemmed from our lack of possession and creativity in central midfield. Surely you're not arguing against what is so blatantly obvious to everyone else? We couldnt get out of our own half. Really don't see how you think that's the fault of the guy playing left wing forward lol. Truth is, we couldnt live with their pressing in central midfield, that kept putting pressure on our defence, and also meant we couldnt get the ball forward quick or crisply enough to let the front 3 get into the game. The worst players were probably Dier and Henderson. But hey, one of them is a Spud so you'll probably disagree.
You can't claim club bias while also claiming that Lingard would've been a big miss from the squad. Who was calling for his inclusion beforehand? If he was at Hull or somewhere, then he'd have no chance.
I agree that Dier and Drinkwater shouldn't be in competition. But why the **** are we playing a defensive midfielder against Slovenia?! Drinkwater should be in for the games where we're in control of the game and Dier and Vardy should be in the games where we're under the cosh. There isn't a better English central midfielder on the ball than Drinkwater. He simply has to play against the sides that will sit in and park the bus. He keeps the ball moving better. Dier has his role in the England side, but it should be either off the bench to see games out or starting against sides we're going to struggle against.
Slovenia aren't that bad and probably should have won that game, so a holding midfielder isn't a bad option. Playing Dier and Drinkwater could've worked well.
They did play well, but we should be looking to beat them. Having 1 up front (and that 1 being Daniel 'I can't be arsed to move" Sturridge) and in midfield isn't good enough. Sturridge and Vardy have both shown that they play well in a two up front formation. Vardy has flourished in the Premier League since we switched to two up front (both 3-5-2 in the Great Escape and the 4-4-2 last season - something like 30 league goals and 12 assists in a about 14 months) and Sturridge has played his best football with both Suarez and Firminho in a 2 striker formation for Liverpool. It's just a shame that England have such dire options on the wing but I'd go for this; Hart Clyne Stones Smalling Rose Sterling Drinkwater Henderson Lallana Vardy Kane
Sturrigde was moving too much, if anything, but I agree with your overall point. He needs a partner to play alongside in order to get the best out of him. The problem with that formation is that Southgate couldn't pick a lot of them because they're injured. Either that or they're claiming to be injured and there's nothing wrong with them, as this weekend's fixtures will tell us. Sterling looked completely uninjured against us, clogging his way through Rose's ankles all day and he'll be fit for City. Pulled out of the England squad, though.
The problem for poor old Gaz is that he's told who to pick and he has to deal with the consequences. There's no way on Earth that the selectors have looked at Lingard's performances this season and think he deserves to start for England (I know he's there because of injuries but you get my point). He's there because he plays for United. When he leaves for Birmingham or Brentford (his level) then he'll never feature in an England squad again. Other examples of this are Tom Cleverley (only played when he was at United), Stuart Downing (only played when at Liverpool) and Wes Brown (only played when he was at United). None of those have ever been good enough for an England cap (certainly not when they were at those clubs - Downing has had good spells for Boro and Villa) and were definitely picked because they played for 'big' clubs. Like I say, as soon as they left those big clubs they've vanished from the England scene.
Again, I agree with your general point, while disagreeing with the specific example. There's no doubt that the FA believe that picking players from certain clubs is the right thing to do, but Lingard's not an example of it, in my opinion. Southgate picked him because he knows him from the U21s, despite him not being worth a call-up.
