4-2-3-1 seems so obvious for England. Rice and Bellingham can play 6 & 8 comfortably against most teams. England are blessed to have two such complete midfielders. Eze is the best no.10 on form at present, although Foden is a useful back up. Rashford and Saka are great options at present in the wide areas. Gordon is an alternative on the left. England have so many permutations but 4-2-3-1 seems the obvious formation to play them in. The only concern is that however England line up, come the latter stages of tournaments, our opponents always seem more adapt at keeping hold of the ball
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c8r0mpvyzp6o Very interesting and somewhat scathing article about Brennan Johnson and the fact that he's been dropped to the bench by both club and country, the latter being for a player who himself can't hold down a spot for Fulham. Can't say I disagree with any of it. He hasn't developed one iota since he joined.
International football on ITV and once again they give us dumb and dumber on commentary. The worst pairing on UK TV by a country mile.
Not watching it, but it looks like a 4-2-3-1 tonight with a rather uncreative midfield two. Not a ton of creativity throughout the whole side actually, as I look at it. Plenty of firepower though, which should compensate for that, somewhat. 1-0, Saka. Set-piece and scramble. Typical Arsenal. Tuchel's going to have a hard time on his hands motivating this side for these games. He's picking strong teams for dead rubbers in a packed part of a packed season. The squad is much, much stronger than their opposition, though.
Troy Parrott's headed home a tap-in to put Ireland ahead against Portugal. Now, if he can just stay away from his dodgy mates...
Ronaldo sent off ...deservedly. 15 minutes for Ireland to hold on and take the chance of qualifying into the last game.
Lucas Bergvall returned from international duty early due to his concussion The fact that Graham Potter (for he is the Sweden coach) thought he'd be okay for internationals just as long as he didn't head the ball in training is...yeah, there's a reason he can't seem to buy a club job now
Great win - really disciplined performance which sets up a banger of a game in Sunday in Budapest. Parrott rightly gets the plaudits but Kelleher proved once again what a top keeper he is - and why I still think we should have bought him.
