England football team

axisus

I honestly think that for once we have a bloody good crop of players. It seems crazy some of the footballers who will be left out of the starting team at the Euros. I remember those barren years when Jermaine Defoe was our top striker, I just felt that we had no chance of progressing. Sure, we will probably trip over ourselves at some point, but it's nice to see such quality available for once. just look at the young, long-term talented players - Mount, Rice, Foden, Grealish, Sancho, Rashford, Greenwood. 

Also, after a pretty rubbish bunch of managers - Erikson, McClaren, Capello, Hodgson ..... we finally have someone in Gareth Southgate who seems in tune with the team and the way we play. 

crunchman

I'm not getting my hopes up. We'll find some way to lose.

joeyowen

hmmm, they are good, but I'm not sure great in a competitive way.

For example, look at the French second string team, it's stunning and they have a young team also (with some more mature)

I'm Welsh, but still follow England as a home nation,  and hope they do well.

earwighoney

axisus said:

I honestly think that for once we have a bloody good crop of players. It seems crazy some of the footballers who will be left out of the starting team at the Euros. I remember those barren years when Jermaine Defoe was our top striker, I just felt that we had no chance of progressing. Sure, we will probably trip over ourselves at some point, but it's nice to see such quality available for once. just look at the young, long-term talented players - Mount, Rice, Foden, Grealish, Sancho, Rashford, Greenwood. 

Also, after a pretty rubbish bunch of managers - Erikson, McClaren, Capello, Hodgson ..... we finally have someone in Gareth Southgate who seems in tune with the team and the way we play. 

I'm unbothered whether the team will win the Euros or not, but at least Southgate is putting a team out to look to play some football which at times is enjoyable to watch.  The Capello era was so bad to watch.

I'm in agreement, there seems to be a generation of young English players who enjoy having the ball at their feet, and also have good footballing brains with it.

I think the England team is decent, but doesn't have the quality in the middle of the pitch the very best teams to win the Euros and WC have had, eg Spain - Xavi/Iniesta, France - Kante/Pogba, Germany - Kroos/Muller, but at the top of the pitch and on the sides of the pitch, the squad is excellent.

England also generally seem to struggle the first time they play a team with an excellent midfielder in the middle of the pitch like Modric of Croatia, and de Jong of Holland, but I think with many of the team playing for sides with very tactically dynamic pressing games maybe they should be better able to nullify such playmakers in the future?

munckee

Our issue is we have a weak defence.  Southgate tries to build formations round it with 3 central defenders but the better teams will always be able to hurt us.  Conversely the top teams have defences good enough to nullify a lot of our attacking threat.

As usual our better players seem to be in the same positions.  I'm not convinced Foden is quite as good as cracked up to be but Grealish is a game changer if fit, Mount and Rashford are decent.  Kane is great.

guitars4you

munckee said:

Our issue is we have a weak defence.  Southgate tries to build formations round it with 3 central defenders but the better teams will always be able to hurt us.  Conversely the top teams have defences good enough to nullify a lot of our attacking threat.

As usual our better players seem to be in the same positions.  I'm not convinced Foden is quite as good as cracked up to be but Grealish is a game changer if fit, Mount and Rashford are decent.  Kane is great.

Foden looks pretty awesome at times in a Man City team shirt, surrounded by other talent - Not sure how that will equate in an England shirt - But do agree Mount, Foden, Rashford, Kane look useful upfront/attacking option - Not sure if Grealish will be fit - I'd much prefer Foden in the starting line up to Sterling - I am not a Sterling fan - Misses far to many chances in a Sky Blue or England shirt - Speed is his best asset not 'skill'

Wing backs look useful for us as well  - Just unsure the central defence will pan out - Stone looks much better now than a year or so ago, but again surrounded by other talent in a sky blue shirt - Even then he has made a couple of errors, but no one has a 100% record zero tolerance record with such errors

I'm not up temp thinking we can win - I think we have some good talent - Just then unsure if Southgate will play a system that will un-leash it 

thecolourbox

Apart from Grealish who is essentially Villa's "one man team" a lot of the time, the other players you mention are largely part of a good team but not necessarily the star of it. Usually that means that they disappear in the big games but I suppose it could potentially be in their favour if they can get it to mean a team ethic.

I don't follow the England football team as a fan, I stopped supporting them years ago (I think 2010 was the last game I actively supported them), so I'm probably not the best one to provide blind optimism but they do have some ability in there

crunchman

We are not strong enough in the centre of defence.  Reminds me of the '86 team.  Good going forwards with Lineker, Hoddle, and Beardsley, but Terry Fenwick in the middle of defence.  If only Mark Wright hadn't broken his leg.

sev112

Gotta disagree about Southgate playing attractive football.  He has the talent to play fast attacking but insists on making them play tricky tacky slow stuff.  Very boring I find.

also no matter that we have some good looking okayers, we have Czech Republic and Croatia in our group.  We are going out in the first round, or we are certainly at risk of it,  and irrespective of form, I could imagine a psyched up Scotland doing one over on us.
I am not confident as you can guess 

munckee

sev112 said:

Gotta disagree about Southgate playing attractive football.  He has the talent to play fast attacking but insists on making them play tricky tacky slow stuff.  Very boring I find.

also no matter that we have some good looking okayers, we have Czech Republic and Croatia in our group.  We are going out in the first round, or we are certainly at risk of it,  and irrespective of form, I could imagine a psyched up Scotland doing one over on us.
I am not confident as you can guess 

I think we should get out of the group, Croatia are not as strong as they were and we should be able to beat the Czech's and Scotland.  In the Euros you tend to run straight into the big teams after that where you can get an average team in the WC

sev112

I’m not too worried about post group - for all teams that’s a one off game that any of the teams can win, and we are historically not bad at that.  Here’s  a prediction : 2 draws and a loss yikes 

guitars4you

thecolourbox said:

I don't follow the England football team as a fan, I stopped supporting them years ago (I think 2010 was the last game I actively supported them), so I'm probably not the best one to provide blind optimism but they do have some ability in there

I am certainly club first, England second when it comes to supporting/following the team - Don't get me wrong, I don't not want them to win and/or do well, but just seen far more bland attempts, for one reason or another

Both 1986 and 2000 looked good for a while in the WC

thecolourbox

guitars4you said:

thecolourbox said:

I don't follow the England football team as a fan, I stopped supporting them years ago (I think 2010 was the last game I actively supported them), so I'm probably not the best one to provide blind optimism but they do have some ability in there

I am certainly club first, England second when it comes to supporting/following the team - Don't get me wrong, I don't not want them to win and/or do well, but just seen far more bland attempts, for one reason or another

Both 1986 and 2000 looked good for a while in the WC

There have been times I've wanted then to do badly, I particularly enjoyed the Northern Ireland loss and when Macedonia caused them all kinds of trouble. It started when the team I support got to the premier, where you'd spend every home game shouting against these players who seemed quite arrogant towards "only little old West Brom" that it seemed contradictory to cheer them on a few days later just because they were in a different shirt.

I'm not patriotic in any way though so that's probably why

guitars4you

One area Southgate needs to look at is the idea of playing 2 holding midfield players - Normally a mix of Rice, Phillips or Henderson - I think he does it as he is worried about the defence and feels they need protecting - The negative with this is that it creates a negative as an attacking option IMO 

The other issue is the right hand side winger/wide attacking midfield - He generally favours 4-2-3-1 - Rashford prefers the left hand side of the attacking 3 - So does Foden and so does Sterling - Option 1 is what England do so many time without good results and that is play a good man out of position in order to get them in the team - I certainly don't see anything special so far with Hudson Odoi or Sancho in that role - Saka from Arsenal has looked useful sometimes but un-proven so far - He could play Walker at R Back and James in a more attacking role

Teetonetal

I remain unconvinced by Southgate... But at least his team's have some kind of team spirit on show.

monkey42

Offensively we look decent...defensively we look vulnerable

UnclePsychosis

sev112 said:

I could imagine a psyched up Scotland doing one over on us.
I am not confident as you can guess 

Speaking as a Scot, I'm personally devastated that Maguire appears to be injured. :-(

thecolourbox

monkey42 said:

Offensively we look decent...defensively we look vulnerable

I've not watched any England matches, do they actually look decent offensively in the games they've played? Or is it just that they look good in their respective League teams?

sev112

I’d like to see
Kane Sterling
Rashford Grealish Foden
Rice 
And any 4 defenders and a goalie
and Go out and score more goals than the other side

munckee

thecolourbox said:

monkey42 said:

Offensively we look decent...defensively we look vulnerable

I've not watched any England matches, do they actually look decent offensively in the games they've played? Or is it just that they look good in their respective League teams?

Against decent sides we’ve been mixed beat and lost to Belgium, beat Wales, lost to Denmark and Czech Republic. 

scrumhalf

We'll find a way to arse it up, we always do. It's amost comforting.