Gareth Southgate

[foreveryoung]

Apparently Gareth said, if anyone can stop Mbappe, it'll be Kyle Walker? 

What an unfit Kyle Walker, must be a special player. Had no pace in the Senegal game.

[romavillan]

5 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Apparently Gareth said, if anyone can stop Mbappe, it'll be Kyle Walker? 

What an unfit Kyle Walker, must be a special player. Had no pace in the Senegal game.

Hopefully our plan for Mbappe involves more than one player or we're ****.

As for Southgate, we'l find out if the newfound love for him will last past the France game as from that game on we'll be playing much better opposition. Even though we were controlling the possession in the first half an hour against Senegal they made by far the best chances. A better side would have been ahead. 

I'm still not convinced by Stones-Maguire and Pickford. We don't have better in the squad though so we've got to play them. Love Pickford's attitude, and Stones and Maguire are 100% committed but they aren't at the same level as our midfield and attack is now. 

So Southgate has to prove it against the good teams for me. Good work so far apart from the USA game, but with the players we have we should be beating Iran, USA, Wales and Senegal. Compare our squad with 80s/90s/00s England and it has a lot more quality, back then getting quarter finals was an achievement most of the time, even qualifying for tournaments wasn't always easy! This squad should be in the business end of any tournament we enter. Hopefully Southgate won't make us clam up and try and defend against the French...

 

[KentVillan]

6 hours ago, S-Platt said:

Van Gaal will have a say he has won the lot and has an average Dutch team playing above their level.

Yes, good shout, although he hasn’t won much in the last 10 years. But agree they are an outside contender and I wouldn’t fancy Southgate matching up against him in a big game.

Reality is I think France’s attack will expose the issues with Maguire and Stones, who I think have been getting away with a few brain farts so far as we haven’t faced a really quality attack. That isn’t on Southgate tbf, as hard to see who else he could be starting in defence, and he’s had them playing better than most expected.

[PaulC]

7 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Yes, good shout, although he hasn’t won much in the last 10 years. But agree they are an outside contender and I wouldn’t fancy Southgate matching up against him in a big game.

Reality is I think France’s attack will expose the issues with Maguire and Stones, who I think have been getting away with a few brain farts so far as we haven’t faced a really quality attack. That isn’t on Southgate tbf, as hard to see who else he could be starting in defence, and he’s had them playing better than most expected.

Rice and Henderson will give good protection to the back 4

It's a step.up but players enjoy the challenge don't they. 

 

[tinker]

As good as Mbappe is for me Griezmann is where our main attention should be, stop him and you stopping the balls out to Mbappe and Any runner.

We are weak in defence, Walker (because his not fit ) and Shaw are both slowish. I can see Mbappe switching to the French right to expose Shaw. And the middle two have looked unsure at times. We stand a chance but for me they are the strongest team in it so far. 

[stewiek2]

12 hours ago, tinker said:

As good as Mbappe is for me Griezmann is where our main attention should be, stop him and you stopping the balls out to Mbappe and Any runner.

It was like when everyone raved over Messi in Pep's Barca team. At the time I said if Iniesta clicked then Barca clicked. Outstanding player and the one you had to stop.

[Delphinho123]

4 minutes ago, stewiek2 said:

It was like when everyone raved over Messi in Pep's Barca team. At the time I said if Iniesta clicked then Barca clicked. Outstanding player and the one you had to stop.

With respect to Iniesta, who indeed was a top player, I don’t think the above is true. Messi is probably the greatest player of all time and was the player you needed to nullify at Barcelona in that great team. 

[stewiek2]

Just now, Delphinho123 said:

With respect to Iniesta, who indeed was a top player, I don’t think the above is true. Messi is probably the greatest player of all time and was the player you needed to nullify at Barcelona in that great team. 

Oh it is indeed true. The amount of games I watched where they struggled at times then brought Iniesta on and totally changed the game, and games where he started then they struggled when he went off, that's games where they had Messi, Neymar and Suarez up top!

[Zhan_Zhuang]

So who gets the job to do on Griezmann? Think i'd prefer England to continue to play the way they are and not focus too much or deviate from the philosophy. Sure it is a big step-up in quality.

I've been impressed by England's midfield in particular, a good balance and players who are in form. Rice, Bellingham and Henderson last two matches has been outstanding!

Edited December 6, 2022 by Zhan_Zhuang

[stewiek2]

42 minutes ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

So who gets the job to do on Griezmann? Think i'd prefer England to continue to play the way they are and not focus too much or deviate from the philosophy. Sure it is a big step-up in quality.

I've been impressed by England's midfield in particular, a good balance and players who are in form. Rice, Bellingham and Henderson last two matches has been outstanding!

This all comes into play when we are out of possession. I think we stick a man on Griezman when out of possession, same as I'm sure it will be Walker's job to earmark Mbappe. I think he'll go 3 at the back, and whoever is the central of the three (either Stones or maybe Dier) is tasked with stepping out onto Griezman when out of possession, then stepping to supporting Rice to allow Bellingham/Henderson or who is in that midfield to push forward when we have it. Maguire to look after Giroud and Shaw is more than capable of handling Dembele when out of possession. I'm not sure that mbappe and Dembele have that work ethic to get back and protect the full backs in a way England's players do. If it's 4 at the back then I'd say we stick Bellingham on him out of posession but in posession he has licence to get forward. Henderson will be, as always, busy. Rice sits and protects the back 4 in this instance.

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

So who gets the job to do on Griezmann? Think i'd prefer England to continue to play the way they are and not focus too much or deviate from the philosophy. Sure it is a big step-up in quality.

I've been impressed by England's midfield in particular, a good balance and players who are in form. Rice, Bellingham and Henderson last two matches has been outstanding!

When Southgate brings in his man Phillips

[tinker]

10 minutes ago, Zatman said:

When Southgate brings in his man Phillips

I wouldn't be to disappointed with this as long as it isn't for Bellingham or Rice, that means Henderson would have to sit it out. 

[Zhan_Zhuang]

14 minutes ago, Zatman said:

When Southgate brings in his man Phillips

Don't think any of the current three deserve to be dropped at all...

[villa4europe]

11 minutes ago, tinker said:

I wouldn't be to disappointed with this as long as it isn't for Bellingham or Rice, that means Henderson would have to sit it out. 

I would, it's a huge shift, at the moment to me we're playing with rice as a holding midfielder with then Bellingham and Henderson in front of him as an inverted triangle, phillips coming in would mean we play with 2 holding midfielders and then Bellingham as a triangle

I wouldn't touch it at the moment, it's well balanced, even bringing Mount in would change the shape of the midfield 3 as he's slightly more advanced than Henderson and its not worth it, like him or loathe him the balance is there

[tinker]

7 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I would, it's a huge shift, at the moment to me we're playing with rice as a holding midfielder with then Bellingham and Henderson in front of him as an inverted triangle, phillips coming in would mean we play with 2 holding midfielders and then Bellingham as a triangle

I wouldn't touch it at the moment, it's well balanced, even bringing Mount in would change the shape of the midfield 3 as he's slightly more advanced than Henderson and its not worth it, like him or loathe him the balance is there

Henderson has been ok but the midfield hasn't been that great for me , Bellingham has shone with moments of brilliance but we don't seem to hold possession there for very long, tend to play straight threw it or go over it. 

[villa4europe]

26 minutes ago, tinker said:

Henderson has been ok but the midfield hasn't been that great for me , Bellingham has shone with moments of brilliance but we don't seem to hold possession there for very long, tend to play straight threw it or go over it. 

The midfield isn't perfect, think the movement ahead of rice is poor, phillips being 5m to his right isn't the answer though, Mount, foden or grealish as a 10 could be but Mount isn't in form and the other 2 aren't happening

Henderson is the best we've got right now IMO

[fightoffyour]

On 04/12/2022 at 22:37, sidcow said:

I'm not buying the talk about Southgate taking us deep

Edited December 6, 2022 by fightoffyour

[PaulC]

We obviously have to show them respect but we shouldn't be changing our system just to cope with Mbappe. A back 5 for me would wrong, we'd have to take out a midfielder or attacker. Just deny Mbappe the space which he had a lot of against Poland. Griezmann and Dembele are no worldbeaters and Giroud is old and slow. They have more to worry about Bellingham, Kane, Saka and Foden and the game changers on the bench. 

[Zatman]

10 minutes ago, PaulC said:

We obviously have to show them respect but we shouldn't be changing our system just to cope with Mbappe. A back 5 for me would wrong, we'd have to take out a midfielder or attacker. Just deny Mbappe the space which he had a lot of against Poland. Griezmann and Dembele are no worldbeaters and Giroud is old and slow. They have more to worry about Bellingham, Kane, Saka and Foden and the game changers on the bench. 

Griezmann is one of the playrrs of tge tournament so far. Most agree without his brain and workrate Mbappe wouldnt be getting these chances

[Stevo985]

On 06/12/2022 at 13:12, villa4europe said:

I would, it's a huge shift, at the moment to me we're playing with rice as a holding midfielder with then Bellingham and Henderson in front of him as an inverted triangle, phillips coming in would mean we play with 2 holding midfielders and then Bellingham as a triangle

I wouldn't touch it at the moment, it's well balanced, even bringing Mount in would change the shape of the midfield 3 as he's slightly more advanced than Henderson and its not worth it, like him or loathe him the balance is there

Agreed.

I think the way we deal with MBappe is Walker. People laugh at that but Mbappe's main weapon is pace. That's not to say he's a better version of Gabby, he's obviously world class. But if you can have someone who can genuinely stick to him and not let him break then that's half the battle.

What we don't want is the team changing just to focus on Mbappe and leaving us open everywhere else.

We're a **** good team. If Southgate and the team go out and play like we're a good team then we've got a real chance