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Malta v England Slovakia v England


andykeenan

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whats the biggest issue with the english national team? i though by and large it was kind of popular opinion they consider international football to play second fiddle to their massive PL wages and appearance bonuses etc or that a fair few of the players dont actually enjoy playing for england and dont want to be there

so why the **** do you name your probably (scarily) strongest team away to malta? its 3 weeks in to the new season, there were some proper sunday league tackles going in (to be fair to them the pitch looked ok)

call up abraham, call up gray, call up holgate, might not be good enough right now to be in the WC picture but they should be good enough to play their bollocks off vs malta and win the game, but again they'll but a big emphasis on the U21s qualifying for the next tournament but then not actually take the strongest team to that

the whole things just a big boring turn off of a mess, i honestly dont know how people still follow it all

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9 hours ago, villa4europe said:

whats the biggest issue with the english national team? i though by and large it was kind of popular opinion they consider international football to play second fiddle to their massive PL wages and appearance bonuses etc or that a fair few of the players dont actually enjoy playing for england and dont want to be there

so why the **** do you name your probably (scarily) strongest team away to malta? its 3 weeks in to the new season, there were some proper sunday league tackles going in (to be fair to them the pitch looked ok)

call up abraham, call up gray, call up holgate, might not be good enough right now to be in the WC picture but they should be good enough to play their bollocks off vs malta and win the game, but again they'll but a big emphasis on the U21s qualifying for the next tournament but then not actually take the strongest team to that

the whole things just a big boring turn off of a mess, i honestly dont know how people still follow it all

Might not be getting this but are you saying that Southgate shouldn't pick his strongest team in order to protect players for Premier League? Or are you saying that these players don't actually give much of a shit so others should be selected instead? 

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1 hour ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Might not be getting this but are you saying that Southgate shouldn't pick his strongest team in order to protect players for Premier League? Or are you saying that these players don't actually give much of a shit so others should be selected instead? 

I'm saying they don't give a shit and we shouldn't need them to beat Malta, I think some of the players play at 70% to protect themselves for the PL and it just makes for turgid horrible games

coule understand it if southgate named his strongest team and tried a formation we'd never seen before but that wasn't what last night was either

games like Malta should be treated in the same way as club football pre season

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23 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I'm saying they don't give a shit and we shouldn't need them to beat Malta, I think some of the players play at 70% to protect themselves for the PL and it just makes for turgid horrible games

coule understand it if southgate named his strongest team and tried a formation we'd never seen before but that wasn't what last night was either

games like Malta should be treated in the same way as club football pre season

But then as we have seen, the 'top boys' do not deliver when it matters anyway (i.e. at the tournaments), given that qualifying groups are easy to get through in this day and age, it begs the questions as to whether it's time to select the squad based on a combination of club form, consistency at international level but importantly, character, rather than simply persisting with those who do not deliver. 

What I would say is that from Southgate's perspective it totally makes sense to pick his strongest line up for games like Malta, as for him he doesn't get enough time to work with these players, so he'd see games like this as crucial for just that. Having a second tier side for lesser games just makes things too disjointed. 

Edited by Dr_Pangloss
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26 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

But then as we have seen, the 'top boys' do not deliver when it matters anyway (i.e. at the tournaments), given that qualifying groups are easy to get through in this day and age, it begs the questions as to whether it's time to select the squad based on a combination of club form, consistency at international level but importantly, character, rather than simply persisting with those who do not deliver. 

What I would say is that from Southgate's perspective it totally makes sense to pick his strongest line up for games like Malta, as for him he doesn't get enough time to work with these players, so he'd see games like this as crucial for just that. Having a second tier side for lesser games just makes things too disjointed. 

The problem is, when he does that (eg. with Jake Livermore) people react with affronted scorn. 

The truth is, most English football fans treat everything to do with the national team with a mixture of boredom and contempt. 

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As someone who watched us win the World Cup in 66 albeit on television and has seen good England teams since in 1970 & 1990 as well as at Euro 1996 I still think how the national team performs is important.

I have now accepted that our team is not good enough or committed enough to win anything anything other than a qualification group but I don't like accepting that.

I'm doubtful that we will beat Slovakia next week and that might even place our qualification for the next World Cup Finals in serious doubt.

I don't think that Southgate was the right man for the job in the same way that I didn't think Greenwood or Hodgson were but they were unlikely to potentially cause problems for the FA as the likes of Clough, El Tel (if they had kept him on after 96) and Harry had the potential to do. They were equally unlikely to win anything as England manager but the FA are less concerned about that. :rolleyes:   

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10 hours ago, John said:

As someone who watched us win the World Cup in 66 albeit on television and has seen good England teams since in 1970 & 1990 as well as at Euro 1996 I still think how the national team performs is important.

I have now accepted that our team is not good enough or committed enough to win anything anything other than a qualification group but I don't like accepting that.

I'm doubtful that we will beat Slovakia next week and that might even place our qualification for the next World Cup Finals in serious doubt.

I don't think that Southgate was the right man for the job in the same way that I didn't think Greenwood or Hodgson were but they were unlikely to potentially cause problems for the FA as the likes of Clough, El Tel (if they had kept him on after 96) and Harry had the potential to do. They were equally unlikely to win anything as England manager but the FA are less concerned about that. :rolleyes:   

I bet it was a large 7" screen you saw it on. At  youth levels the international teams have been doing quite well. we won the u19 world cup recently. I agree though the FA rarely pick the right man. Hodgson was a terrible choice. The money it pays they can have the pick of managers but we end up with bloody Southgate. 

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35 minutes ago, wazzap24 said:

Ugh, just hurry up and get it over with so we can get back to proper football. 

This qualifying malarkey is rubbish. Should be a tournament. 

You do realise the alternative is Steve Bruce football ;)

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