England v Brazil /England v Belgium

[villa4europe]

31 minutes ago, GlobalVillan said:

I though Kane was injured. If so, Ollie may play by default. 

Just had a look and yeah twisted ankle

If this clown plays a half injured kane when he has a 2nd striker problem then there's absolutely no **** hope 

[Stevo985]

25 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Mainoo may well turn into a fantastic footballer, but how he's done enough to warrant an England first team place at this stage is utterly baffling (and I'll admit, I don't watch Man Utd games so maybe he's utter class all the time).

He looks like a **** brilliant player to be honest.

Ideally we wouldn't have to play him yet. But we're crying out for a player in that position to allow Rice to operate further up the pitch. In a very similar way to Kamara coming to Villa unlocked Luiz' potential at playing as an 8 and not a 6

Unless Phillips gets his act together I'd be happy to see Mainoo introduced to the first team as soon as possible to be honest

[villa4europe]

29 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Mainoo may well turn into a fantastic footballer, but how he's done enough to warrant an England first team place at this stage is utterly baffling (and I'll admit, I don't watch Man Utd games so maybe he's utter class all the time).

dearth of talent

if we're picking lets say 4 or 5 CMs then the pool would be rice, bellingham, henderson, phillips, gallagher, mainoo, ramsey, jones, elliot, skipp, barkley, RLC, mount and then depending on how you see them maddison and MGW

its slim pickings, he should have taken a look at someone in the october and november games, agree mainoo isnt there yet and should do a stint in the u21s but in reality its him who isnt good enough right now but will get there or someone that isnt good enough and is declining 

[duke313]

43 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Mainoo may well turn into a fantastic footballer, but how he's done enough to warrant an England first team place at this stage is utterly baffling (and I'll admit, I don't watch Man Utd games so maybe he's utter class all the time).

Playing for Man Utd is enough.

[punkiller1981]

2 hours ago, bobzy said:

Mainoo may well turn into a fantastic footballer, but how he's done enough to warrant an England first team place at this stage is utterly baffling (and I'll admit, I don't watch Man Utd games so maybe he's utter class all the time).

I’m incline to agree and I am 100% certain if it wasn’t a player at one of the sky 6 he would be feeling lucky to a call up to the 21’s but Southgate is so blinkered by those teams he can’t stop himself albeit I think the kid looks decent but as suggested very naive and green. However happier to see him in the squad than Levi collwell, he is literally in the squad based on who he plays for because he is a very very average player 

[Stevo985]

You won't find me disagreeing that Mainoo would be struggling to get into the squad if he didn't play for one of the big teams.

But in this case that's not a dig at his ability, it's a dig at how blind Southgate is to players who play at other clubs.

Mainoo is good enough to be there

[HanoiVillan]

Glad to see Mainoo called up. Guess Southgate has come to realise what most of us have done, that the final CM position is a big hole in England's line-up and that he needed to look for a solution. Mainoo should be tried in at least one of the games, and ideally he should really be going in the summer. 

[useless]

Mainoo is good, but am surprised how much Angel Gomes gets overlooked as a midfield option for the senior England team, plays well for the U21s, has been doing well for Lille, now talk of lots of Premier League interest in him, can play anywere in midfield

[HongKongVillan]

I like Mainoo, and I like Brathewaite too think he could well be the next John Stone.

But we all know none of the above would be in the England squad if they have half a good season with us.

[bobzy]

27 minutes ago, HongKongVillan said:

I like Mainoo, and I like Brathewaite too think he could well be the next John Stone.

But we all know none of the above would be in the England squad if they have half a good season with us.

It might fly with bigger clubs... but Branthwaite and Everton?  

[ml1dch]

On 16/03/2024 at 11:16, villa4europe said:

I disagree I think you can when you have a manger like Southgate who picks and chooses when he calls him up

Southgates shown he's got no real interest in playing him, if everyone is fit he's not making the squad let alone the pitch

so why should white now be interested? 

As others have said, he's not wanted to be selected since pulling out of the Qatar squad in November '22. So it's impossible for him to know how he would have been used in any of the squads since.

When he pulled out (Kenneth.gif) he'd had a decent season at Brighton (finishing 16th) followed by a decent first season at Arsenal (finishing 5th). He then found himself shunted out to right-back at the start of the '22-'23 season to make room for Saliba and he'd been playing there for three months when the Qatar squad was announced.

So given he wasn't playing at centre-back for his club, and he had Kyle Walker and Trent Alexander-Arnold also competing with him at right-back (a position he'd only just started playing for his club) I don't really see why he gets to dictate terms about his position in the team.

Unless he wants to make the argument that his three months at right-back meant he should have been ahead of both of the two above, or he's so good at centre-back that he should be playing for England in a position his club don't consider him good enough at to play for them, then he was being used about as much as was appropriate. A very useful option to have covering two positions in the squad, but not in the team.

It's not like Southgate's ignoring Kane or Bellingham here, he's treating the third or fourth best English right back as third or fourth choice right-back.

If he's not bothered about playing for England, that's fair enough. Some players aren't fussed about having extra matches and it's not what he's paid to do. However if he does want to play for England and he's just in a strop about how he's being used, then he's a bell-end.

Edited March 19 by ml1dch

[Zatman]

9 minutes ago, bobzy said:

It might fly with bigger clubs... but Branthwaite and Everton?  

It took Konsa nearly 3 and a half seasons to get a call up

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, Zatman said:

It took Konsa nearly 3 and a half seasons to get a call up

He was only really playing at a standard where he might have expected an England call-up for eighteen months tbh. And separately, in that same time frame, the manager who would never call up a player from Aston Villa had called up both Mings and Watkins. 

[bobzy]

15 minutes ago, Zatman said:

It took Konsa nearly 3 and a half seasons to get a call up

You want to read comments on here about Konsa from a couple of years ago  

[HongKongVillan]

1 hour ago, bobzy said:

It might fly with bigger clubs... but Branthwaite and Everton?  

Not really meant by bigger clubs, but GS has his favourite: Palace, Everton also (Ben Godfrey and Michael Keane for example), seems to get their caps fairly easy in comparison to say Konsa, and even Grealish

[Xela]

Ward -Prowse should be ahead of Henderson. 

[VillaChris]

5 hours ago, Genie said:

Rice and Bellingham are 2 who will obviously go, and should play.

Beyond them as you say nothing really jumps out. Gallagher has looked better as the season has gone on. Ramsey a bit of a wild card. It’s almost impossible to think of something Mount is very good at. Barkley I think has had his day (and he blew it, kw). 

A fit Maddison should be a part of it. 

Maybe Mainoo / Elliot as “ones for the future” to be a part of the squad.

Curtis Jones was someone relatively unheralded who I thought might've pushed in. Liverpool picked up when he had a run of starts back end of last season and this season Klopp has trusted him in the big games with starts against Arsenal and Man. City so given he was a key part of under 21s I think he'd have been in this squad but injured and no clue if he's back before the end of the season.

You've got Miley aswell at Newcastle who did well for a few months earlier this season. I personally think Foden will drop back in as an 8 at some stage under the next manager who'll hopefully have some more nous about them rather than waiting for Pep to do it first at Man. City, TAA might also finally get a run out in that area.

England should be o.k for top end CMs now, it's at CB where it's looking a bit dodgy over next few years.

[VillaChris]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

He was only really playing at a standard where he might have expected an England call-up for eighteen months tbh. And separately, in that same time frame, the manager who would never call up a player from Aston Villa had called up both Mings and Watkins. 

Konsa played very well in 20/21. He should've been called up in the early part of that season. He did dip in form afterwards as you say with his nadir being Spurs 0-4 at home when he was probably at fault for three of their goals.

Like pretty much everyone else in the squad Emery was exactly the manager he needed to get his career accelerating forwards so think he'll figure far more in England squads post Euros.

[JPJCB]

Mainoo has looked really good and all but he’s literally made only 15 PL starts in his career with his first coming in late November. It’s incredibly early to have any idea how good he’s gonna be.

As others have said, there’s absolutely no way he gets that call up if he doesn’t play for Man Utd. The way it’s been done is literally as if Southgate is doing it off one game alone (the Liverpool game). More generally has anyone got the stats on which players have got called up for England with fewest PL appearances? This has got to be right up there which you’d normally associate with a generational talent. Maybe Mainoo is that but it seems a bit far

None of this is to take away from his performances so far but one of the biggest stains on the game is the way the England set up entrenches the top 6 bias and this is yet another example. Instead of promoting a more level playing field so that there’s greater development of talent across the board, England will repeatedly favour the bigger sides, incentivising players to sign for those clubs and sit on their bench knowing their England career is better off there than actually playing for one of the weaker sides.

We were all completely bemused that chukwumeka pushed to leave to go to Chelsea despite doing next to nothing in the game to date. It’s bullshit like this Mainoo news that makes things like that happen 

 

[PaulC]

2 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Curtis Jones was someone relatively unheralded who I thought might've pushed in. Liverpool picked up when he had a run of starts back end of last season and this season Klopp has trusted him in the big games with starts against Arsenal and Man. City so given he was a key part of under 21s I think he'd have been in this squad but injured and no clue if he's back before the end of the season.

You've got Miley aswell at Newcastle who did well for a few months earlier this season. I personally think Foden will drop back in as an 8 at some stage under the next manager who'll hopefully have some more nous about them rather than waiting for Pep to do it first at Man. City, TAA might also finally get a run out in that area.

England should be o.k for top end CMs now, it's at CB where it's looking a bit dodgy over next few years.

I do think Branthwaite is going to be a top class cb. He will move from Everton I think.  John stones is not yet 30 so will still be around for the next workd cup at least.  That imo could he a good pairing going forward. Konsa is also still young and in the mix.