Euro 2024: Group C (Denmark, England, Serbia, Slovenia)

[Zatman]

11 minutes ago, PaulC said:

He's been in a final of a euros and semi final of a world cup. He's not a weakness. 

Rice didnt play in the World Cup when England made semis

Maguire played in both so can play big games and still be a weakness

[PaulC]

15 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Rice didnt play in the World Cup when England made semis

Maguire played in both so can play big games and still be a weakness

Okay I stand corrected there but I think Rice is a top player in his position. Every player makes mistakes even the best keeper in the world does but that does not define his career. Macguire Is different. His career has gone backwards and he can't be trusted anymore. Southgate shouid have found someone else to play alongside Stones.

[villa4europe]

Rice has been good for arsenal

the problem is with the way England set up he'll be looking to get 80+ touches of the ball and he's not great at it, I still don't think he shows for the ball enough, Maguire and Stones will have the ball at their feet and rice wont be picking up the positions he'll be needed in to actually get us forward

wont help that harry kane will be playing alongside him trying to do the same 

[HKP90]

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Rice has been good for arsenal

the problem is with the way England set up he'll be looking to get 80+ touches of the ball and he's not great at it, I still don't think he shows for the ball enough, Maguire and Stones will have the ball at their feet and rice wont be picking up the positions he'll be needed in to actually get us forward

wont help that harry kane will be playing alongside him trying to do the same 

To be fair, he had the 3rd best progressive pass distance of any Midfielder in the PL this year, and got 8 assists from DM. I think he's a shoe-in to start for us tbh.  

[Zatman]

20 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Okay I stand corrected there but I think Rice is a top player in his position. Every player makes mistakes even the best keeper in the world does but that does not define his career. Macguire Is different. His career has gone backwards and he can't be trusted anymore. Southgate shouid have found someone else to play alongside Stones.

He didnt make a mistake, he was anonymous and a past it Kimmich dominated the middle. Not just Bayern he was poor vs Porto as well

Edited May 22 by Zatman

[Genie]

If England have a back 5 of 

Pickford

Walker, Stones, Maguire and Shaw then they ain’t winning anything imo.

Pickford: Shit

Maguire: Shit

Shaw: Shit and injured

Stones: Alright but nothing special

Walker: Good

and that’s a first choice back 5 with everyone available.

[PaulC]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

If England have a back 5 of 

Pickford

Walker, Stones, Maguire and Shaw then they ain’t winning anything imo.

Pickford: Shit

Maguire: Shit

Shaw: Shit and injured

Stones: Alright but nothing special

Walker: Good

and that’s a first choice back 5 with everyone available.

Certain pundits had pickford in their team of the year. He's not the best but not shit imo

[Zatman]

19 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Certain pundits had pickford in their team of the year. He's not the best but not shit imo

He is awful. His career has been constantly relegation battles and no better team ever bid for him

[PaulC]

9 minutes ago, Zatman said:

He is awful. His career has been constantly relegation battles and no better team ever bid for him

Jamie Carragher doest agree 

[rodders0223]

Pickford is a double decent keeper. Never let England down. Not once.

[VillaAlex]

Yep Pickford is solid only seen him make a mistake once for England and that was in the last game. 

[Zatman]

15 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Jamie Carragher doest agree 

Who has he managed?

[Cizzler]

On 22/05/2024 at 14:03, Genie said:

If England have a back 5 of 

Pickford

Walker, Stones, Maguire and Shaw then they ain’t winning anything imo.

Pickford: Shit

Maguire: Shit

Shaw: Shit and injured

Stones: Alright but nothing special

Walker: Good

and that’s a first choice back 5 with everyone available.

Clearly the defence is weaker than the attack, but it's little wonder they are hyped to win it with the attack:

Kane: Top goalscorer in Germany
Bellingham: Third highest scorer in La Liga (from midfield, mostly), outscored Lewandowski
Foden: Arguably City's best player this season, fourth highest scorer in the Prem (from midfield)

These are clearly three of the best attackers at the tournament. 

Supported by Rice and Saka who are both decent players.

I think you've been harsh on the defence too.

Walker is RB for one of the best teams in the world ("Good" is understating it)
Shaw isn't "shit" at all - he was one of the form players in the PL last season (as in 22/23). Yes, he's been injured this one and that's a fair challenge - but he's not "shit"
Pickford may not be elite, but again, he's not "shit" - he was the keeper with the second most amount of clean sheets in the league (in a team that came 17th - and look at the players he had in front of him).

I'll agree Maguire is awful though.

Edited May 24 by Cizzler

[villa4europe]

22 minutes ago, Cizzler said:

Clearly the defence is weaker than the attack, but it's little wonder they are hyped to win it with the attack:

Kane: Top goalscorer in Germany
Bellingham: Third highest scorer in La Liga (from midfield, mostly), outscored Lewandowski
Foden: Arguably City's best player this season, fourth highest scorer in the Prem (from midfield)

These are clearly three of the best attackers at the tournament. 

There was a stat kicking around in March where it was something like 5 players in europe have 20+ goals and 10+ assists

kane, ollie, bellingham and foden were 4 of them

the biggest problem with england is that the defence isn't good and the clown in charge thinks the solution to that is to play defensive football, the great modern managers in the PL show time and time again that's simply not true, press high up the pitch with a lot of energy, keep the ball in midfield o final third, push the full backs up- southgate plays the opposite to how these players play for their clubs, its no wonder we look clueless half the time, we constantly have the wrong players on the ball* fortunately for him he has the moments of magic to get him out the uninspiring shit

*maguire the ball playing CB...but also when you look at 2018 we bypassed the midfield half the time and played in to the channels for the likes of rashford, lingaard and ali, in 2021 we tried to play through sterling of all people, this summer you look at this team and say get foden on the ball but know that we wont

[stewiek2]

Whoa there, don't mince your words Gareth

 

[stewiek2]

4 minutes ago, stewiek2 said:

Whoa there, don't mince your words Gareth

 

AI audio now is scarily accurate.

[VillaChris]

On 22/05/2024 at 18:29, rodders0223 said:

Pickford is a double decent keeper. Never let England down. Not once.

I always think Pickford is pretty much a tournament keeper. If you give him a period of a month and 5-6 games to really focus on he can be quite solid and also has that match winning flair in him.

Look at the last Euros. The only goals he conceded were the 25 yard Danish free kick that flew into the top corner and then the goal Italy scrambled in after he tipped a shot onto the post. In the shoot out he saved as many penalties as Donnarumma did so very small margins.

Same with him usually producing great saves for Everton in the final few games to keep them up most years. Over nine months though his weaknesses get exposed.

Very hard to see England being as defensively solid this time as the other tournaments under Southgate as the left hand side is going to be the area any decent side with pace should be able to exploit.

He has to formulate a gameplan that gets club form out of Foden and Bellingham to have any chance of winning the Euros. Very unconvinced by that.

[villa4europe]

I wouldn't moan if mainoo starts...I feel like come the bigger games we'll need a midfield of him rice and Bellingham 

Good player, definitely better than Henderson and Phillips

[VillaChris]

Yes think that performance today has cemented him in the group stage games as starting at least.

Plenty of 18-19 year olds have played for England at major tournaments so not an age thing and he's far more composed on the ball than Conor Gallagher.

[Stevo985]

For me Mainoo is absolutely key. Seems mad for a young player, but I think he would unlock so much potential in our midfield.

I think Rice is quite similar to Douglas Luiz for us. He's better when he can be a bit more box to box rather than having to be solely a DM.

 

If Mainoo can play and do that DM work to a high standard, which I think he's capable of, then that lets Rice be more advanced supporting Bellingham. Then our midfield and attack is so so good.