Tragic Football Stories - Let us Kick Around the misshapen Jabulani that is English football right here

well the main ish is that for all Southgate's new broom new approach he's still a sucker for the "the best players are all at the big clubs with the biggest media narrative" Roy of the Rovers bullshit

ofc, tha'ts a given. incredibly frustrating to watch, even with the personnel limitations of this squad you can imagine a back four and a Henderson-Phillips/Rice-Grealish midfield trio and Sancho wide on the right offering so much more on the ball. can only imagine the pressure continuing to build the longer Southgate persists with playing 5 at the back and a pair of cloggers in the centre while there's all this talent performing on the weekly at club level

although i suppose being shit but getting goals from set pieces and penalties got us to a WC semi-final so tonight's performance has been about par for his undeniably successful tenure as national team boss

i just feel like a neutral observer with England and it's largely for those reasons

well that and obv i support Portugal now :D

Stunning from Mount. Jack Grealish could never

might need to turn 5 Live off shortly now England are the best team in the world again

Coady and Mings at CB could do no worse than this bunch of clowns imo

Gold and Black specs aside i don't think this is *wrong*

also Southgate is pretty fucking clueless as a tactician i think

Southgate is pretty good when it comes to working with the limitations of a squad but it's the refusal to use a number 10 when Grealish, Maddison and probably Foden are all performing for their clubs that's galling.

i don't even know where he's got the double defensive mid obsession from, obvious answer might be Middlesbrough but it's genuinely weird, he seems smarter than that, i do think it's mostly a commitment to the Usual Suspects

Playing two holding midfielders together was very fashionable a decade or so ago. Holland nearly kicked their way to a World Cup with De Jong and Van Bommel sitting in front of the back four, Spain had Xabi Alonso sitting next to Busquets at the base of midfield, Germany had Khedira and Schweinsteiger both playing in deep defensive roles, all at a time when England were still trying to play Gerrard and Lampard together. There's nothing wrong with two holding midfielders as a tactical approach.

The difference is that these were all elite midfielders - not Jordan Henderson and Declan Rice. Henderson is an excellent team player, generally his boundless reserves of energy and discipline and willingness to play exactly the role that's asked for him, and he has plenty of big game experience at the highest level (and this does matter, whatever anyone says), but he is not at the same level as any of the above. Never been convinced by Rice.

I don't think I can remember seeing two holding midfielders played with a back five though, which suggests that Southgate has no real confidence in his CBs (and why shouldn't he? He's right not to). But most importantly all those 2010 teams had a double holding midfield to allow more to happen further forward. Spain had the small matter of Xavi and Iniesta, and those four in midfield could circulate possession endlessly as a defensive and attacking strategy, the best midfield there has ever been at doing so - while this is probably the worst England midfield I can remember.

The other teams had two holding midfielders providing the solidity that enabled hugely talented but flaky creative players to really do their thing unencumbered in front of them - Germany had Mezut Ozil, Holland had Wesley Schneider. That's the player Southgate's England don't have (they don't have a decent box-to-box runner either but that's a different issue). That's the gap waiting to be filled by a Grealish or a Maddison I reckon, or even a Foden or at least theoretically Dele. Grealish has only really played at EPL and Championship level but he's also just managed to make himself look like Maradona up against a Premier League and Champions League-winning defence, and he's never going to displace Sterling, Rashford or Sancho in wide areas.

love the original copy pasted points in this thread. esp the darragh 6 - wilshere,walcott,young etc none of whom turned out to be anywhere near as good as gerrard, lampard, or even barry.

they never let thudd run the midfield

The idea of Huddlestone trying to operate in England's midfield in the high pressing era is hilarious.

13-goal Agbonlahor was certainly a suggestion

The first four years or so of this decade were probably the worst crop of English players there's been, regardless of how unbalanced the current squad is, surely everyone has to agree that as an attacking force it's immeasurably better that when pretty much everything was dependent on whether or not Rooney could be arsed to turn up.

may just be a generational fluke but english academies have been producing decent numbers of potentially excellent attacking players + full backs but I haven't seen corresponding depth in CBs or DMs. It could be that clubs are more likely to take chances on inexperienced forwards rather than defenders but i dunno.

lol could have copy pasted myself from 6 years ago

Still think Eng have v good talent in the front end of the pitch. They have no elite defenders and not much coming down the pipeline, but you could maybe patch together a borderline competent defence if they had some protection in front of them. They have zero even anywhere near elite central midfielders. NONE. And none of the young tyros coming through play there. The best might be Ox-Chamb. and I'm not sure he's ever going to play central and if he does it will be as frwd CM not deep lying.

― pandemic, Friday, June 20, 2014 9:13 AM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

except not sure any midfield could mitigate england's defence now.

he robbed Shilton of god knows how many caps but still a trooper, RIP Ray Clemence

good news everybody

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/aug/01/time-to-retire-three-lions-anthem-after-euro-2022-win-says-david-baddiel

“I’m very happy to think the song would, in a way, be put to bed.” Fans, however, may feel differently the next time England loses, he said

had to spoil it, didn't he?

wish somebody loved me as unconditionally as Southgate loves Maguire

looking fwd to Maguire starting in the world cup on the back of a couple of league cup appearances for utd between now and then

Wow they actually showed that lad running on the pitch, lovely bit of nostalgia

harry maguire doing harry maguire things

... followed by Nick Pope doing Nick Pope things.

sancho, whats happened there

yeah at Dortmund I wouldn't have hesitated to day he was like only a fraction less impressive than bellingham. and yet he's been nothing at utd and bellingham is basically running madrid. then again I thought havertz was p special in bundesliga and he's p meh now. next player I'll probably end up wrong about if he comes to england - florian wirtz at leverkusen.

I don't watch enough (i.e. basically any) German football to evaluate the difference between the Dortmund Sancho and the current version but it does seem like the signs were always there to an extent. Seems to have had attitude/application problems at every club he's been at, stories about being late for training, turning up unfit to pre-season, etc. There have been some whispers of personal issues but can't shed much light on that either.

based solely on his time at Utd, he looks like a technically accomplished player who's physically incapable of coping with the pace and power of the league. Classy on the ball in a vague sort of way but doesn't have the acceleration to go past players, totally unable to hold the ball under pressure, and shit-scared of any kind of challenge.

There have been worse players for Utd (been a lot of them in the last few years strangely enough) but I honestly don't think there have been any as...pointless as him. Cannot think of single match over the past two seasons where he's looked good from start to finish. Can barely think of a 10-minute period in a match to be honest.

Best for him and the club that he's moved on as quickly as possible now

oh and back to england , how kalvin philips makes squad after squad is beyond me.

xp he definitely had the acceleration in bundesliga and the power. he was frightening.

I will have to bow to your knowledge on that

there's definitely something amiss with him anyway. The whole thing with him being sent to train in the Netherlands for three months on his own in the middle of last season was very weird

the pace/strength required to beat epl players 1v1 does- disappointingly- seem to be a thing and sancho is maybe a high profile victim of it

are there m/any successful 'dribblers' of note left in the league with ASM gone?

sterling shifts it ninety degrees quickly with the outstep, as does kulusevski, for instance, and (for want of a better example) antonio controls the ball adequately while lifting centre halves like sinks ahead of him. bernardo silva drily touches the ball just to where you dont get it, again and again.

foden? does foden dribble?

whither steve guppy lads, essentially

Tbh my knowledge aint worth much. Full disclosure the 3 players I've never been more sure about being absolute world beaters coming from the Bundesliga in recent years are haaland ( everyone knew before he even got to Germany so he doesn't really count) Bellingham ( everyone knew post world cup so probably doesn't count) and ...........naby keita!! never have I been more sure about a player ,based on his first season at Leipzig where he was basically Bellingham++. How wrong I was.

Salah can dribble. I mean he's no Ben arfa mind.

you could have told me havertz wouldnt have been a atar in any top ten epl team and id have called you a nonce and a liar and i might even have claimed u dint kno ball if i were having a very bad day

but then maybe berbatov himself wouldnt stand out in 2023 premier league?

it all started with malouda imo

salah yes ofc

no steve guppy all the same

G Nev was talking player comparisons the other week wrt declan rice. He mentioned michael essien who I hadn't thought about in years but my god what a player to have in your midfield.

speaking of, sandro retired at 34 today

shone brightly but not too long but he was transformative for us when a screening muncher was a real novelty for us

Mitoma and Martinelli to be added to Salah on that list. Arguably Son at Spurs too.

Berba would be a star at any time. His technique would still be better than 90% of the league.

i thought son would be offered but- possibly like mitoma, of whom ive not seen enough tbh- his control of the ball isnt actually very good unless its in the very specific subcategory of dribbling that bisects defensive positions at pace

and if i have to tap the capote/ben arfa sign i will

martinelli beats a man and i like him but idk have i seen him dribble beyond fellas more than ive seen him wait out their tackle/move and beat them with reaction

i have, it will be noted, a rather specific criteria i use personally for what counts as "dribbling"

All decent points but you said “successful” dribblers and all are “successful” at beating defenders through dribbling and will do so in every game. I don’t think there is any great aesthete

I accidentally posted mid sentence. I don’t think there is any world class Garrinchas in the league at the moment, but quite a few are still very young (Marti/Saka are 21, Mudryk is 21, Mitoma is 26 but seems like he is just blooming, Antony is 23 and Garnacho is 19 etc) and as they grow, we could get out of this lull of dribbling expertise

pls god

Isak has this in his, erm, locker but has been non-existent whenever I have seen Newcastle this season

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6gWAYu_RG0

no steve guppy all the same

He was at Celtic for two years, he was no Paddy McCourt.