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World Cup Qatar 2022 - Desert Strike

Boothjan

By Boothjan,
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ChewMagma

ChewMagma

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Posted

I actually loved the fact he was clearly much, much happier with the 0-0 than the 6-2. Put me firmly back in the Southgate camp. It would be so fucking funny if we shithouse our way to a WC final with a succession of 0-0s and Foden, let alone Maddison, never get on the pitch.

 

Southgate rubbing his hands with glee this morning knowing we now don't need to win any more games in open play to bring it home.

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Scruff

Scruff

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1 minute ago, ChewMagma said:

I actually loved the fact he was clearly much, much happier with the 0-0 than the 6-2. Put me firmly back in the Southgate camp. It would be so fucking funny if we shithouse our way to a WC final with a succession of 0-0s and Foden, let alone Maddison, never get on the pitch.

 

Southgate rubbing his hands with glee this morning knowing we now don't need to win any more games in open play to bring it home.

 

You have to put up with negative, defensive, dreary shit at a club level. Why on earth do you want it at national too? :lol: 

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ChewMagma

ChewMagma

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When you think about it the parallels with current West Ham situation are uncanny:

 

A manager with a wealth of credit in the bank slowly squandering it as they struggle to utilise squads with a ton of attacking talent. A set of players who don't get their heads up, take too many touches, and always look backwards or sideways rather than take any risks.

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feltmonkey

feltmonkey

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I think the tournament is going well for England. A few key players who were struggling for form have suddenly started looking like international footballers again, notably Maguire, Sterling, Pickford, and Shaw. The shape of the team has looked a lot better with the back four and an extra player in midfield. 

 

We are doing the horseshoe of doom a lot, but we were doing that against Iran (who were a decent team that we made look terrible) and we scored six goals. All teams do this to an extent when in possession, it's about how you progress the ball from this set-up. For example Man Utd move through it by having Lissandro Martinez play passes through the lines. Man City have their five vertical lines on the pitch and players able to move the ball very quickly. Liverpool have excellent attacking full-backs and get them very high up the pitch.

 

England lack a passer in the middle of the park, either in central midfield or defence. Stones is very much a ball-player at CB, but he's not a passer like a Koeman or something. Rice and Bellingham are good players, but Rice is a destroyer with very good technical skills and Bellingham progresses the ball by running with it. Mount is supposed to play further up and do clever link-ups with Sterling and Kane, but that has happened once in two matches, so it's not working.

 

It's not that none of the players can pass the ball - Bellingham played some lovely balls forward against Iran, but there's nobody who's natural game is doing that under pressure, when it's difficult. There's nobody on the bench either. I've read that Phillips plays a lot of forward passes, but I've personally never really seen the evidence for that apart from one nice assist in the opening game of Euro 2020. 

 

I think we're going to see more of the horseshoe of doom, with England trying to probe down the wings.

 

I think we do need to tweak the forward lines a bit. Mount has been ineffective, so he's the most likely candidate. We could bring in Phillips and move Bellingham further forward perhaps. Or there is the option of Foden or Maddison in there. That runs the risk of turning us into a 4-2-4 and heaping more defensive duties on Bellingham though. Mount isn't really playing as a number 10, as he is working hard defensively as much, actually probably more, than he's looking to create. Foden has never played in midfield for City, remember. He's also never done anything for England. What he does for England is repeatedly dribble infield from the wing, get confused that his teammates aren't making the exact pre-determined runs they make at City, and lose the ball near the edge of the box. For all his talent, what has he ever done in an England shirt?

 

Leicester fans might be able to tell us more about Maddison's work-rate. I remember him telling an interviewer that he doesn't need to do any of that because Ndidi is good enough to do it for him, so that doesn't bode well. There's also the option of the forgotten man - Conner Gallagher. Could he come into the midfield? He's energetic and makes things happen. Not necessarily always good things, but he'd help shake of the lethargy that seeps into England performances. I always like it when teams have an agent of chaos in the attacking third - it makes defences nervous.

 

I don't know. I think we'll need to be at the races against Wales if we are to top the group. While my perfect scenario is both England and Wales going through, I can't see that happening now with the way the results went yesterday, unfortunately. I'm not going to be sitting there watching the last round of matches hoping that needle gets threaded.

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Smoothy

Smoothy

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6 hours ago, Bucky said:

I can't be the one irrationally hate the countdown to kick-off?  It's as artificial as the plastic flags at Chelsea.

 

Yeah it's artificial nonsense.  They've been doing it for years, and it's still bollocks now.

 

Did they have the RC car that carries the ball in this tournament?

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