Good point about the midfield. I don't think Rice and Phillips will ever be at the level of Verratti and Jorginho. We need Bellingham to grow up fast.
I think Rice is a fantastic talent. His performance against Italy was arguably his best of the tournament and had an effect on the game of which I’ve seen him do for West Ham this season. He just ran out of steam, took a knock and had to come off. I believe Pep is a very big fan.
Good point about the midfield. I don't think Rice and Phillips will ever be at the level of Verratti and Jorginho. We need Bellingham to grow up fast.
I think Rice is a fantastic talent. His performance against Italy was arguably his best of the tournament and had an effect on the game of which I’ve seen him do for West Ham this season. He just ran out of steam, took a knock and had to come off. I believe Pep is a very big fan.
Rice is a good player and will get better.
Would like us to play a more forward thinking midfielder alongside him than Phillips (or Henderson) in the qualifiers to hopefully play that way in the World Cup, but can almost.guarantee it'll be Henderson.
Good point about the midfield. I don't think Rice and Phillips will ever be at the level of Verratti and Jorginho. We need Bellingham to grow up fast.
I think Rice is a fantastic talent. His performance against Italy was arguably his best of the tournament and had an effect on the game of which I’ve seen him do for West Ham this season. He just ran out of steam, took a knock and had to come off. I believe Pep is a very big fan.
Rice is a good player and will get better.
Would like us to play a more forward thinking midfielder alongside him than Phillips (or Henderson) in the qualifiers to hopefully play that way in the World Cup, but can almost.guarantee it'll be Henderson.
Personally would like to see him play in a midfield two with Mount, who played there and was Motm (against Brazil in a friendly?). That would allow someone like Grealish or Foden to play in the 10 and have two wingers plus Kane. Our defence has proven it doesn’t need that two man protection.
Grealish is a fine player,very exciting on the ball,gets you lots of free kicks,but would like to see a few more goals,he faces lots of competition in the international set up.When we talk about Verratti and Jorghinio,we are talking top of the tree players,who will take games by the scruff of the neck and win them.It is possible that with the talent we have in our young midfield,someone could emerge to this level.Bellingham could well be the one,but he is only 18,My bet is Phil Foden,he has the manager,and in De Bruyne and recently David Silva has worked with the best in the business,also Mount will be playing with Jorghinio,which will do him no harm whatsoever.
Looking back through the stats, I didn't realise how one sided the game ended up being, on paper at least.
Really only one team should have won it looking at this, and that team isn't England, so we did well to force it to penalties
Because we scored early though we (rightly or wrongly) decided to sit back and let Italy come at us, so naturally the stats will be skewed in their favour.
Whilst Southgate was never going to go all out attack, if we hadn't scored so early then we probably wouldn't have sat back quite so much and it would potentially have been a bit more even like the Germany game.
Good point about the midfield. I don't think Rice and Phillips will ever be at the level of Verratti and Jorginho. We need Bellingham to grow up fast.
I think Rice is a fantastic talent. His performance against Italy was arguably his best of the tournament and had an effect on the game of which I’ve seen him do for West Ham this season. He just ran out of steam, took a knock and had to come off. I believe Pep is a very big fan.
I think a lot of people do, and I might be wrong, I just don't see him as ever being world class. Players like Jorginho and Verratti are exceptional going both ways. I think Rice is very good at some things and decent at others. Not really exceptional at anything. Not in Bellingham's realm who also looks like he can do it all.
Not to say I don't think Rice is a very good player, because he is, and he had a good tournament.
I love this rhetoric that we apparently sat back to defend as soon as we scored...
We took the game to Italy for the full first 20 minutes that's at least 17 minutes after the goal, or at lease long enough for Italy to adjust to our game plan.
Once they had us sussed we were limited to sporadic half chances. We came out second half without change to our game plan, that is my only criticism.
I'd pegged (not that sort @DaveMehmet) Kane, Sterling, Rashford, Shaw, Grealish all to score or at least be there or thereabouts
As soon as Rashford started a stuttering run up I lost all confidence, same with Sancho. Poor Saka I didn't fancy to score but kudos to him, all of them in fact for taking them
Good point about the midfield. I don't think Rice and Phillips will ever be at the level of Verratti and Jorginho. We need Bellingham to grow up fast.
I think Rice is a fantastic talent. His performance against Italy was arguably his best of the tournament and had an effect on the game of which I’ve seen him do for West Ham this season. He just ran out of steam, took a knock and had to come off. I believe Pep is a very big fan.
I think a lot of people do, and I might be wrong, I just don't see him as ever being world class. Players like Jorginho and Verratti are exceptional going both ways. I think Rice is very good at some things and decent at others. Not really exceptional at anything. Not in Bellingham's realm who also looks like he can do it all.
Not to say I don't think Rice is a very good player, because he is, and he had a good tournament.
I don't think Jorginho is world class defensively. He's intelligent with his positioning but he's very slow and is essentially worthless against a counter attack. He's improved that side of his game in the last couple of seasons but he's still one to target if you have the option of breaking at pace
I love this rhetoric that we apparently sat back to defend as soon as we scored...
We took the game to Italy for the full first 20 minutes that's at least 17 minutes after the goal, or at lease long enough for Italy to adjust to our game plan.
Once they had us sussed we were limited to sporadic half chances. We came out second half without change to our game plan, that is my only criticism.
First 20 mins was the best I've ever seen England play. The stark contrast between how we started and how we finished the game is one of the reasons the end result stings so much for me.
I love this rhetoric that we apparently sat back to defend as soon as we scored...
We took the game to Italy for the full first 20 minutes that's at least 17 minutes after the goal, or at lease long enough for Italy to adjust to our game plan.
Once they had us sussed we were limited to sporadic half chances. We came out second half without change to our game plan, that is my only criticism.
First 20 mins was the best I've ever seen England play. The stark contrast between how we started and how we finished the game is one of the reasons the end result stings so much for me.
This totally sums up how I feel about it. I'm not bothered so much about the pens, that happens and clearly there was a plan for them - it just didn't come off. What really hurts is that we didn't find a way to put them under any pressure from after half time, with maybe a bit of an uptick in ET, even on the break. It's easy in hindsight, but our best chance of winning was at least to threaten a second. The lack of any threat made it too easy for them to continue to push with little risk.
Italy are a good side but not a great one. Somewhat like England. Defences, pretty much evenly matched. Our advantage over them was in attacking threat, and pace in attack especially from the bench. Theirs over us was grabbing control in midfield. We let them show theirs and never gave ours a proper chance to flourish.
Good point about the midfield. I don't think Rice and Phillips will ever be at the level of Verratti and Jorginho. We need Bellingham to grow up fast.
I think Rice is a fantastic talent. His performance against Italy was arguably his best of the tournament and had an effect on the game of which I’ve seen him do for West Ham this season. He just ran out of steam, took a knock and had to come off. I believe Pep is a very big fan.
I think a lot of people do, and I might be wrong, I just don't see him as ever being world class. Players like Jorginho and Verratti are exceptional going both ways. I think Rice is very good at some things and decent at others. Not really exceptional at anything. Not in Bellingham's realm who also looks like he can do it all.
Not to say I don't think Rice is a very good player, because he is, and he had a good tournament.
I don't think Jorginho is world class defensively. He's intelligent with his positioning but he's very slow and is essentially worthless against a counter attack. He's improved that side of his game in the last couple of seasons but he's still one to target if you have the option of breaking at pace
Agreed. The Jorginho at Chelsea never struck me as world class. A very good player yes, but he hardly stands out in the way Kante does
It's all the fault of Tottenham, and the curse of them never winning anything, even with excellent players, infecting the England team.
Southgate tried to mitigate this by leaving out the likes of Dele and Dier, but captain Kane is still the main driver of the curse. Once he leaves Spurs, it will be broken.
Good point about the midfield. I don't think Rice and Phillips will ever be at the level of Verratti and Jorginho. We need Bellingham to grow up fast.
I think Rice is a fantastic talent. His performance against Italy was arguably his best of the tournament and had an effect on the game of which I’ve seen him do for West Ham this season. He just ran out of steam, took a knock and had to come off. I believe Pep is a very big fan.
Rice is a good player and will get better.
Would like us to play a more forward thinking midfielder alongside him than Phillips (or Henderson) in the qualifiers to hopefully play that way in the World Cup, but can almost.guarantee it'll be Henderson.
Personally would like to see him play in a midfield two with Mount, who played there and was Motm (against Brazil in a friendly?). That would allow someone like Grealish or Foden to play in the 10 and have two wingers plus Kane. Our defence has proven it doesn’t need that two man protection.
Disagree with that - they are part of our defense and removing the shield of the two in midfield would leave our defense exposed.
Convinced Pickford would of scored a pen. Absolutely convinced of it.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'd have tipped Rashford to score I thought Maguire might miss.
Admittedly wasn't confident at all with Saka.
Same with all the above. I would have backed Pickford to score over Saka, but who knows. Also if Pickford takes that last penalty and misses Southgate would get absolutely hammered for letting a keeper take one before a willing forward.
I think Qatar will be survival of the fittest, weird time of the year, conditions will be horrible for some games, and you'll see some weird results, so oddly I don't expect much, Germany 2024 has to be a target to win, Belgium will be gone as a force, Italy in a rebuild, Germany will have lot of home advantage but I don't think they've got a squad and France will be France.
Funnily enough @Rothko I think the cup being played at that time of year will have the players fresher rather than at the end of a long European season which will hopefully negate some of the heat issue.
I can see why that may be. Not sure there will be a heat issue. It should be on a par with holding the tournament in Europe in June/July.
In Doha, Qatar, in December, the average high-temperature is 24.1°C (75.4°F), and the average low-temperature is 15°C (59°F).
Comments
Really only one team should have won it looking at this, and that team isn't England, so we did well to force it to penalties
Would like us to play a more forward thinking midfielder alongside him than Phillips (or Henderson) in the qualifiers to hopefully play that way in the World Cup, but can almost.guarantee it'll be Henderson.
Whilst Southgate was never going to go all out attack, if we hadn't scored so early then we probably wouldn't have sat back quite so much and it would potentially have been a bit more even like the Germany game.
Not to say I don't think Rice is a very good player, because he is, and he had a good tournament.
We took the game to Italy for the full first 20 minutes that's at least 17 minutes after the goal, or at lease long enough for Italy to adjust to our game plan.
Once they had us sussed we were limited to sporadic half chances. We came out second half without change to our game plan, that is my only criticism.
Admittedly wasn't confident at all with Saka.
As soon as Rashford started a stuttering run up I lost all confidence, same with Sancho. Poor Saka I didn't fancy to score but kudos to him, all of them in fact for taking them
Italy are a good side but not a great one. Somewhat like England. Defences, pretty much evenly matched. Our advantage over them was in attacking threat, and pace in attack especially from the bench. Theirs over us was grabbing control in midfield. We let them show theirs and never gave ours a proper chance to flourish.
Southgate tried to mitigate this by leaving out the likes of Dele and Dier, but captain Kane is still the main driver of the curse. Once he leaves Spurs, it will be broken.
https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/my-personal-experience-from-sunday.1555267/
https://www.givemesport.com/1721291-england-alarming-account-of-how-ticketless-fans-broke-into-euro-2020-final-at-wembley
Possession is a modern football misnomer of effective play.