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World Cup 2018 Group G (Belgium, Panama, Tunisia, England)

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I started getting swept up yesterday morning and by the final whistle I'd definitely fallen back in love with England again. Playing without fear, we created more chances in that first half than we did in the previous 2/3 tournaments put together. There's obviously lots of room for improvement but I was impressed with what I saw. He had little game-time but I thought Loftus-Cheek looked good when he came on. Kane MOM for his goals, with Trips close behind.

We're gonna win the World Cup.
 
We should judge that England performance after the next round, when Tunisia take on Belgium.

Panama look like serial cloggers, five yellows yesterday. I think maybe keep young and Trippier for the crossing quality.

Belgium also picked up several yellows including verts and de bruyne. Would be good if they get suspended for the England game.

(Accruing two yellows is a one game ban right up to the semi final stage, when their is a reset).
 
Anyone expecting a perfect England performance is going to spend the rest of the World Cup on here moaning.
We're a group of players thrown together, and some not good enough but the best we've got. And we won. Enjoy.
 
I wouldn’t drop Henderson after yesterday. He had a very good game

I’d bin off Young and maybe Sterling. Young just costs us chances because he can’t play left and Sterling was generally clumsy

I’d consider being Cahill in on the left and lose stones for Maguire
 
We got the win which is what counts, if we had buried all the chances we got in the first half it would have been all over by half time. The ref was a joke ( and so is VAR), for our next game i would keep the same team except i would have Rashford in for Sterling.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
I wouldn’t drop Henderson after yesterday. He had a very good game

I’d bin off Young and maybe Sterling. Young just costs us chances because he can’t play left and Sterling was generally clumsy

I’d consider being Cahill in on the left and lose stones for Maguire
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Id drop Hendeson without hesitation. I think he slowed play, lost the ball and generally was a level below (quality wise) everyone else.

Id also drop Walker and Young, for sure. Im on the fence with Linguard. Couldnt score in a brothel but made some great runs and his energy is incredible.

Id go:

...........................Pickford
............Stones.........Cahill.......Maguire
Trippier....................Dier...................Rose
.............Linguard................Alli
...............Kane..................Sterling

Same shape as yesterday, more suitable personell.

Cahill should steady the defence and keep Stones/Maguire a little more in shape. With Cahill there they both get to play to their strengths more. Walker did not deserve another start after his poor display, happy to drop him.

Rose - Left footed LWB - adds a dimension on that side. Offensively balls come in sooner, defensively, well he is just much more competent leaving Maguire less exposed. Young did not convince at all, Rose is a more natural fit. Id also be happy with Delph, another naturally left sided player - witht he bonus he has a relationship with Sterling already.

Dier is simply a better footballer than Henderson. More aware, more intelligent, he will gel with the better players in the team more than Henderson who looked out of his depth.

Id keep Sterling on, he is quality and can really hurt the opposition. He was feeding off scraps yesterday and was simply on a hiding to nothing. With Dier finding him in good areas, Rose offering width, I think he will perform a lot better.

Panama arent great, so Id be happy making this number of changes in the hope it clicks more and the team grows.
 
Vardy is super sub, IMO. We are sitting deep, under pressure, need an outlet - he is a secret weapon.

As a starter he doesnt work for me, too one dimensional and not built for the fluid sort of attacking they are going for.
 
Good to see Kane scoring both goals to help England win. Not really a England fan but it is always enjoyable to see Spurs players score goals in the World Cup. All the big teams have struggled in the WC so far, with France and England needing late goals to win, Argentina, Brazil, Spain drawing their matches while Germany losing to Mexico. Maybe Kane's goals can help England go very far this time but they need to lift their game. Tunisia were very poor and apart from the soft penalty didn't trouble England.

Belgium struggled in the first half but eventually got the goals in the second half to beat Panama. Belgium still doesn't show why they are one of the favourites to win the WC this time. Panama were very poor but Belgium cannot expect all the teams to be poor like Panama. It will be interesting to see the Spurs defence of Belgium going against the Spurs attack of England !
 
Pleased with the result, but too many issues about the performance of team and players.

We fell back into the pass back to the centre back mode too often, I though this happened as our left back had to stop and turn on to his right foot and Henderson has only one forward pass in his game, which is the cross field ball to the right wing if he is on the left or the same ball into the box if he is on the right. Neither Sterling or Lingard are looking to pass the ball over 10 yards or unless its for a one two this leaves anyone making a run for the ball out of the game. Dele was well off the pace after taking a knock but both him and Kane will only perform to their best if the ball is moved quicker.

The ref was awful, but like the rest of the world he was probably raised to believe the ills of the world are the fault of the English and takes the chance to put us in our place.
 
LemonadeMoney said:
Anyone expecting a perfect England performance is going to spend the rest of the World Cup on here moaning.
We're a group of players thrown together, and some not good enough but the best we've got. And we won. Enjoy.
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Absolutely.

Especially considering that most/all opponents will seek to frustrate and nullify England rather than generously leaving lots of time and space for our best players to perform uninterrupted.
It IS the World Cup and every country I've seen (except the Saudis) seems to have played with the effort & intensity you'd expect when representing their country on the biggest stage. For the smaller countries, that often means extreme harassment of the bigger sides/players to scrape a result as they know that bold expansive play alone won't give a positive outcome.
 
What strengths does Young bring at LB? He's been playing there for a while at United so he must be good at something, I'm just not sure what? Is it just pace, good at marking etc.
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
That was a fabulous ball. One action does not a great performance make though. And he was simply sub par for the most part, for me. Slowing play, losing the ball, rabbit in the headlights stuff.

Playing the ball back to defenders when not under pressure, getting the ball and just punting it because he was begining to get closed down, passing the ball into touch/to no one/to Tunisia - he looked out of his depth. And a large part of it was a lack of awareness. Did know he had time, didnt know he didnt have time... As well as that he just wasnt making the right decisions most of the time.

But yes, one good pass so I stand corrected...
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I'm gonna watch the game again on Friday, so I'll keep a particular eye out for Henderson.

Three other things I'd say in the meantime though:

1) With this formation, with only one true CM, I think a main priority is to have the athleticism to cover a large space defensively. Henderson does that well, whereas I think that's Dier's biggest weakness (yes he's intelligent with his positioning, but as the sole CM there will likely be times where that's not enough - and let's be honest Dier is a bit of an oil tanker!)

2) I also think part of Southgate's rationale with this system is that we have centre-backs who are comfortable and effective on the ball, and that part of our plan/style is to pass around the back and free up one of the CBs to step into midfield and use their passing. Like Maguire did to good effect last night (aside from his couple of wobblers). So perhaps there's less onus on the CM to be a brilliant passer.

3) I also don't think Dier's a very good passer to be honest - in fact my main frustration with him is the same thing that's levelled at Henderson - that when he receives the ball he plays it back in whatever direction it came from, often sideways and backwards. Until the odd inaccurate long pass. But that debate's been done to death, so probably just have to agree to disagree until Dier starts a game and we can talk about specifics.
 
dingdongo said:
What strengths does Young bring at LB? He's been playing there for a while at United so he must be good at something, I'm just not sure what? Is it just pace, good at marking etc.
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He did put in an excellent cross for Lingard's chance, so maybe crossing?

(Still, I'd prefer Rose for the balance.)
 
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