Great postEspecially when half the starting players of 2018 are missing this time.
Of the top of my head, L Hernandez-Umtiti-Pogba-Kanté-Matuidi.
The current squad is closer to the one that failed at Euro 2020 before winning NL in 2021, beating Belgium and Spain.
England Discussion
- Thread starter Samid
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
France are much better without Benzema, despite his obvious ability. Giroud just allows Griezmann and Mbappe to do their own thing which is a net positive for them
Rabiot has been excellent those past few months for Juve and has been very good most of the time this tournament. If you think Rice has performed better both in club and this WC, you're mistaken.
They're not playing similar spots anyway. In the current setups, Rabiot plays a role closer to Henderson. I think Griezmann and Bellingham have both been very good, and Tchouaméni is 100% a better player than Rice.
Who plays ahead of him in a midfield three? I don't think England have much quality in those positions outside of who is playing.
Kane walks in over Giroud, let’s stop kidding ourselves.
Everything good we do goes through Kane. That’s not to say Giroud hasn’t been excellent by the way but I think people are starting to get silly now.
'Tis gonna be a great game 
Do you consider Rice and Bellingham like the two best midfielders in the world ? Maybe people have other criteria to judge midfielders.
Agree with this. England are always so cautious and nervous no matter how good their players are. Other nations always seem so fired up and confident from the first whistle.
I’d play him no question. Amongst other things it frees Bellingham up for his driving runs and speeding us up on the break. The only other option is Phillips who’s played about 20 games in the last 18 months and doesn’t have Henderson’s leadership.
It's really not as obvious as you think it is. Kane is for all intents and purposes a discount Benzema, and many argue that France plays better with Giroud than Benzema.
Regardless of the players' inherent qualities.
Saka has played as a wing back. Could add him in for Trippier
"While the French looked very fluid in their attacks, they were no match for the English crossbowmen."
Jean Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy, 1415.
Jean Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy, 1415.
I dont, I think Jude has been better than Rabiot. Rabiot isn’t playing in Rice position.
It’s turned in an x versus y discussion and it’s people trying to fit favourable matchup against each other. As a holder between the two sides I’d pick Rice and the first name overall on the team sheet is Jude. I’m not saying Rabiot is a bad player but he’s only being brought up like this to counter my point. He’s having a good season for Juve but that’s all it is, we have seen Rabiot perform for a long time now and let’s not pretend 99 percent of this forum didn’t freak the feck out when we were so close to signing him. Rabiot has spent this season playing well in a bad bunch, it doesn’t tell us much about his qualities.
Again, I don’t want England to win so nobody can accuse me of bias but this England side is stacked at the minute both individually and how they play as a team. They’re a win away from cruising to a third major semi final in 4 years so it’s not as if they’re only beating nobodies and failing in the first pressure game they face.
Any team with Mbappe will play through him so a France win wouldn’t be a big I told you so but England are stacked with players across the forward line backed by Jude from midfield and they’re proving incredibly hard to contain. For me they weren’t that favoured pre Finals since they didn’t seem to fit Foden into the side but that’s in the past now and he’s the X factor now. He plays well and England wins. That’s just one of 4/5 players you could legitimately point to and say that about.
You can argue either way but saying England are favourites shouldn’t see me getting 47 alerts because of it!
Here's the problem I have with Kane. He's not proven. Giroud is as important to the way France play as Harry Kane is for England, it may sound crazy to you but most France fans wouldn't switch Kane for Giroud, In fact most France fans wouldn't start Benzema over Giroud and Benzema is the current Balon D'or holder.
At the end of the day France have been successful with Giroud as their striker already, Harry Kane is yet to be successful in any team he's ever played in....
Shocking news about Sterling. News like that would shake the whole squad, fair play to them for keeping focused & hopefully things are ok for Sterling.
I think on paper I'd like to drop Henderson, move Foden to CAM and bring Rashford in at LW. But like I said, I think in reality playing Henderson is actually a better option despite how much people don't rate him.
Really?
Both teams will go into this defensively, so I reckon it’ll be a 1-0 or 0-0 affair after 90 mins. Saying that, I’d still have France as the favourites just because of our historic record in big games.
Spot the guy who's not actually watched France
Feels crazy to read so many English posters looking forward to changes in the 11 after such a strong showing.
Barring injuries I 100% expect the French starting players on Saturday to be the same as today.
Barring injuries I 100% expect the French starting players on Saturday to be the same as today.
Henderson definitely has to start next game, all of the clamour for Foden to join the midfield 3 and Rashford to start on the wing is stupid. It's a good thing Southgate will start him it's the best chance we have, thankfully we'll also go back to a back 5 as well, our best chance of winning imo.
Yeah, I’d have it 6-5 to England players in the team - Pickford, Shaw, Walker, Bellingham, Saka and Kane would all get in a combined team for me. Strong argument for Stones or Maguire as well.
I think France have the more settled side and have the cheat code that is Mbappe but England look slightly better player for player.
I'd keep the same 11. Gonna be an extremely tough game but this isn't the France of 2018 and this is a better England than 2018 imo.
Think both sides have been the best two in the tournament. I'd say whoever wins this should be the favourite but they'll still have a very difficult semi to get through.
Think both sides have been the best two in the tournament. I'd say whoever wins this should be the favourite but they'll still have a very difficult semi to get through.
Not best in the world, Better than France.
Thought that Southgate got the game right today. Actually thought Henderson was outstanding. I think it’s fortunate that Sterling wasn’t available for selection and we’d all got sick of him putting Sterling and mount in there. If he uses his bench well then we have a fighting chance against France. I hope he just doesn’t try to shithouse it to extra time like the last massive games we had under him, it still annoys me that it takes entire media to force him into playing foden but I’m obv hoping upon hope he learns from the past this time.
Giroud is the all time leading goal scorer in France national team history ahead of some legends like Henry or Platini.
Guy is criminally underrated.
Mbappe can be tamed though. Seen it many a time, even against us that he can be taken out of the game and he won’t work hard enough to get back into it. Nullify him and our chances increase like 25%
You should pick a team partly based on the opposition, Saka was pretty poor in the first half and gave the ball away in dangerous positions, England can't afford that against France.
Henderson has to start, he made England tick today and allowed Bellingham to play, don't get the digs at Kane either, he was very good today
In every big game I've ever watched Kane play against big opposition when it means something, for England and for Spurs he's gone missing. I've watched a lot of Kane in the premier league and for England, he's scored plenty of goals and yet the only big goal I remember him scoring of the top of my head was the penalty against Denmark in the semi final of the Euros. Correct me if I'm wrong though, he plays well against opposition he's expected to beat but when it comes to the 50/50 games such as the one coming up against France he's never performed, not once.
Again, correct me if I'm wrong.
Kane would take too much Griezmann place in the team by dropping deeper. Giroud is allowing Mbappé to shine. He is better with a target man. Yes, Giroud is a good fit for France.
Germany round of 16 at the euros
Yeah, it’s a shame both teams meet each other so early.
He's spent his whole career being a one man army for Spurs, feeding off scraps and he's scored plenty of goals for Spurs against all the big teams (except United weirdly enough). Plenty of CL, world cup and euros goals too. I think its daft to say he can't handle big games. Put him in the City team and I don't think his tally would be too far off what Haaland has for City this season.
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He doesn't have to score to perform, he also creates chances for his team mates and he's certainly done that in this WC, his goal today was important, it effectively killed the match
Wish him and his family all the best.
Ok I'll give you that, so he has one good performance against a team that we weren't expecting to beat, although judging by Germany going out at the group stage the last 2 world cups maybe we should have been expecting to beat them.
I think you misunderstood me, I said in a game that was 50/50, so against tough opposition when it means something, win or go home.
He did pay well against Germany ro16 to be fair. So he has one.
Mbappe, Griezmann, Giroud and Dembele work really together. England players will have to have the game of their lives to stop them. Rabiot has also done very well too. I fear they could get a lot of joy with Maguire, he had a couple of bad moments against Senegal but we've had teams at arms length for the most part so he's been ok but for me untested with runners and passing behind, France will be very different to Iran, Wales, toothless USA and Senegal.
France are not infallible though as we see in the Euros and Nations league, they can look very ordinary at times but have so much strength in depth. A World Cup quarter final will be a huge game mentally and motivationally, I would give France the edge but England have a 40% chance.
France are not infallible though as we see in the Euros and Nations league, they can look very ordinary at times but have so much strength in depth. A World Cup quarter final will be a huge game mentally and motivationally, I would give France the edge but England have a 40% chance.
News Sterling left the camp for personal reasons.
He does though, how often does he have win or go home games for Spurs? He's scored countless goals for Spurs against tough opposition, often with no support from his team mates. He often has to be the creator and the goal scorer for his team.