World Cup 2018 Qualifiers (and friendlies) June
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
Pogba was as incredible last night, friendly aside, that's as good a performance as I've seen from a midfielder in a very long time. Not only were his touches, holding and passing first rate, but I saw another element to his game tonight which was his anticipation. Number of times he read the play and intercepted the ball, or knew to drop off to pick up the second ball was a really welcome addition.
Dier is excellent when he plays in front of a back 4 and can drift back to become a 3rd CB while the fullbacks push forward - his positional sense and defensive abilities are put to good use and he's not forced further up the pitch where he's not quick enough with the ball. Playing him as a distributer in front of a back 3 is something Pochettino has never done (because Dier isn't that kind of player) and pairing him with Ox just compounded the situation.
Dier has never played in the MF when Spurs go with a strict back 3, he plays as one of the CBs in that formation. With a back 4 he plays as a very deep lying CM and system morphs between 3 or 4 at the back depending on whether or not Spurs are in possession as Dier drifts forward or back balancing the fullbacks.
It's yet another case of England using players in strange ways just to get them on the pitch or something. Play a system that works for your players for fecks sake. How hard is that concept? (for England? seemingly impossible)
Dier has never played in the MF when Spurs go with a strict back 3, he plays as one of the CBs in that formation. With a back 4 he plays as a very deep lying CM and system morphs between 3 or 4 at the back depending on whether or not Spurs are in possession as Dier drifts forward or back balancing the fullbacks.
It's yet another case of England using players in strange ways just to get them on the pitch or something. Play a system that works for your players for fecks sake. How hard is that concept? (for England? seemingly impossible)
In this case it is because we have a dearth of talent in midfield. There is a 35 year old Carrick, Drinkwater, Wilshere, Livermore and Huddlestone. It is shocking really. Onomah and Baker could realistically break into the seniors in the next year. It is a shame that Loftus-Cheek is going stale at Chelsea too.
Sorry about my observation mate, but looking at the match, what we can see with England is the same thing we could have said on Euro 2000 against Portugal, 2004,2006 or other tournaments, England midfield has no creativity or positional awareness not only to dominate, but even to control a match.
I know there is a lot of hope because England has done well in the under 17s and won the under 20 WC, but even looking at those teams, we can say even looking better at a technical point we can see they still make more the difference at a physical level, and when I see Giggs yesterday saying that England solution to the lack of creativity on midfield should be Cook or Onomah, even those you mentioned like Cheek or Baker, I know they have quality, but still, the problem still looks tactical and technical, maybe I am wrong, but...
I think that the 'technical' factor is well overstated. The players we have in the team now are simply substandard to be beating a team with the quality of France.
Also the 'physical' argument is well overstated, especially when you are talking about U20 football FFS, even at 17 level this summer there was no clear physical advantage apparent to me. It is also weird that you use youth football as an example as we hadn't won a game at the U20 World Cup in something like 15 games before this year, we had an appalling record. Have we been using steroids this time or something?
France lack technically also IMO but have the quality of player to win a tournament.
I think it is as much mentality where we fail at big tournaments, for example in our Euro qualifying group we beat Switzerland home and away with ease but when we play a team of that quality in the finals, or even less, we tend to struggle.
Look, congratulations on winning the Euros, but I think you need to see it for what it was, you stank out the joint and rode your luck, more in the spirit of Greece 04 than Brazil 70.
Sorry but you didn't understood nothing about what I said, and if you want my opinion, even Portugal not having the same number of players as England more easily we will be better at tournaments than England.
You kidding me? France excel technically, and they have pace and power to add to that. All they lack is experience as they're such a youthful side. Griezmann, Pogba, Payet, Rabiot, Mbappe, Martial, Dembele etc etc all have incredible feet, some as dribblers, others as playmakers.
Sorry I meant tactically.
I agree in that we should play more pragmatic football. We should play deep and use our pacey players to counter.
In that case, I agree with both points.
I've thought for years we should just sit back, use our height in midfield and defence to form a solid base, then use the likes of Welbeck, Walcott, OX, Sterling etc to play on the counter. The best teams in the world would be wary of that pace from a counter attacking team. The issue we'd face is when we need to force a goal, or when we play smaller teams who will themselves relinquish position to play deeper.
When I mentioned this, nothing to do with steroids, just my opinion that it looks from the outside there is more emphasys on physical development than technical or tactical, at least these last years imo.
Each team or country should play based on the ideas of the coach and where players feel better, if per example Portugal didn't had a decent striker or Bernardo Silva was injured, maybe the coach had the idea to play with 4 midfielders and 2 forwards who happened to be wingers, and if our style is more suited to play on the counter yes it may look defensive but you need to be able to control matches.
If the main force with England is having decent strikers or classical 9s and it has less quality on midfield, maybe it would help in the first place try to put the players on their natural positions, and play more on transitions and less possession, at least against stronger teams, anyway International football is not club football, group stage is 1 thing and knockouts another.
But the key is if you can't dominate at least you need your players to be able to control the game without the ball, if we tried something different we would loose against Croatia, maybe next weekend will be different with other players, or if we try to be more expansive maybe we will loose against Mexico.
That touch at 1:27. Blimey.
What a player.
Yet, he'll still get slagged by the British media because he was dead expensive, so he should be banging in screamers every time he plays.
@SCP
Pretty much any group of decent players can be taught to dominate without the ball, Mourinho specialises in this type of tactic.
England have ideas above their station footballing wise at the moment IMO, considering the players we have and we need to do something about the crumbling mentality at tournaments.
I advocate for Rafa Benetiz as the next England manager as I believe his style will help England make the best of their resources.
Pretty much any group of decent players can be taught to dominate without the ball, Mourinho specialises in this type of tactic.
England have ideas above their station footballing wise at the moment IMO, considering the players we have and we need to do something about the crumbling mentality at tournaments.
I advocate for Rafa Benetiz as the next England manager as I believe his style will help England make the best of their resources.
Yup, the master at this in Portugal and even World Football is Mou, Santos was more by the moment than conviction.
Benitez dunno, if you say to me the Benitez of maybe 2010 he could be perfect for England, now I am not so sure, Southgate looks short, but even with the observations I was making about England there is 1 chance we are witnessing development at youth level and it will translate to the senior team.
Dunno but I listen a lot from English fans about mentality and passion, for me is more related with tactical development and developing players more based on decision making than fast and matured players at young age, but I have a certain way to look at youth football maybe not so popular.
I really believe that the under 17/19/21 do really matter, based on Portugal performances during the last 20 years, sometimes better other times worse, but even teams like France with the level of recruitment and quality they have, they too fail sometimes, or Spain, so the mentality thing may not be the crucial factor.
I say this with honesty - Northern Ireland currently have a much better team than England.
Winks will be in the world cup squad. If Livermore is getting a game then Winks will be a certainty.
Nice try. NI are doing excellently currently though.Problem for Winks and all those mentioned is getting enough minutes at club level to make a name for themselves.
Winks got plenty of minutes last season and he will get more in the coming year (assuming he comes back fine from his injury) - there is a serious problem in England's midfield options and Winks is a proper midfielder who has all the attributes to go far in the game. I think that as long as he stays fit and continues to get games for Spurs then he is a great shout for the England squad.
Problem for Winks and all those mentioned is getting enough minutes at club level to make a name for themselves.
As for Norn Iron - I may be smirking a bit but we are performing at a higher level than England are right now and as a team we are a much stronger unit. Obvious who has the better players of course but that counts for little if you can't play together.
Winks didn't get anywhere near enough minutes for an international starter though.
NI are not really performing at a higher level than England. We top our group and have not lost a Q game is something like 35 games. Losing against France away is nothing to be ashamed of all things considered. Drawing at Scotland away isn't the best but they didn't have a chance on target until they scored. It was a decent result in the end as considering how seriously Scotland take the game it was probably our hardest fixture in the group.
Winks had 19 league appearances last season and I would expect him to make 20+ this year. That's more than Phil Jones made last season and it's considerably more than Trippier made also. Yes he isn't yet a guaranteed starter at Spurs but if he can get back to fitness after his injury I think he will get more games. He is very highly rated at Spurs.
He had 15 sub apps! divide his minutes by 90 and he played 5.33 games! He needs to increase that by 4 times at least to make a name for World Cup. What about Onomah? A loan maybe?
Onomah would benefit from a loan however I don't think Poch really believes in them. The problem he has is that Winks is ahead of him in his favoured midfield position so when Josh comes on he is played higher up the pitch which limits his effectiveness. There have been rumours we might sell him on but I hope we don't, he has good potential and was the best player in the world cup final by a mile.
Yeah I agree. He was top class in the final. Looks half the player further up the pitch.
Its a bit silly to call a poor English performance 'knee jerk' in 2017.
Gotta love people drawing conclusions from an end of the season friendly
Poch won't loan out players he believes have a future - he's a big believer in having them involved in daily training with the first team and getting them match minutes when possible. Onomah isn't going anywhere.
As @balaks said though, his issue is that Harry Winks has established himself as the primary young backup at CM for Spurs - so Onomah is still scrapping for minutes at his favored position. Sooner or later Spurs will probably move on from one of them, but it won't be for a while (at least through the next year or two). Both of them are very good young players - Winks isn't the athlete that Onomah is and can't carry the ball forward with his dribble like Onomah can, but he's a better distributor of the ball and has a terrific range of passing. He's more like a Carrick and Onomah is more like a Dembele, if we're making current PL player comparison. Long term for England, Winks is probably a player that can be very useful. Not sure if England has another similar player coming through anywhere.
That's because you don't understand the rules:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40269138
Penalty, but not a red card.
You're right.
Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh,
I didn't mean to come across that way.
Don't worry, you were right, I didn't know/remembered about that change of rules. Anyway, I still think it was not accidental, just very well disguised, so…
England have some good options at full back but elsewhere it's pretty slim pickings. The options in central midfield are particularly embarrassing - i can't believe the presenter suggested Rooney as a solution.