The match sent my granddaughter to sleep …. Until we scored!
Euro 2024
- Thread starter Jurassicspark
- Start date
England has played well... Quite impressed.
Why fuss about with tactics when you can simply get lucky. It's driving me crazy watching Kane drop back into the space where Bellingham makes those runs from deep. If it isn't Kane, it's Phil fekking Foden cutting inside to tread on his toes. They looked better in a 4-3-3 where Mainoo brought fresh energy into that midfield but the link-up play is still not good and any kind of movement off the ball is only in the r&d phase. More often than not they resemble subbutteo players. Declan Rice has been our best player so far but Guéhi has not let anyone down in his first tournament and poses a question for the manager in having to replace him: Gomez has played in a central position for Liverpool but may be a risk too far for Southgate, so perhaps he'll shift Walker inside, move Trippier on to the right flank and bring back Luke Shaw.
Football managers, politicians, financial experts, legal experts, international statesmen. This forum has the lot. I sometimes wonder why the DIYNOT collective are not running this country.
What about my simple plan for Bellingham to play deeper, and drive things forward from there, like Vieira or Gerrard. Maybe tactics and formations have moved on. But I felt we were crying out for a player like that to take control in the middle.
If you plan on dropping Bellingham deeper you'll essentially be playing a diamond midfield, leaving even bigger gaps and asking Mainoo and Saka to work harder on the flanks. The formation would look even more lopsided than it does now. It could work with Lampard and Gerrard ahead of Scholes in midfield but that's 20 years too late to be effective, i'm afraid. Fortunately, i don't have to make the call, but Southgate has to come up with a better solution than the mish-mash he's cobbled together so far. The Swiss play a 3-4-3 with a high press so the midfield will have to be on their game come Saturday afternoon.
Could we play that same formation with our squad. I've just been reading that Bellingham played in that driving central midfield role in a 3-4-3 with Borussia Dortmund, with great success. So three centre backs, Rice and Bellingham in the centre, Alexander-Armstrong as an attacking right wing back. Then I'm stuck!
Okay, who're you having as your back three, bearing in mind one of 'em is suspended for the q-f?
Stones, Walker and one other. Who have we got?
Gomez. But Southgate won't match up the Swiss system as England don't have any other wide player than Saka. He'll stick with his tried and trusted ways as managers tend to do after so long in the job. A good old fashioned "four-four-****ing-two" would be fun for the traditionalists but we're too far down the road for wild experiments now. Besides, would you rather be beaten by the Swiss or humiliated by the Spanish in the final?
England were very lucky not to go 2-0 down when the Slovakian shot from the half way line, when Pickford was standing outside the box.
Even after that near miss, he continued to wander out of the box.........bonkers.
Even after that near miss, he continued to wander out of the box.........bonkers.
Helluva save by the Turk goalie at the end of last nights game, but why the need to compare it to Banks' save in the 1970 World Cup? It's nothing like as good. Alright, it was a good save to send his country through but Banksy had a much more difficult save to make from the world's greatest player. Pickford should be so lucky to gain such glory...and if England do manage to roll the Swiss and face the Turks in the semi-final he'll have to be on his game at those corners. Austria just couldn't deal with 'em.