Round of 16: England vs Germany

[RhaenysBee]

I missed this match, but WOW ENGLAND    

[Heartofice]

13 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Portugal and France won recent tournaments playing ugly. Southgate looks to be taking more the Deschamps 2018 approach by setting up conservatively and relying on the abundance of individual attacking talent to improvise and fashion goals.

You’d have to question that abundance of attacking talent, given that Kane might as well have been in the pub for 90% of that match, Sterling despite being basically our best attacker is still pretty suspect, Saka is getting in the team ahead of Grealish, foden and sancho

I get the strategy and it’s a sound one. But we will also need more players who can conjure moments of magic out of nothing if we really want to win anything playing this way

[Consigliere]

Just now, Heartofice said:

You’d have to question that abundance of attacking talent, given that Kane might as well have been in the pub for 90% of that match, Sterling despite being basically our best attacker is still pretty suspect, Saka is getting in the team ahead of Grealish, foden and sancho

I get the strategy and it’s a sound one. But we will also need more players who can conjure moments of magic out of nothing if we really want to win anything playing this way

I think what England are missing is that passer in the middle of the pitch. France had Pogba pinging passes and defence splitting through balls to release the talented attackers whereas Rice and Phillips appear to have been instructed to recycle the ball as safely as possible. I think Henderson needs to come into the midfield as he is someone with very good passing range. Haven't seen much of Bellingham but he seems to be more of a ball carrier than a top quality passer from deep.

[polishgenius]

I mean, this is the thing. As far as playing conservatively goes, Southgate has mostly set them up pretty well and been effective. But you can't help but shake the feeling that a side with two of the best dribblers in world football and a whole bunch of other creative talents could set up in a way that makes other teams react to them and not the other way around. 


 

9 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

I think Henderson needs to come into the midfield as he is someone with very good passing range. Haven't seen much of Bellingham but he seems to be more of a ball carrier than a top quality passer from deep.

Shame he left my guy JWP at home eh. 

But yeah, Bellingham is more Renato Sanchez than Pogba.

[Mindwalker]

3 hours ago, Hereward said:

Oh cheer up, FFS. Obviously, we’ll still go out to Sweden, but have some joy in your life! I watched it in Wales, very satisfying.

Did the Walisians cheer for Germany? :-D

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Hereward said:

Oh cheer up, FFS. Obviously, we’ll still go out to Sweden, but have some joy in your life! I watched it in Wales, very satisfying.

To be fair, this would (now) be the most remarkable outcome in the history of international football, losing to a team we're not even playing. But I do not rule it out based on prior form.

If the deciding fact behind Ukraine's win was Sweden going down to 10 men, then I think we have to fancy playing them even more than Sweden (whom we beat last time out in a major competition anyway). After that (hopefully) we can get knocked out by Denmark instead.

[Hereward]

8 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

Did the Walisians cheer for Germany? :-D

Oh yes.