47 | Phil Foden - 2023/24

[bluealf]

Rice was poor too. There were gaps for Rice to drive forward but he ways passed sideways or backwards.

Phil was played out of his best position until the semi finals and then Bellingham was shifted out wider for the semi and final. Phil took his poor from from the Cup Final and Iceland game into the tournament I'm afraid. Fatigue might have been a factor. Palmer should have got more minutes and so should Anthony Gordon.

So Phil was out of form and fatigued but the best 45 minutes he played was the 45 minutes he played as an AM coincidently the best 45 minutes England played all tournament.

Help me out?

Surely the thought process should be he should have played at AM every game?

Palmer did himself no harm in limited minutes but coming on late in games is different than playing in an aimless team for 80 minutes.

Gordon, hard to shout about he had 4 mins and he could have been good or shit with more minutes, it should have been Jack who rarely let Southgate down in the past.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

So Phil was out of form and fatigued but the best 45 minutes he played was the 45 minutes he played as an AM coincidently the best 45 minutes England played all tournament.

Help me out?

Surely the thought process should be he should have played at AM every game?

Palmer did himself no harm in limited minutes but coming on late in games is different than playing in an aimless team for 80 minutes.

Gordon, hard to shout about he had 4 mins and he could have been good or shit with more minutes, it should have been Jack who rarely let Southgate down in the past.

I will help you out. A good 45 minutes in 7 games represents a poor tournament for Phil.

 

[bluealf]

I will help you out. A good 45 minutes in 7 games represents a poor tournament for Phil.

So again you miss/or ignore the point that he wasn't played in the correct position but when he was, he played and England played the best they'd played all tournament.

Ok, he was shit, you win.

 

[J.G.Blue.]

I thought Phil did ok, not great but non of the England players were great, he seemed to keep trying in a shite team & a shite set up, but for a few inches here & there when he hit the post twice & had one cleared of the line, if those had gone in he would have been hailed by the media & fans as the best england player of the tournament,
On a side note I think we got to the final despite Southgate not because of him.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

So again you miss/or ignore the point that he wasn't played in the correct position but when he was, he played and England played the best they'd played all tournament.

Ok, he was shit, you win.

I would have much rather seen Grealish on the left side of midfield. Phil hasn’t done enough for England to justify the England team being built around him. Southgate was fair to Phil picking in his more favoured position in the last 2 games.

Even though playing out of position, a player of Phil’s ability should have contributed more.

 

[bluealf]

I would have much rather seen Grealish on the left side of midfield. Phil hasn’t done enough for England to justify the England team being built around him. Southgate was fair to Phil picking in his more favoured position in the last 2 games.

Even though playing out of position, a player of Phil’s ability should have contributed more.

Of course, you need to be passed to so you can contribute more, it has all been explained already.

Southgate has never known what to do with talent, so has always fucked Foden over.

 

[samuelyeboah]

Wow.

I am sorry that you lot are too biased to have actually watched the games without rose tinted glasses but he was absolutely not asking for the ball and constantly positioned himself in the wrong place to be able to receive it. i can't remember a single sprint he made the entire tournament which he seemed to have jogged through. it was a very very passive tournament from him, and he looked like he didn't really care, which again, i have no problem with because england aren't playing in sky blue. we saw a completely different foden than the foden we see here week in week out, and its not just due to tactics or teammates, it was partially on him too.

"no one passed to him" is such a comical copout from people who can't seem to come to terms with any criticism of a city player

also it's clear none of you have watched because he played basically the vast majority of the tournament in the #10 position.

 

[No One Understands]

I think he 'knows his place' in the England set up. Didn't Southgate send him home once, so he might just realise he is not the shoe-in like 'Arry or Bellingham, and ends up following the letter he has been given by the manager. He rarely seems to exhibit the flare we see week in week out at The Etihad. It's quite clear that Phil responds to Pep far more than he ever would do with Southgate.

Which is why the sooner he bins off England the better for his career. Too many arm chair coaches now popping all over the internet. I would even call waistcoat that. City plays sophisticated football, that's Rodris comment. England patently DO NOT, and many of their so called superstars are anything but. I'll take Kuns assessment of Foden over many a keyboard warrior, and there's many of them on this board now.

 

[No One Understands]

You not liking his positions is OK.

Thinking he wasn't asking for the ball is nonsense though, you must have been half asleep watching the games.

Anyway, I bet the players around him at City would've found him in those positions, as they always do without much trouble.

Maybe that's Foden's fault though, he was moving into positions thinking less competent passers could pick him out, an error of judgement on his part. Maybe he should've adapted his game and move into positions to suit poor passers of the ball like Rice, instead of thinking they could pick him out like Rodri could.

I watched the final three times so far, he asked for the ball more than any other player on the pitch. Bellingham, rice, saka et al are clueless. When they did pass to him, more often than not it was an uncontrolled pass out of his reach. Phil tried to do his job, it's not his fault the others are not as competent at theirs

 

[threespires]

or played in the position he was given v the Dutch, were he showed he was the best player in the team until halftime when the waistcoat moved him back to the left wing.

He didn't play well in the other games but not for lack of effort, there are people on X with videos of his showing for the ball constantly bu t never getting the pass.

Rice, in particular, was bad for doing what Rodri does ie passing through the lines and folk wanted us to pay 106m for him, giggles insanely.

Bellingham just wanted to be the man and barely passed to Phil or indeed Mainoo either bar his overhead kick he was shit as well but somehow ended up rated England's best player lol

That was, of course, Stones.

I've nothing against Rice but this tournament did show some of his limitations which put the madness of his valuation in perspective. Watching Bellingham ignore Phil was unsurprising but with Rice I couldn't work out if the myriad of missed opportunities to play into him were his own lack of confidence that he could pass accurately enough or, more likely I think, him not seeing the positions Foden had adopted as promising ones. My guess was he probably did see at least a number of opportunities to pass as too high risk because he isn't used week in and week out to seeing Phil work in what he perceived as relatively small amounts of space but which in practice were more than large enough for Foden to be productive.

Though I got frustrated at times with Phil's seeming inability to adapt to the level of player/system he had around him I'm not sure how easy or realistic that would have been to do in practice.