England v France - Sat 10th Dec, 19:00 | Quarter-final | World Cup 2022

[Blueknows]

Alot of talk about Mbappe and Dembele but the one you really have to stop is Foden he really makes England tick

;-)

 

[N1985]

I reckon we're gonna absolutely twat em.

Then lose to Morocco on pens.

 

[hilts]

If every England player looks up and gives Foden the ball at every possible opportunity and walker is up to speed we win providing numb nuts doesn't contemplate a tactical change.

 

[the talisman]

Why are we so bothered about Mbappe?

He's scored a few goals, but against Australia, Denmark and Poland.

He scores a lot of goals in one of the most unbalanced leagues in History, in the best team in that league. It's essentially like City playing in League 2.

I've seen him against City and he didn't impress me that much. In fact he's never impressed me.

Now you’ve done it

 

[Frenchti]

Hey everyone. Interesting read here, from a french perspective. I wish you good (not too much) luck for saturday

 

[Crooked_rain]

If every England player looks up and gives Foden the ball at every possible opportunity and walker is up to speed we win providing numb nuts doesn't contemplate a tactical change.

I’d just go with the same first 11 as the last game. Same formation and everything. They seemed to look very fluid going forward once they got going.

The first 2 goals especially were the best team goals I’ve seen England score for a long time. Foden looks super sharp too. Kane usually gets going with goals once he gets one, which he has.

When we take off the handbrake, we can give any team fits and none of the teams in the tournament are exactly that vintage Milan side when it comes to defence.

Obviously you still have to be cautious and sensible with defensive responsibilities but if we get the likes of Foden on the ball regularly, teams will struggle to contain us. We always look at other teams and talk them up like they can hurt as easily, when fact we can also do it to them if we’re assertive. I hope Southgate realises that.

 

[Crooked_rain]

Why are we so bothered about Mbappe?

He's scored a few goals, but against Australia, Denmark and Poland.

He scores a lot of goals in one of the most unbalanced leagues in History, in the best team in that league. It's essentially like City playing in League 2.

I've seen him against City and he didn't impress me that much. In fact he's never impressed me.

Never? He scored 2 in the last world cup final. I think he tore Argentina a new one in that World Cup too.

Granted he never really stood out against us in the champions league. He was also dog shit in the euros last year for the most part.

But he is a very dangerous player. I do think there’s a bit too much hype about him overall, but that’s football and football needs its new superstars for marketing when the likes of Messi and Ronaldo are on their way out. They talk about him being the best player in the world now, he could be but he’s about 23 and I don’t think he’s even close to what the likes of Messi was and I don’t think he will be.

I guess it’s like football in Brazil, They always need a poster boy for Brazilian football and Neymar is it and he is a very good player on his day, but I think deep down everybody knows he’s not really one of the greats, like Ronaldo or Ronaldinho in his prime. He’s a bit short of that level.

Well, global football does a similar thing now and that’s why I think Mbappé is a very good player but he’s being marketed as this really iconic great, but I’m not sure his overall ability matches that exactly.

I guess we’ll see if he does it every week if he ever moved to a better league. He’s been decent in the champions league, nothing special.

He’s a very good player though, make no mistake

 

[Crooked_rain]

Bottom two paragraphs are spot on.


I've been putting the blame on the manager for (especially) the euro final defeat as we were far too defensive.
We were hesitant to attack in a few games leading to that final too,preffering a system that wasnt creative,so it set the scene for what followed.

Yeah

I actually think Southgate might stick with the same formation, and I hope he does.

I was saying earlier that even if he changed to the back five and played more negative, we still might beat France because it’s football, but I think if you keep playing that negative formation at this level, you are going to come up short eventually over the course of a couple of games, because you just can’t get overrun in midfield like that at this level and offer little attacking threat while inviting pressure without being punished.

That’s what happened against Croatia. You can put that one down inexperience.

Then it happened v Italy, and I suppose it’s difficult because you’re 40 mins away from winning a tournament, do you stick or twist? I can kind of understand why he wanted to protect the lead. Imagine we kept attacking and got undone anyway, people would say he’s an idiot for not being cautious when we are close to winning. But the truth is the top managers would’ve known the correct decision to make when managing that game.

But I think he has found out the hard way now that eventually these negative tactics come back to bite you at a high level in tournament football, and he should put some faith in actually being assertive and winning the game. I’ll be disappointed if he adopts a very negative approach to this game because for all the stick he gets, I would’ve thought he was smart enough to learn the lessons from before…..But let’s see.

 

[NPBlue]

Alot of talk about Mbappe and Dembele but the one you really have to stop is Griezmann he makes France tick

So does Bellingham for us.

And Foden.

And Saka.

And Kane.

And Pickford isn't too bad in goal, either.

Personally, I think they have more to worry about than we do.

This is the best England team I've seen for 50 odd years. Bring it on, and may the best team win.

 

[Nellies left peg]

Kyle Walker has looked well off the pace from what I’ve seen, hopefully it’s only temporary. He got skinned a couple of times by a Senegal player last game and that is his biggest asset.Hopefully no brain farts on Saturday