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

[halfcenturyup]

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.

So, 5 at the back and two DMs it is, then ......

 

[cheekybids]

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

Which English player do the French worry about?

 

[waspish]

Think Southgate needs to get Foden in the midfield

_________pickford____________

Walker__Stone__Maguire__Shaw

___Belllingham_Rice_Foden____

Saka______Kane______Grealish

 

[Indaparkside]

Come on France we need our players back in one piece fuck England

 

[Frenchti]

Which English player do the French worry about?

Well, from my perspective, kane is the most obvious threat as he has been great for years.
Saka and foden are well known names and are having great seasons Bellingham also. Im not too fond of rashford and grealish but you if they score you can all mock me.
The "highlights" of Maguire are a big hope for me :)
And Pickford appears to me as a goalkeeper who likes to anticipate, which is the favorite target of mbappé.
Im devastated that benz, kanté and pogba are injured but im surprised that you guys are rating our midfield that low. Tchouameni and Rabiot have been great so far.

 

[supercity88]

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.

You'd hope he's learnt from previous experience. Steve Holland is there with him and has worked with some top managers as assistant so isn't a bad person to have advising him. He was proactive against the USA, making the change to bring Henderson on early. It was seen as a negative but it did positively impact our play. When you're in a final against Italy and ahead, as you say, you don't want to blink early and allow them to score as a result. The issue was, at 1-1 we just couldn't get out, couldn't do anything to create chances and he was also reluctant to bring on any new players until the last possible moment which showed the fear he had over losing that game.

The players are all doing the usual "we don't get enough credit", "we're here to win the World Cup" which usually comes before a defeat!

 

[supercity88]

Well, from my perspective, kane is the most obvious threat as he has been great for years.
Saka and foden are well known names and are having great seasons Bellingham also. Im not too fond of rashford and grealish but you if they score you can all mock me.
The "highlights" of Maguire are a big hope for me :)
And Pickford appears to me as a goalkeeper who likes to anticipate, which is the favorite target of mbappé.
Im devastated that benz, kanté and pogba are injured but im surprised that you guys are rating our midfield that low. Tchouameni and Rabiot have been great so far.

I think when we could have been playing against Pogba, Kante and Griezmann we see a benefit to facing Rabiot and Tchouameni. I think with the continued emergence of Bellingham it finally gives us a strong midfield in central areas, which we've lacked since the days of not being able to play Lampard, Gerrard and Scholes.

It's going to be a good game, very hard to call but I still have the French as favourites personally because you're the current world champions and you have the ability to win the game a number of ways.

 

[cheekybids]

Well, from my perspective, kane is the most obvious threat as he has been great for years.
Saka and foden are well known names and are having great seasons Bellingham also. Im not too fond of rashford and grealish but you if they score you can all mock me.
The "highlights" of Maguire are a big hope for me :)
And Pickford appears to me as a goalkeeper who likes to anticipate, which is the favorite target of mbappé.
Im devastated that benz, kanté and pogba are injured but im surprised that you guys are rating our midfield that low. Tchouameni and Rabiot have been great so far.

It’s an English trait of always thinking there’s 1 player only. Like in 86 they think Maradona played with 10 blokes from the street rather than incredible footballers in themselves.

It’s why City very rarely have players in the team of the year.

I’m a big fan of Griezman & think he could be key, we’ve struggled in our build up play, I don’t rate our midfield.

 

[Crooked_rain]

Maybe we can just learn to shithouse them

Teams did it to us over the years

 

[Nethermoor]

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

I think that's the point i'm trying to make. He's over hyped and we shouldn't be scared.

Like some people blow smoke up his ring, I'd prefer to talk him down. It's like the old WW1 and WW2 myths in the front lines of oppositon soldiers who were invincible etc. If you talk someone up so much your own side starts to believe it and overthinks.

I agree he's a good player with a lot of skill. Best in the world? Not yet. Ever? Maybe, but he has to beat off some good opposition coming through.