Happy the way Southgate wants us to play but he got lucky with draw we got plus seems like Ali and Kane are the untouchables! Rashdord for Ali Delph for Kane Dier for Henderson.
I'm a little more worried about that idea than anything to do with tactics. I really don't want to see us go into another generation of players with golden boys who are immune to dropping. Kane was incredibly poor over the last 2 games and shouldn't take his place for granted. However, I admit that the quarter and semi finals of a world cup is no time to be changing your main striker, especially with the prospect of penalties.
I think on the whole he did a good job with the players he had. Henderson, Alli and Lingard are just fundamentally limited footballers, nowhere near the class of Modric, Rakitic, De Bruyne, etc. Lingard actually surprised me. By the end of the tournament I warmed to him quite a bit. But as a collective those 3 still never did enough to get the ball up the pitch in a meaningful way, making the right decisions in the attacking third. Not one of them showed any ability to play Sterling in behind, balls he gets about 10 a match of from De Bruyne or Silva. It's no surprise we needed set pieces for so many of our goals. Henderson in particular should be ashamed. A midfield general who never shows for the ball, and when it ends up at his feet he either plays it back to Stones or hoofs it nowhere. Alli I think you could put a bit up to not being fit, as he has at least shown some promise for Spurs, but is he going to kick on? (Perhaps Crouchinho can chime in here). He seemed to get injured (In the first game I believe?), should have come off then but came back out after the break and was poor, and that theme just kinda persisted. A late goal papered over many cracks IMO.
I don't have much problem with Stones and Maguire as our centre backs. Both are young and both suffer from lapses, Maguire slightly more so. But at least he never hid and was willing to bring the ball out. A tremendous amount fell on Stones to start our attacks. Walker isn't a right sided centre back but did alright considering.
Trippier had a good tournament. Not just saying that because of his goal, which was fantastic, but he looked like he gave his all for the team whenever he was on. Did some solid defending and ok attacking. He's no Alves or Marcello but never felt like a weak link.
Young I assume was there for set pieces, because he's not a patch on Delph as a left back, and is showing his age. Other than Delph though who else could we have played there? I'd rather not see him at Euro 2020.
Kane is Kane. He'll frustrate us for 89 minutes and still manage to score. You can't argue with the numbers he puts up really. Would love to know what happened to him in the quarter and semi finals as he never struck me as someone who wouldn't charge themselves out for England.
Sterling, I just wanted him to get that goal. He was so pivotal to whatever open play attacking we tried to muster. His first touch deserted him too often and there were a couple of occasions he should have scored (even if one was offside), but if other fans couldn't see how his mere presence kept the entire opposition back line on watch I really don't know what to tell you. We were noticeably worse every time he was subbed off. Can only hope he continues to impress under Guardiola and goes into the next tournament with even more confidence.
Dier. No. Never again. We *have* to find someone faster of thought and foot to bring on if we want to close out a game. He is at best a 93rd minute sub to waste time/maybe defend one final set piece.
One of the main takeaways from all of that is how desperate we are for at least two very good midfielders. If we swap Henderson for Modric and Alli for Rakitic last night we win that game at a canter.