OK Grace, I know what you think about 'England takes', but here goes.....as is so often the case with football managers, their initial strength is their eventual undoing. For Southgate, his strength has been built on loyalty to his players and in lifting the burden of the England shirt. As you say this, with a meat-and-potatoes tactical set up has been enough for England to be decent in recent tournaments. But now, his loyalty is stopping him making changes (incl subs) and the atmosphere around the squad isn't helping. He and the players seem tetchy and feeling hard done by. The solution: frankly the selection and even the formation don't matter all that much. Almost any permutation of the 26 available is good enough to do well. Rather, they just need to play with more tempo and risk. That's it. I long for Southgate to turn into Claudio Ranieri and stand on the touchline shouting 'play, play, play'
Happy to see you suggest Saka and TAA as wing backs, that was an idea I've been suggesting too.
The other tactical thing I'd be interested to see is Kane playing alongside Watkins, who stretches the play in a different way. It wouldn't ever happen, but a back five does make a front two a bit easier to accommodate.
For me, I think it's hard to fit Foden, Kane and Bellingham in the same team as they all want to occupy the #10 slot.
Pairing Kane and Watkins would at least give Kane a target to hit when he drops deep and tries to play his quarterback balls. Admittedly it wasn’t going to work against a deep Slovenia team but even if they played higher I’m not sure Kane flinging those balls over to Bellingham is the right way around?
OK Grace, I know what you think about 'England takes', but here goes.....as is so often the case with football managers, their initial strength is their eventual undoing. For Southgate, his strength has been built on loyalty to his players and in lifting the burden of the England shirt. As you say this, with a meat-and-potatoes tactical set up has been enough for England to be decent in recent tournaments. But now, his loyalty is stopping him making changes (incl subs) and the atmosphere around the squad isn't helping. He and the players seem tetchy and feeling hard done by. The solution: frankly the selection and even the formation don't matter all that much. Almost any permutation of the 26 available is good enough to do well. Rather, they just need to play with more tempo and risk. That's it. I long for Southgate to turn into Claudio Ranieri and stand on the touchline shouting 'play, play, play'
Happy to see you suggest Saka and TAA as wing backs, that was an idea I've been suggesting too.
The other tactical thing I'd be interested to see is Kane playing alongside Watkins, who stretches the play in a different way. It wouldn't ever happen, but a back five does make a front two a bit easier to accommodate.
For me, I think it's hard to fit Foden, Kane and Bellingham in the same team as they all want to occupy the #10 slot.
Pairing Kane and Watkins would at least give Kane a target to hit when he drops deep and tries to play his quarterback balls. Admittedly it wasn’t going to work against a deep Slovenia team but even if they played higher I’m not sure Kane flinging those balls over to Bellingham is the right way around?
'Czech Republic vs Turkey: Turkey have looked like a side with much more quality. Czechia to try and fail to stifle them?'
Am sure I'm wrong but thought the Czechs were much better against Georgia than Turkey were? Turks were also played off the park by Portugal