England World Cup Squad Confirmed

My prediction is we'll struggle against Tunisia and Panama but scrape a 1-0 win in both and give Belgium a damn good game but lose 2-1 after going in front first. Then we'll be going home after the first knockout stage.

Good thing is nobody is screaming it's our year, there is no pressure on them, the press aren't really remotely interested in bigging up our chances so If they do well it be a bonus.

No expectations!
 
Not having a superstar that the team is built around might be a good thing as we might have to play as a team rather than hope 1 players goes superman and wins the game for us.

Get out the group is the target then anything after that is a bonus but in the knockout game play to win not avoid defeat which is all we did under Hodgson.
 
England squads have been poor for a long time not since 2010 have we gone in with a real quality squad imo and even they flopped.

Henderson gets grief but used properly he's a cracking player and is going to play centre mid in the CL final in a few weeks, we don't really have playmakers so there's no point trying to play possession football we need to try and make the games open end to end games basically avoid midfield they're all good runners so can get up and down but they can't dictate the way a game is played so don't even try.

I'm not saying hoof it up to Kane I'm saying play quickly so it's got to go to the midfield quickly then they've got to get it into the attacking mids/striker quickly this team can't do slow build up it's got to play like Liverpool/Spurs and be full throttle 100mph in your face football.
 
I think in 96 we had a good squad that a good manager got the very best out of riding the wave of a home tournament.

2002-10 I think on paper we had a wealth of talent to chose from the only thing we didn't have was a top class keeer and someone to play on the left but for 8 years we stumbled through the whole Gerrard & Lampard era. In Rooney & Owen we had 2 world class strikers in their prime, Neville & Cole world class full backs in their prime, the centre backs were all top draw and in centre mid we had Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes, Carrick, Hargreaves & Barry all really good players but we just never got the balance right plus Beckham on the right.

For me from 2002-10 we had the players to do something and in 2004 they should've won that tournament but we didn't have the managers who had the balls to put big names on the bench instead they all tried cramming the best XI players into the same team and as Rio said recently the players were all at war with each other. No manager could get them to leave their club loyalties at the door and focus on England. Spain finally managed to get the players to do that in 2008 and it made a massive difference.
 
In what universe is Henderson a “cracking player”. Patently average and that just goes to show what a poor talent pool England have. On the flip side since there is such low expectations from them they may end up surprising us all.
 
I still remember the day of the semi final against the Germans in Euro 96. The air was electric. Everyone was just buzzing. It was amazing. Saying I felt deflated the next day though was an understatement. What a tournament that was though! Beating Holland 4-1 and Shearer, McManaman etc just lining up to score that goal was unbelievable. Good times. Now we have Henderson as our main man haha
 
I don't think England has produced a player so naturally gifted as Gazza

So close to scoring against Germany.

Great great player.
 
In what universe is Henderson a “cracking player”. Patently average and that just goes to show what a poor talent pool England have. On the flip side since there is such low expectations from them they may end up surprising us all.

I think he's developed into a good holding midfield player who's having a fine season at Liverpool he's not Gerrard or Lampard or even Carrick but he's a good central midfield player.
 
I think he's developed into a good holding midfield player who's having a fine season at Liverpool he's not Gerrard or Lampard or even Carrick but he's a good central midfield player.
What does he do well in midfield? Tell me one thing he is good at. Apart from running around. I mean is he good at long passes? Is he good at spreading the play around? Is he good at through balls? The answer to all these will be a resounding no. No one apart from Liverpool fans find him to be a good player. And even most of them are divided in their opinion of him.
 
Saw a stat comparison of English centre mids for this season in terms of tackles, interceptions & chances created in the league this season he was the stand out English centre mid. Doesn’t score very many but sitting in front of the defence he is by a mile our best option and I don’t think there’s many better than him in the PL at that role.

I think he’s good at winning it back, plays sensible passes when he has to but also plays forward when he can for Liverpool. For England it’s often been different he has struggled to show his club form for the national team.

The issue really is that we don’t really have the attacking players from central midfield areas.
 
Saw a stat comparison of English centre mids for this season in terms of tackles, interceptions & chances created in the league this season he was the stand out English centre mid. Doesn’t score very many but sitting in front of the defence he is by a mile our best option and I don’t think there’s many better than him in the PL at that role.

I think he’s good at winning it back, plays sensible passes when he has to but also plays forward when he can for Liverpool. For England it’s often been different he has struggled to show his club form for the national team.

The issue really is that we don’t really have the attacking players from central midfield areas.
Do you mean he is better at that role than say matic or kante or gueye? Or did you mean among English center mids? If so it only highlights the point I made in my first post that says England have a very poor talent pool to pick from.
 
Do you mean he is better at that role than say matic or kante or gueye? Or did you mean among English center mids? If so it only highlights the point I made in my first post that says England have a very poor talent pool to pick from.

He’s the best English option but I think he holds his own against players in his position in the rest of the league maybe Kante, Fernandinho & Matic are better but not by a long way in my opinion. I think Henderson is a bit like Carrick was early on with us people question what he does at Liverpool but most Liverpool fans I know say you only really notice what he does when he isn’t there.

That’s sort of my point Henderson as the holding mid isn’t the problem it’s the lack of options for the other role that are. Dier & Delph basically do the same job as Henderson, Loftus-Cheek & Alli are the attacking options but we don’t really have that guy who does the go between bit.

Will be interesting to see how he shapes his midfield assuming he goes for a back 3 will he play 2 holding mids in a 3-4-3 like Chelsea did last season which means Alli out wide or will he play 3-5-2 and look to play a 3 man midfield and play Sterling as a 2nd striker off Kane.
 
Please don't say Henderson is like Carrick again ;-/, most people in football could see how good Carrick was, I agree with bludsucker, the fact you're saying he's got the best stats of an Englishman shows how awful they are in the middle.

He is not even close to the same class as Carrick.

The midfield is sending is terrible. France on the other hand :) I think I might get to go another village party this summer, lets hope it finishes better than 2016
 
A carrick with one eye and one leg would be better than Henderson imo. Most Liverpool fans I know which is a grand total of 2 say they cannot fathom his role in the team.
 
He is like Carrick but he's not as good as Carrick imo lets get that clear.

World Cup: Jack Wilshere 'could have made an impact for England'

Wilshere has said he's dissapointed which is fair enough but 12 PL starts all season just isn't enough to take the gamble on especially when you need to build a midfield around him to get the best from him bit like Shelvey you just can't trust either of them enough to do that.
 
I think I would have taken Wilshere, he's the only ball player.
 
I'll be honest whenever I've watched Wilshere this sesaon I just see Rooney a player who has lost that edge that made them great.

Wilshere can still play neat and tidy but that burst of speed that got him away from players has gone, he can't really dribble through midfield anymore as he knows his ankles can't take the tackles so he tends to pass safe.

For me Wilshere like Rooney is a player you have to build your entire midfield and attack around by doing that you become so reliant on one player performing and if that player doesn't perform you are screwed.

My main worry for the tournament is the back 3 we've worked on will make us very slow and stodgy vs Tunisia & Panama I really hope he goes with a back 4 vs them and then uses the back 3 vs Belguim and in the knockout games where it might be a bit more end to end.
 
World Cup: England's Joe Hart says omission from squad is 'hard to take'

Joe Hart has had a pop as well.

He's only got himself to blame he won't lower his wage demands or expectations meaning he's had to spend 2 seasons out on loan because Pep doesn't want him and both loan spells have gone really badly for him as he's made a ridiculous number of errors that lead to goals.

To be honest if England had any other options they'd have binned him after Euro 2016 the man is terrible at dealing with long range shots he either gets nowhere near them or spills them straight back to strikers and for England that went on way to long.

He sounds very bitter but he needs to get himself out of City and work on his weaknesses because getting his spot back isn't hard the players who've come in are ok but not great keepers but his decline has been gradual since 2012 and it's now at the point where he doesn't look good enough to be the number 1 at a PL club. Which is crazy to think because up to 2012 he was one of the better keepers in the league.
 
I'm so, so glad he's not in the squad, let alone the team! He's a disaster waiting to happen.
 
I think these boys are deluded if they think they deserve another chance Cahill is lucky he's getting another shot and it's probably only because Joe Gomez got injured as he's another one who's had a few tournaments now and failed, picking the same players over and over again gets us nowhere.

Think Southgate has only picked 6 players who went to Euro 2016 in his squad which is very refreshing because that was an absolute horror show. People talk about a lack of experience I see that as a good thing our experienced players are used to failure this lot in theory should be fearless don't let the negativity about what happens in the press when we lose creep in keep it positive and they might actually perform on the big stage rather than freeze.

You can't compare the ability of these players to the ones we had in the 90's and 00's who on paper were much better probably only Kane would get in those squads but would Kane start over peak Shearer or Owen? That's debatable as both were incredibly reliable goal scorers for England who pretty much always delivered for the national team.

I see Welbeck getting stick for his selection but his international record is good he's always been better for country than club some players are just built that way see Podolski or Klose who are national team legends but their club careers have been fairly average not saying Welbeck is quite that level but think his international record is 1 in 3 playing regularly from the wing.
 
Cahill is a shocking defender. I can't stand him. He looks a nervous wreck every time the ball comes near him. He was half the problem in Euro 2016
 
Gary Cahill I think is a good defender his biggest flaw is he's not John Terry which isn't really his fault Terry was one of the best defenders of the last 20 years in World Football it's like comparing Smalling to Ferdinand it's just pointless. Cahill has had some fantastic games in his time and he's a goal threat on set pieces but when he has a shocker it's a bit like Smalling in it's a bad one.

We don't have the strength in depth we had 10 years ago so sadly he's still good enough and a few injuries mean he's an obvious choice especially when you're gambling on the fitness of Jones through a tournament.

The alternatives who didn't make it Lascelles, Tarkowski, Keane, Mawson just haven't been tried at this level the one who's unlucky is Smalling his form should've earned him a spot in the squad but the comments made previously by Southgate make it hard for him to bring him back and it's pretty clear that Smalling was not happy with the England manager saying what he said in public.
 
Snore. Zzzzzzz. Boring England team that's going to fail once again. We've come to expect nothing less though.
 

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