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France v England (Merged)


BCFC1512

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Not sure it's Southgates fault. Nearly all England managers over the last 20 years have failed. The common denominator is the players. They're just not good enough. Over paid. Over hyped by the press, and over rated by the fans! 

Having said that, football is a funny old game, so I live in hope! 

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1 hour ago, Welcome To The Jungle said:

Just got back: Quite simply no midfield. Pogba and Kante made us look silly. Both keepers played well as did Kane. Sterling was positionally excellent but lack final product and seemed to panic bar the opening goal.

However my MOTM was Phil Jones who covered for our non existant midfield, put in some great tackles and last ditch touches. Should never have been shafted to  right back.

I think that's a fair summary. Would add that Trippier also looked decent in spells tonight and must now be vying with Clyne and Walker for the right back / right wing back role. 

I never thought I'd be calling for Jordan Henderson's return quite so vehemently but I think he'd have made a difference tonight. Even someone like Livermore or Danny Drinkwater may have helped to stem the flow of French midfield dominance. 

Other positives: excellent atmosphere inside the Stade de France, didn't take too long to get back to central Paris afterwards, we scored 2 goals away from home against a very strong team, and we had a couple of spells of decent play (about 10-15 minutes in each half). 

Negatives: France's goals were far too easy and without the red card they could very well have added one or two more. We didn't play well at all against 10 men in the last half hour. The defence was all over the shop at times although as noted above, they were left horribly exposed by a lack of midfield cover on many occasions. I think Stones would be much better if he had a John Terry-like character next to him in defence but unfortunately we don't have one right now. Would Smalling or Keane have made any difference in defence tonight? Debatable. 

I see there are the usual comments about the players not caring or not showing passion. From my seat in the stadium tonight I honestly didn't see any lack of effort - the 11 we fielded may not have been as good as the 11 France fielded, but that doesn't mean they didn't try as hard or show a lack of effort. 

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Just now, North London Red said:

I think that's a fair summary. Would addthoughTrippier also looked decent in spells tonight and must now be vying with Clyne and Walker for the right back / right wing back role. 

I never thought I'd be calling for Jordan Henderson's return quite so vehemently but I think he'd have made a difference tonight. Even someone like Livermore or Danny Drinkwater may have helped to stem the flow of French midfield dominance. 

Other positives: excellent atmosphere inside the Stade de France, didn't take too long to get back to central Paris afterwards, we scored 2 goals away from home against a very strong team, and we had a couple of spells of decent play (about 10-15 minutes in each half). 

Negatives: France's goals were far too easy and without the red card they could very well have added one or two more. We didn't play well at all against 10 men in the last half hour. The defence was all over the shop at times although as noted above, they were left horribly exposed by a lack of midfield cover on many occasions. I think Stones would be much better if he had a John Terry-like character next to him in defence but unfortunately we don't have one right now. Would Smalling or Keane have made any difference in defence tonight? Debatable. 

I see there are the usual comments about the players not caring or not showing passion. From my seat in the stadium tonight I honestly didn't see any lack of effort - the 11 we fielded may not have been as good as the 11 France fielded, but that doesn't mean they didn't try as hard or show a lack of effort. 

I thought our vocal efforts were really poor. French made loads of noise though. Weirdly made more noise on the train home and In the station. Trying to sleep now...can't. Agree about the effort point. The lads tried...but were found wanting

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6 hours ago, john from high littleton said:

Not sure it's Southgates fault. Nearly all England managers over the last 20 years have failed. The common denominator is the players. They're just not good enough. Over paid. Over hyped by the press, and over rated by the fans! 

Having said that, football is a funny old game, so I live in hope! 

I agree to a point, but the 'hype' thing always confuses me - plenty of France's players are bigged up a fair bit (that kid up front last night is a good example), yet they seem to take it in their stride and perform.  

Equally, their side is filled with top-tier players, but they don't struggle to get themselves up for international games.

Whether that is something our national players can't handle, I don't know, but I also do hope that the younger age groups getting used to success at international level will perhaps breed in to that generation more of a winning mentality.

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Apart from the totally useless defending and lack of organisation in the midfield leading to huge gaps in the middle of the park, the biggest problem IMHO with this current England squad is whoever is playing they always look like 11 individuals and never like a team, top international teams have the mentality to leave their ego's in the dressing room it appears to me that for many years now England do not share the same mentality.

Prime examples are Sterling and Ali.

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 Southgate continues to give  young players a go and experiment in friendlies. Trippier looked good. Chamberlain right side looked good v Scotland with Dier in the experiment playing somewhere (???) in midfield last night he didn't. Lallana playing a bit part shows he is a good player missed last night. Alli wide? big questions there, is that shades of Gerrard and Scholes and Lampard,  up the centre for myself goimg bix to box. Technically behind the French? yes no surprises. Kane looks the part. and on it goes. A friendly nothing lost maybe a bit gained.

   
Perhaps Sougthgate should have gone back to Milner and Rooney as the future..

 

   
 
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15 hours ago, john from high littleton said:

Not sure it's Southgates fault. Nearly all England managers over the last 20 years have failed. The common denominator is the players. They're just not good enough. Over paid. Over hyped by the press, and over rated by the fans! 

Having said that, football is a funny old game, so I live in hope! 

I think that's the only thing keeping most of us watching England games.

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