Safe to say he won’t be getting the job..
Wonder who will. Still have a feeling Potter.
Wonder who will. Still have a feeling Potter.
England Squad Discussion (The Carsley Era)
- Thread starter SilentWitness
- Start date
There’s no evidence for this
Who really gives a feck about the Nations League.....It is the Europa League of international football.
When we stop giving out England Caps to players that show a flash of promise or score a good goal for their club and put some value back in the shirt then just maybe we may instil a bit of pride in playing for England and not just have it as an intermission between club games.
When we stop giving out England Caps to players that show a flash of promise or score a good goal for their club and put some value back in the shirt then just maybe we may instil a bit of pride in playing for England and not just have it as an intermission between club games.
A Rice-Bellingham double pivot would be a disaster, just as it was towards the end of the euros final. Bellingham lacks pretty much every skill you want in a double pivot if his partner is Rice. Bellingham can't play in a double pivot anymore, and if you want to try, you at least need Rodri next to him.
You play Bellingham in an advanced role, or you try him as a left forward if you REALLY want to shoehorn him and Palmer and Saka and Kane together. It's still not easy.
He has been really poor this season but he's carried Everton and England at times for a solid 3-4 seasons now. Ramsdale is playing for a relegation threatened Southampton side and isn't doing much better and Henderson is playing in a Palace side which isn't doing well either. Do agree if Pickford carries on in this form someone else deserves a chance but the replacements aren't exactly doing much better currently.
Pope is having another solid start with Newcastle, far better keeper than them all.
Pickford is giving off a weird kind of energy lately, one of those things that you can't measure but on the pitch looks likes it's having a negative impact on his performance and the defence. I could be wrong, but just from watching Everton this season that's just what I'm seeing.
Surprised he gave up on Angel Gomes after two games. Don't think he's had a good spell at Lille but there needs to be a tempo CM alongside Rice and there simply aren't that many options available.
Carsley needs to respond in Greece with a result and good performance. If he can't win a nations league group with Greece, ROI and Finland what gives people confidence he'd win a World cup qualifying group of perhaps a more difficult level?
Carsley needs to respond in Greece with a result and good performance. If he can't win a nations league group with Greece, ROI and Finland what gives people confidence he'd win a World cup qualifying group of perhaps a more difficult level?
Don't think peak Pope is better than peak Pickford and he's 32, it would be a waste of time to bed him in now. His time has passed.
Too many City players playing without De Bruyne, Doku and Haaland to create and score the goals. Sometimes City look blunt without them too. England were trying to pass the ball into the net
Agreed.
Doesn't have what it takes, got lucky last time when both Bellingham and Foden were unavailable. It was like he's a fecking 12 year old playing FIFA trying to shoehorn Palmer, Bellingham and Foden into the same side. 2 into 1 doesn't go let alone 3, also having both Lewis and TAA doing whatever left us hopelessly exposed at the back. Had he started Angel Gomes, Watkins and Guehi starting over Foden, Palmer and Lewis, we would have had much better Balance and structure to the team and likely would have won.
As if there weren't enough reasons to root against England already, we need Carsley to fail so that Jack Pitt-Brooke will stop writing about 'the HMS Carsball'.
Even if Carsley's experiment failed. England shouldn't go back to Southgate's negative defensive football. England should play modern attacking football with the attacking talents they have.
If Carsley can't find the right solutions the next appointment should also be an attacking manager. Maybe someone like Potter?
If Carsley can't find the right solutions the next appointment should also be an attacking manager. Maybe someone like Potter?
Wouldn't go that far, but surely Carsley with his selection was handing in his notice last night, especially when he admitted in the post match interview that.." we practiced the new set up for twenty minutes"... the day before?
Talk about sign your own P45 (if that still exists).
Maybe he was trying to prove (to others) a point, that trying to cram your best players into a team, when three occupy the same role, is a nonsense. If he was trying to prove it to himself, then he should definitely get the chop!
Wonder if Southgate was somewhere alone watching that and quietly p***ing himself
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He's only 32, (2 years older than Pickford) he's got loads of time left. He's better than Pickford right now.
I think Pickford is on the Joe Hart trajectory, his peak is gone by and he's on the way down.
What I'm saying is I don't see a new manager coming in and going with a 32 year old keeper who has c. 10 caps and last played in 2022. You either stick with Pickford or you go with a younger keeper in the Ramsdale / Henderson / Trafford mould.
Especially as Pope would just be the same in regards to Pickford where they are good shot stoppers but their sweeping/ball-playing ability is their weakness.
Pope is an excellent sweeper keeper, I'd say he's better than Pickford in that regard, ball playing is probably his biggest and main weakness. That's probably the only thing Pickford has over him is that he's slightly better on the ball.
It doesn't matter if he's 32 or not, goalkeepers can have a different trajectory than outfield players, some get much better after 30. Others peak earlier, Pope I think due to his size and style could be one of those that's going to maintain his level or even get better over the next 5/6 years.
What I meant by sweeping is the ability to utilise the ball in those actions, which is where Pope is weaker than other keepers as you have noted.
I think it does matter in the context of international football. I think you'd rather have a keeper who could be with you for c. 4+ tournaments. Pickford will be coming up to his 5th now. Pope could probably give you 2 at the most and when he's played for England he hasn't been great either.
Southgate - playing it too safe, never experimenting, not playing the best players together. Fraud.
Carsley - playing reckless, too experimental, trying to shoehorn the best players together. Fraud.
Carsley - playing reckless, too experimental, trying to shoehorn the best players together. Fraud.
I think Rice is an issue too as he isn’t technically good enough, brilliant at a lot of skills but if you want him to run the midfield on the ball then he won’t be able to. So Gomes is a good option as a pure technician who struggles at a lot of the things Rice is good at - pace, power, physicality - or Mainoo looks like he would be somewhat capable. Rice-Gomes/Mainoo-Bellingham is their best midfield I think. Then you have to count Foden as a forward and Saka should play due to being willing to hug the touchline and not many better right wingers about.
So then you’re looking at Gordon/Foden/Palmer/Kane/Grealish competing for two positions, not even counting Rashford, Watkins and others. I would actually pick Grealish because I think he is useful for control and defensively actually because he relieves tension with his ball retention and winning fouls at an elite level. Also if Alexander-Arnold is going to play right back then that’s enough creativity. So it’s difficult to fit Foden and Palmer in, makes more sense to leave Foden out.
Bizarre right? It's just a crappy International friendly. Better the Manager experiments now when it doesn't matter than during a cup competition. It's the Nations League, who gives a crap.
That performance last night will have shut up the fools wanting to shoehorn in all of our star players.
Yeah, like Pickford did last night when he was bailed out by Colwill. Pope would just probably boot it, no questions asked.
I don't think you need to look at a keeper for that many tournaments ahead, the defence isn't going to be the same. You just need pick the best performing keeper that suits your team. That probably isn't Pope either. It'd be like Simon for Spain, nobody would have had him above DDG, yet Spain just went with him.
Pickford isn't performing well and I don't think he's suited to a team that wants to build from the back and maintain possession. The last two euro finals he's just been hoofing it down the pitch at every opportunity, it doesn't allow the team to gain control of those big games when it's needed.
Very obvious takeaways but my prevailing thoughts from last nights performance:
- Way, way too exposed with 2 attacking full-backs. Should revert back immediately to the approach of one advanced FB (Trent) and one LB/CB hybrid that can slot into a back 3 in transition. The only players we have that are left-footed and good enough (and fit) to play LB are CB's anyway in Colwill and Branthwaite (who I'm aware may technically be right-footed but he is as two-footed as it gets) so it makes sense. Rico Lewis was particularly awful last night and should not be in the squad again for some time.
- Still struggling to build-up through the middle, the fact Palmer kept dropping so deep to get on the ball is evidence we are in desperate need of a natural 6 still. I'm still not sure we have any great fits (I'd like to see how Archie Gray develops at Spurs but it's very early days there and he hasn't played that much so far) but of the current options, I'd like to see Gomes given the opportunity to start, impressed on the ball against Finland and Ireland and lacks the most capable to me of filling this need. Rice's priority should be to screen defensively to cover Gomes lack of physicality; we don't really Rice playing further up the pitch given the plethora of attacking talent we have.
- One of Bellingham or Foden needs to be dropped. It was abundantly clear in the Euros how unbalanced we are and it still isn't working. Neither have been great for England of late but at least Jude has contributed goals to games at important times. Foden is astonishingly close to 50 England caps at this point and I could count on one hand the amount of good games he's had.
England have had mostly the same defence and keeper for c. 4 tournaments.
Well that may be true enough, but even still, I understand that you do have to have a set no.1 keeper, removes any doubt from the perspective of the keeper and the defence.
But, in all honesty, I think England would be better off long term with someone else in goal.
Let me put it better: Bellingham is not nearly a good enough defensive player to play CM in a double pivot. He's also not really great at receiving the ball deep under pressure, and moving it forward from deep. He's just not a CM. He's an attacking midfielder with a great engine and a great attitude when it comes to defence, but not great defensive aptitude
I don't disagree. I just don't think it will be Pope due to the age profile and his previous caps for England.
Comrade Lee, time to return to base.
The guy is so overrated it's unreal. Totally wired and constantly jumpy.
He's both overrated and underrated. At a base level he's a good keeper that has had 3-4 very good seasons for Everton and England. As said though, he's having a poor season all round.
I totally disagree with you, especially on Bellingham being limited. He's the most complete English midfielder in years. Contributes offensively and defensively which is needed in a mid 2. Having Rices tenacity and defensive positioning next to him would yield results imo. Why do you need Rodri?
Bellingham has some attributes for playing advanced like movement, awareness and finishing. But he lacks the creativity and final pass of the best 10s imo. I'd rather play to 10s in Saka and Palmer; but they invert from a wide position. Kane and Watkins up front. Very simple is football
I was wondering how England were in this second-tier B League... then saw they only got three draws and three losses in the last edition.
Bloody hell... and they were going to win the Euros?
How on earth do you manage to be so crap with such a squad / talent pool at your disposal?
Bloody hell... and they were going to win the Euros?
How on earth do you manage to be so crap with such a squad / talent pool at your disposal?
Bellingham is a below par defensive midfielder, is not particularly good at receiving the ball in deep areas under pressure and not lose it, is not a particularly good passer from deep, and is definitely not a tempo setter. He doesn't really play in central midfield at club level in over a year, never will again, and as a deep CM, his skillset is the opposite or Rice's, not complementary. Palmer also doesn't have a complementary skillset to those two, either, unless you plan to play kamikaze football
You need Rodri, because he's the one CM in world football who is so good you could play Haaland next to him and he'd make it work
Saying Bellingham could play in a double pivot is like saying Saka could play left back. Results would likely be similar, too
That NL took place in the summer before the Qatar world cup. Nobody gave a crap, essentially
Good old England. The Manchester United of the international stage. A load of overpaid and overhyped players, coached by a shite manager, playing shite football
Aside from England’s opposition, evidently.
England missed Harry Maguire last night, im glad there were none of our players in the side though as they would probably have been blamed for the defeat.
So, do you consider anything that isn’t possession-based football kamikaze?
When pressed by opponents, the solutions are either to bypass the midfield by going wide or playing long to the forwards. Another option is building up in like a 4-4-2 diamond, inverting Saka and Palmer. The fullback on the ball side would provide width, with Watkins offering depth through long runs. It’s straightforward. Don’t force playing out from the back if it minimizes your best midfielders, who are undoubtedly Rice and Bellingham.
Not comparing these guys; but could you imagine Makalele and Viera adept building play when pressed?
The interesting (in a negative way) part of last night's England was the lack of a real CM partner for Rice. Palmer played CM and the two together struggled against Greece's attacks. Palmer actually won the ball a decent amount but still a well positioned midfielder would have certainly helped England and Rice was chasing shadows so it didnt work to aid the attack or defence.
Why its interesting is that Carsley's first team had Angel Gomes starting as a DLP and he said that England need to embrace players like that in the middle. And then he goes and plays without a 2nd central midfielder... Granted for all I know he could have sent Cole Palmer out there to play exactly like Angel Gomes did when he was given a chance, but it didnt happen and theres not much evidence that Palmer can do that so its a weird choice.
I think England missed both Mainoo and Gomes from his 1 game and to be honest with Rice's form for England that might end up the best combination in midfield, Mainoo as a ball winner and Gomes as a DLP getting the ball to the dangerous attacking players.
Why its interesting is that Carsley's first team had Angel Gomes starting as a DLP and he said that England need to embrace players like that in the middle. And then he goes and plays without a 2nd central midfielder... Granted for all I know he could have sent Cole Palmer out there to play exactly like Angel Gomes did when he was given a chance, but it didnt happen and theres not much evidence that Palmer can do that so its a weird choice.
I think England missed both Mainoo and Gomes from his 1 game and to be honest with Rice's form for England that might end up the best combination in midfield, Mainoo as a ball winner and Gomes as a DLP getting the ball to the dangerous attacking players.