And that's just the first XI. 3 Championship players! Not even getting into the squad, which also matters because those are the players that need to push the first choices to perform. You're doing nothing to disprove the point that as a squad you are scrambling around for top flight footballers.
England are not, irrespective of what Maguire and Phillips are currently doing. They could drop them entirely if they so desired and still pick top flight players. So that's a managerial choice not a squad depth issue. It was really just a common sense point that England have a higher quality of player to choose from which is why I wouldn't get too excited about beating you. It should be par for the course for an England manager to be able to outflank a team like Scotland and it's credit to you that you're playing well generally.
Not sure where you're going with the France point. You seem to be firing back in response to points you think I'm putting forward not ones I actually have. We know England have problems against big teams. That's the point for many of us that don't rate the manager, at major tournaments and with Gareth Southgate, we won't win anything. Has nothing to do with beating Scotland or the expectation we should do so comfortably.
I don't understand where you got this "scrambling around for players". The way that you're talking it's like Scotland are bottom of the European Championships group and we're an absolute shambles.
We're at the summit of a group that includes Spain. We are 2 points from qualifying. We're also unbeatable in 9 competitive matches.
Scotland are doing just fine. Thanks.
Don't pretend that England have a massive pool of talent to choose from.
Gareth Southgate has even admitted that the talent pool in England is a massive concern for him.
Southgate admits concern over shrinking talent pool
Take out Bellingham and Kane and England would struggle against most of the top 50 teams. The fact that England don't have a replacement for Kane is a massive issue.
You're being very generous with your assessment of Scotland's squad and, considering what you're presenting as strengths in the Scotland line-up, weirdly critical of England's squad.
England's squad was full of top level players. Only one player plays outside of Europe's top leagues, and that's Henderson, a player who had his inclusion heavily questioned. Scotland's squad included six from the SPL, six from the Championship and one from the Saudi league. Scotland's PL players included one goal in 34 appearances, Ryan Christie, can't get a game at United, McTominay, and Everton squad-player, Nathan Patterson. There's also Kieren Tierney who Arsenal deemed surplus to requirements and is now at Sociedad, and Lewis Ferguson at Bologna.
You could pick a side of players that weren't in the squad from the "recent call-ups" section of the England national team wikipedia that you'd expect to easily beat Scotland; Pope, Dean Henderson, Stones, Shaw, James, White, TAA, Mount, Grealish, Toney and Sterling all missed out for one reason or another. The list also includes Forster, Mings, Dier, Coady, Ward-Prowse, Abraham and Bowen, all of which would walk into the Scotland squad.
I just don't understand why you've taken such umbrage to the statement that Scotland struggle to find quality for their squad in a way that England don't, and as a result of that, England were heavy favourites for the match between the sides. You're tying yourself in knots trying to make it look like a more even contest than it was. Scotland managed zero shots on target, less than 40% possession, and looked thoroughly outclassed for pretty much the whole match. "Gunn only had two saves to make" is only true if you ignore him conceding from three of England's five shots on target. Robertson might have put the second on a plate, but Scotland's goal came from Maguire turning it into his own net, so that's basically tit-for-tat.
On the last point - France lost Kimpembe, Nkunku and Benzema from their named squad. I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head that missed out. It certainly wasn't half of their starting eleven as you appear to be implying there though. If this is a dig at England losing to France, then I'll just say that a) many England fans don't think Southgate is up to the task of managing the side and b) Kane missed a late penalty that could have changed the course of the match.
And people are being overly critical of Scotland. Someone said that "Scotland are scrambling around for players". Yeah. We're a mess. 5 wins out of 5 in our European Championships group. 2 points from qualifying and unbeaten in 9.
Not bad for a team "scrambling around for players".
Having players playing at the "top level" is deceptive. If a nation had 5 players at Wolves and 6 players at Shedfield United, you could say that they have players playing at the "top level".
Doesn't mean anything. What really matters is how many trophies will be won by the collective first XI: Only Kane and Walker, (Foden and Phillips aren't in England's first XI)
Top teams like Brazil, Germany, Italy, etc, have dozens.
Surely your aspirations are to compare yourselves to the top nations? (Even though England only have 1 trophy on the shelf. The Big nations have several each)
So, you're saying that England's second XI would beat Scotland? That is a ridiculous and arrogant thing to say.
Take Tuesday out of the equation. How about the two previous competitive matched between England and Scotland. One ended 2-2 with Kane scoring in injury time to earn a draw (after Armstrong gave it away) then there was the 0-0 at Euro 2020 where Scotland deserved to win.
If England were so good the aforementioned matches would've been won by a cricket score.
Scotland can't play friendlies. For whatever reason we are so bad at them. We played Turkey in November and we didn't turn up. It was reminiscent of Tuesday.
Are England a top team? In my opinion. No.
If we play our next friendly (France) like we did in Tuesday, they'll mop the floor with us.
France were without:
Lucas Hernandez, Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kate, Paul Pogba, Mike Maignan, Presnel Kimpembe and Christopher Nkunku
That's at least 5 players who would've started.
