England | Vital Football

England

A few too many errors which were punished but fuck it, overall I enjoyed the game. Well done to Kosovo. I won’t use this game to predict how we’ll do in the next finals.
 
Ben Chillwell was targeted all night, I don’t think he passed the ball in front of himself all evening, was definitely entertaining and going forward England looked ok, but worse defence England have had for long time.
 
Entertaining match that. Fair play to Kosovo - great to see an opponent come and have a go at us rather than plonk 11 men behind the ball and try to defend and stop us playing even when they are 4-0 down. I genuinely can't understand what the point of competitive football is if you have no intention of scoring and your aim is to lose 2-0. Surely, putting in one hell of a performance and battle like Kosovo and losing 5-3 is better for your players, fans and nation than Bulgaria and the Czechs, for example, putting 11 men behind the ball, not even trying to play or compete and losing 4-0/5-0.

The good thing is, we are 4 from 4, have scored more goals than any other team in the qualifiers, but have huge areas to improve on which are obvious and plenty of time to do it/ Lots learnt and I reckon Southgate will sort it.

My biggest fear for England is the pointless ball retention for the sake of it between defenders and keeper, which achieves nothing, but means if you lose it, the other team are pretty much guaranteed a one on one - we saw it last night and have seen it plenty of times in recent years. When I saw it in the flesh at Wembley a couple of years ago in a match v Scotland from a vantage point bang in line with it, seeing full backs, CBs and the keeper pass the ball across the box at pace a foot from the opposing striker frightened the life out of me. Sadly, I think this is something ingrained in Southgate's psyche and one thing I don't think he'll change - can see us suffering again because of it.
 
My biggest fear for England is the pointless ball retention for the sake of it between defenders and keeper, which achieves nothing, but means if you lose it, the other team are pretty much guaranteed a one on one - we saw it last night and have seen it plenty of times in recent years. When I saw it in the flesh at Wembley a couple of years ago in a match v Scotland from a vantage point bang in line with it, seeing full backs, CBs and the keeper pass the ball across the box at pace a foot from the opposing striker frightened the life out of me. Sadly, I think this is something ingrained in Southgate's psyche and one thing I don't think he'll change - can see us suffering again because of it.

Every england team has done that since i remember. IThis team does it the least out of all the teams of the last 20 years from my memory. Capellos team was big for that. In fact i think erriksen and capello introduced it to england. They call it patient play. We are told thats how its done on the continent and international level. If we remember the sad draws vs usa and algeria (if i remember the teams correctly), we failed to break them down completely and seemed to just want to pass it across the back. Rooney used to get so annoyed by it he'd come really deep to try to get it and start some creative play to get at them, but then the shape of the team was off, as wed be short of a striker up top for him to pass to! Part of the reason weve done better recently, and why people enjoy watching us more is that we do it far less.
 
Every england team has done that since i remember. IThis team does it the least out of all the teams of the last 20 years from my memory. Capellos team was big for that. In fact i think erriksen and capello introduced it to england. They call it patient play. We are told thats how its done on the continent and international level. If we remember the sad draws vs usa and algeria (if i remember the teams correctly), we failed to break them down completely and seemed to just want to pass it across the back. Rooney used to get so annoyed by it he'd come really deep to try to get it and start some creative play to get at them, but then the shape of the team was off, as wed be short of a striker up top for him to pass to! Part of the reason weve done better recently, and why people enjoy watching us more is that we do it far less.

I think it's different though. Under Sven and Capello, for example, we played dull, slow, Italian style passing, which was really ugly on the eye - and I was at that Algeria game, so bloody remember. Credit to Southgate in not only trying to get us to pass it, but do it in a much quicker, crisper way with the ball generally going forward. However, the passing amongst the backline under Southgate and to a lesser extend Hodgson is a lot more risky than previously in my opinion. I am happy for us to do this, but would prefer it 20 yards further up the field in front of a bit of cover, ideally with or between the midfield!
 
Southgate and the team should watch the '66 team in action - quick passing and constantly working triangles and rarely was there a long ball played. Everton did it with similar effect with Ball, Harvey and Kendall working the triangles.
 
Moore
Southgate and the team should watch the '66 team in action - quick passing and constantly working triangles and rarely was there a long ball played. Everton did it with similar effect with Ball, Harvey and Kendall working the triangles.
Moore's pass to Hurst was quite long for the 4th goal, wasn't it? How good would Moore be in today's game?
 
Moore
Moore's pass to Hurst was quite long for the 4th goal, wasn't it? How good would Moore be in today's game?
Yeah but as we know it was all over by then. When the Gills were away, I'd often go to Upton Park to watch players like Moore and Byrne and many others. Moore barely broke into a sweat because he was such a good reader of the game. He rarely jumped for a ball with an opposing forward but would pick him off and pass the ball but he was always talking and marshalling. Johnny Byrne never stopped talking and pointing to where he wanted the ball played and scored at the rate of one in two.