Sterling

GT1978

GT1978

Vital Squad Member
Is this guy the best we have for England ? Sure he as great pace perhaps he should have taken up sprinting because as a footballer he is lacking in nous & awareness combine that with his lack of goals at international level & it isn’t great, Southgate as been loyal to him at this World Cup & I don’t think he as done enough at all to repay him !
 
20 goals at city aggree looks poor for England But sorry Kane last three games against class also well short
 
How he has continued to be selected is beyond me. I think he has performed appallingly in every single match. Just not good enough for international football
 
The squad in general seems to lack a creative midfielder/number 10. I'm not sure who else we could realistically select to play that role at present. Next few years should see the likes of Foden, Ryan Sessegnon even perhaps Grealish if he can sort his attitude out pushing for that place, although all are different types of player. You can only select what's available and at present he's probably the best we have to play in Southgates preferred system.

Today's game highlighted the superior quality Belgium possess compared to our creative players. Semi finalists probably exceeded the quality of the squad, which is why I didn't feel despondent the other night. I think if I was Belgium I'd be distraught we hadn't won it given the quality they possess. Still it's been a cracking World Cup, thorough enjoyable.
 
Made in Wigan said:
Still it's been a cracking World Cup, thorough enjoyable.
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Before i start i'm not trying to start an argument, i'd just like to understand from someone elses point of view why you enjoyed the world cup.

For me this has been the worst tournament of football i've seen so far in my lifetime. The atmospheres have been dead. The tempo of the matches have been slower than early door pre-season friendlies. For me atleast none of the top teams performed anywhere near their peaks.

Relying on set pieces to score the majority of the goals.
 
I too have enjoyed this world cup, there has been many contributing factors:
Not as much intial media hype helped.
England progressing with a decent set of young men.
Group games have been more interesting and exciting.
Decent kick off times.
Can't think of too many negatives.
 
Victor Moses ;) said:
Before i start i'm not trying to start an argument, i'd just like to understand from someone elses point of view why you enjoyed the world cup.

For me this has been the worst tournament of football i've seen so far in my lifetime. The atmospheres have been dead. The tempo of the matches have been slower than early door pre-season friendlies. For me atleast none of the top teams performed anywhere near their peaks.

Relying on set pieces to score the majority of the goals.
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I think I heard it quoted this afternoon that 62 from about 186 goals were from set pieces, which is not a majority.

Agree with the fact that the "top sides" did not perform but that has got to be better than Spain versus Ronaldo every tournament. Belgium, France and England seem to be the emerging nations with the old guard falling back.
 
I thought it was over 50% until i checked last night.

Just no interest in watching slow, boring football. If you like watching uncompetitive games with two sides that are miles apart in quality play each other in the group stages and knockouts thats fine.

Each to their own, if it's been exciting for you thats great, we just see football in very different ways.
 
Victor Moses ;) said:
Before i start i'm not trying to start an argument, i'd just like to understand from someone elses point of view why you enjoyed the world cup.

For me this has been the worst tournament of football i've seen so far in my lifetime. The atmospheres have been dead. The tempo of the matches have been slower than early door pre-season friendlies. For me atleast none of the top teams performed anywhere near their peaks.

Relying on set pieces to score the majority of the goals.
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Numerous reasons really. Not least because there was plenty of early drama and unpredictable results. I can only recall one goalless game in 60 odd matches which is quite unusual and there has been some superb goals as games in amongst that lot. The atmosphere hasn't come across too bad as well for me. There was a lot of negativity about the tournament beforehand, certaintly from an English media perspective and that certainly hasn't materialised, so perhaps my expectations were initially low and I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm not looking forward to the next however, clearly awarded to an unsuitable country on the back of bribes and will cause major disruption to the domestic calendar.
 
My expectations and hopes are largely based on love and not the general success of any tournament. To me the end justifies whatever process needed. This applies to England and Wigan in equal measures. My desperation for both to do well at times borders on insanity.

Yes the world cup has had it's faults but England reaching the semi represents a huge step forward and the connection of millions of English people back to the national team brings me joy.

I like joy.
 
From my neutral perspective, the atmosphere seems to have come over pretty well. There's been good support from all nations and doesn't appear to have been any of the issues that were a concern before the tournament. I'd say the Russians have come across as good hosts and the tournament has been a success. I've also enjoyed seeing some unpredictable games, attacking football and individual brilliance from the likes of Modric and Hazard, plus the emergence of found talent such as Mbappe and Pavard. Shows how everyone can view it differently I suppose. On a more cynical note, with the next world cup being in Qatar and the one after that spanning a whole continent and including an increased number of teams, this is potentially the last decent tournament we'll see for a while
 
To be fair to Sterling he was excellent for City but been played out of position for England. I think putting him out wide would've been better use of him.

I think a lot of England's issues were down to our formation and selections. When you attack England down the flanks we got out numbered every time and it was where all the threats came from. Trippier was excellent but Young offers very little threat from left wing back and is not a good enough defender to cope with the opposition outnumbering him. So we were lob sided as we didn't have an effective left sidd attack or defence.

Because we played wing backs in the hot climate it is hard to constantly get up and down so we ended up more of a 5-3-2 when we were attacked and it often left us out numbered in midfield meaning we lost control of the games when other teams came on strong. It meant more attack minded players like Ali who was awful all tournament (maybe because of role or injury) had to take more defensive responsibility and couldn't attack like he does for his club. Ali shouldn't have started those games in that system, maybe Lingard too, they just didn't seem to fit comfortably into it for me.

Then at the back Walker tried hard but he's not a centre back and was by far the most suspect of our back 3. I thought he might've been used there so we could switch into a back 4 to adapt to the game and he could help overlap with Trippier but he never got that far forward and pretty much stayed as a CB all the time, so we didnt really seem to gain anything over putting him there over a natrual CB. I think Maguire and Stones were both excellent and our defensive solidarity came more from them rather than the system.

I think a 4-5-1 / 4-3-3 with wide men or even wing backs with 1 central striker and 2 wide men like we used to do would've suited us better in my opinion. I think wing backs can work but we didn't deploy it very effectively.
 
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I have been enthralled with it all, most games have kept me on the end of my seat, and I did think we would go all the way, although when prince William came on the TV to give give them that pep talk before the Croatia game it gave me a sinking feeling, I thought to myself he could be a jinx .
 
As well as we’ve done this World Cup there are a good few players who will step up and challenge for 1st team places. The likes of Sessengon, Lallana, Chamberlain and a bunch of other younger players just coming through.
 
I’ve enjoyed it because of all the wafc links......I can’t remember getting quite so many mentions in any other World Cup.
 
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