Macedonia v England

TAA was poor throughout, Saka was anonymous in the 2nd half. Grealish always showed and did OK. Foden and Rice probably the best England players. As for Maguire and Walker, the less said the better. Over-all a poor display on a poor pitch, officiated by a set of plonkers.
 
Burnnazzer said:
The only excuse I have for Trent’s performance is that no one told him his team were not in red. We ignored Phil Foden far too much cos it looked like we didn’t know how brilliant he is on the half turn. He is such a great footballer but not used..
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We seem to over-use Grealish and ignore Foden, who is the better player imo.
 
The City youngster wearing a busby isn't ready for international football yet. Rice is shit. Alexander-Arnold I don't get. Foden can't cross a ball. Saka was way off his game. Maguire starting to show his Manure form for England. Not a good night for many this evening.

That said the ref was as bad as League 1 standard.
 
mull said:
The other night i watched the highly entertaining 3-3 draw between Scotland and Norway... Tonight I drifted between the turgid prima Donna's of England and a very young , vibrant Northern Ireland team who beat Denmark 2-0 ...1 tap in for Dion Charles .
Like others have said a bit of positivity and attacking verve makes for an enjoyable spectacle to watch . Not what we've had from England in their last couple of tired performances
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...except that both Northern Ireland goals were actually scored by English born and bred players. Can't be arsed with smaller nations borrowing loads of players from other countries. I'd prefer to know how a genuine Northern Ireland team would have got on.
 
I must admit I stopped watching after 15 minutes and sat with the wife to watch Corry. Far more entertaining.
 
BigHandsOliverKahn said:
...except that both Northern Ireland goals were actually scored by English born and bred players. Can't be arsed with smaller nations borrowing loads of players from other countries. I'd prefer to know how a genuine Northern Ireland team would have got on.
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Valid point but not the point I was making . English international is about the only sport that we don't actually borrow players from everywhere else . Rugby seems the worst . Visit London for 3 weeks and walah you re in the English rugby team
 
20togo said:
seems some forget the Italy game barely a month ago.
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That makes it a little concerning as with Bellingham & Kane missing well initially re Kane, that we couldn't finish it off with a flourish. Glad we've qualified, but the more matches I see like that are enough to put me off for good & I include Blackpool when in ponderous sideways/backwards mode.
 
Sooty59 said:
That makes it a little concerning as with Bellingham & Kane missing well initially re Kane, that we couldn't finish it off with a flourish. Glad we've qualified, but the more matches I see like that are enough to put me off for good & I include Blackpool when in ponderous sideways/backwards mode.
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i can understand that because it sure as hell is frustrating. One difference though is that England have already got the job done in qualifying and now being one of the top 5 seeds whereas Blackpool is a long drawn out season. And yep, the football has been as you say. We've had enough false dawns this season that we are going to see a progressive style. Lets hope last saturday was not another one and we can now kick on by being on the front foot in games.
 
England undefeated in qualifying. W6 D2, scored 22 goals, conceded 4.
It's a great record, however you look at it. Compare that to previous England managers who often had problems getting out of a group. Italy and Ukraine are no push overs.
Southgate has used the last 2 games to try a few things - we had already qualified and Bellingham(our best player) was rested.
Some of what he tried didn't work, so what. I don't get the criticism.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
England undefeated in qualifying. W6 D2, scored 22 goals, conceded 4.
It's a great record, however you look at it. Compare that to previous England managers who often had problems getting out of a group. Italy and Ukraine are no push overs.
Southgate has used the last 2 games to try a few things - we had already qualified and Bellingham(our best player) was rested.
Some of what he tried didn't work, so what. I don't get the criticism.
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So a laboured 2-0 win (one an own goal) against Malta who are ranked 171st in the FIFA rankings at Wembley doesn’t deserve any criticism?

Yer ok.
 
We were crap against Malta but thought we did ok last night. Without Henderson, we seemed to play forward more and our link up play was really good. Foden is underrated talent. The Trent midfield experiment needs re-evaluating as he struggled IMO and Maguire is a clumsy oaf who tries to pass out but doesn't have the class. If Watkins is going to play, he's going to have to learn to come deeper and get involved. Saka was under par by his standards. I enjoyed Grealish, Foden, Rice's efforts who were all tireless. The young lad Lewis too - the future looks bright for him
 
Jaffa_The_Hut said:
So a laboured 2-0 win (one an own goal) against Malta who are ranked 171st in the FIFA rankings at Wembley doesn’t deserve any criticism?

Yer ok.
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Southgate had the luxury of trying a few things - some of them didn't work out, so what?
We won the game and we went through the group undefeated.
 
Jaffa_The_Hut said:
He did but come on surely a team selected from leagues 1 and 2 could have beaten Malta? and he started this particular game pretty much with his strongest 11 unlike last night.
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What do you realistically expect from a dead rubber against an almost amateur team?
Most of those on the pitch were probably more worried about not getting injured than going hell for leather.
We won comfortably.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
What do you realistically expect from a dead rubber against an almost amateur team?
Most of those on the pitch were probably more worried about not getting injured than going hell for leather.
We won comfortably.
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I don’t get these dead rubber games or when people say a nothing to play for game I really don’t.

France had a dead rubber meaningless game on Saturday but they still managed to clock up 14 goals.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
England undefeated in qualifying. W6 D2, scored 22 goals, conceded 4.
It's a great record, however you look at it. Compare that to previous England managers who often had problems getting out of a group. Italy and Ukraine are no push overs.
Southgate has used the last 2 games to try a few things - we had already qualified and Bellingham(our best player) was rested.
Some of what he tried didn't work, so what. I don't get the criticism.
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I agree with most of that but I'll just correct you on one point.

Kane is our best player.
 
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