England v Costa Rica

Rashford taking a lot of the headlines but I thought Delph was a huge plus point last night.

Particularly when he moved to play as the holding midfielder, where he played quicker and with more awareness than Henderson or Dier do in that role.

Thought despite his goal, Welbeck was terrible when he came on. He often does a decent job for England to be fair to him but several times he received the ball facing our goal, controlled it and carried on running towards our own goal before laying it back to someone, when there was no-one behind him and he could've just turned.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

70% possession and pretty passing in front of the opposition with only 3 shots in 45 minutes gets you nowhere in friendlies or competitions.

Yet that's surely a more successful model than less possession and lots of opportunities from the opposition side? Too much is made of stats like possession and efforts at goal.  The only stat that matters is the score.  

I understand what you're saying, we have a general lack of real quality.at the minute. But rather than try to shoe-horn a player into the side just so it looks like we've got that traditional creative force who pings passes and plays through balls (Shelvely, Wilshere etc.) Southgate has built a side that works to its strength, which as you say is pace and power.  It makes it more of a war of attrition but if we don't have the players to unlock defences with pinpoint passing, nor a defence that is particularly watertight then it makes perfect sense to hold onto the ball 40/50 yards out from the opposition goal until an opening presents itself.  

It's a bit like Paul Hurst of the international game!

Quoted from Tommy

Rashford taking a lot of the headlines but I thought Delph was a huge plus point last night.

Particularly when he moved to play as the holding midfielder, where he played quicker and with more awareness than Henderson or Dier do in that role.

Thought despite his goal, Welbeck was terrible when he came on. He often does a decent job for England to be fair to him but several times he received the ball facing our goal, controlled it and carried on running towards our own goal before laying it back to someone, when there was no-one behind him and he could've just turned.

Forgot about Delph to be honest, even though I was impressed with him last night.  I agree, he's far better as the holding midfielder but I can't see him starting games in that role.  I wouldn't want him as one of more advanced two either as I think we've got better options going forward.  In that holding role though he's ideal, as close as we've got to a Kante type figure.

Thing is with Welbeck he's just got that knack of scoring for England.  A bit like Darius Vassell was, probably not good enough for international football but he just comes alive in front of goal wearing that shirt.  Not sure who else could have been called up either really.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Yet that's surely a more successful model than less possession and lots of opportunities from the opposition side? Too much is made of stats like possession and efforts at goal.  The only stat that matters is the score.  

I understand what you're saying, we have a general lack of real quality.at the minute. But rather than try to shoe-horn a player into the side just so it looks like we've got that traditional creative force who pings passes and plays through balls (Shelvely, Wilshere etc.) Southgate has built a side that works to its strength, which as you say is pace and power.  It makes it more of a war of attrition but if we don't have the players to unlock defences with pinpoint passing, nor a defence that is particularly watertight then it makes perfect sense to hold onto the ball 40/50 yards out from the opposition goal until an opening presents itself.  

It's a bit like Paul Hurst of the international game!

Oh yes, that's fine - if you can do it. But we can't. That was my point.  The sides that can play like Southgate wants do more with the ball and they have players to do that. They probe and look for openings, we shove it through and hope for a break. As soon as the opposition cottons on they step up 10 - 15 yards and close down the midfield. Our control, vision and especially awareness is so poor that we just cannot cope with that either, the defence gets panicky and we revert to whack it types.

I don't like it but you are stuck for class players then cut your cloth accordingly. Make your first priority to run the other side ragged like Ireland did to Italy. Make them play an unnatural game.

I know friendlies are no guide and all that, but honestly, watching the game last night, we had pundits saying how well some players had played when I thought they would struggle to get into the Costa Rica team!

Welleck is the leading scorer in the current England squad.

Then again Jimmy Greaves is one of the all time leading scorers and Sir Alf Ramsey left him out when we won the World Cup.

What do we know eh?

Quoted from mimma

Welleck is the leading scorer in the current England squad.

Then again Jimmy Greaves is one of the all time leading scorers and Sir Alf Ramsey left him out when we won the World Cup.

What do we know eh?

The mark of a great manager.

Greavsie was one of my all time favourites but had been badly injured and there were no subs in those days, so playing him might have been a risk, especially if the game went to extra time as it did. The other thing was that Greavsie had not played all that well in the early games and he hadn't looked like getting goals either. That made the decision not quite so shocking to most of us at the time and certainly not as surprising as it has become to people since Jim kicked off a bit about it.