[Football] Arsenal’s Ben White

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

[emoji38]ol: How very true.

That said I have other reasons for my diminishing expectations of Southgate. I admire the way he'll select young players, and accept his policy to largely disregard players emerging late (as regular starters in the EPL in their mid and late 20s - *cough* Dunk *cough*), even though it is a rather one-eyed approach.

But the problem for me is he's no Terry Venables (a coach with a smart eye for tactics and getting the best out of a squad). No, it's almost too easy for Southgate to busk his job by the approach he takes - select largely all the younger England players that are being talked about by the better journalists, tell them to play positive attacking football and, er, that's it. Easy to do, but does anyone truly expect he'll marshall a squad to a competition winning position? At one time I did, but then I lost my rose tinted spectacles.

Totally agree with you on that.

I am not Southgate's biggest fan either but I think the whole Dunk thing has resulted in a lot of perspective being lost.

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[BN9 BHA]

Starting line up

 

[vagabond]

[tweet]1399776967478677504[/tweet]

 

[Super Steve Earle]

My god our fans are precious, talking about not supporting England because Dunk isn't playing, WTF.

People really have been brainwarped by this new-Albion era of relentless PR on how amazingly wonderful everything is at BHA to the extent that they believe all our players simply must be better than everyone else's, it's mad. It's football - it is very rare for anyone to unanimously agree on football/ability of players (look at the debates on here about our very own GPot) so I'm not at all shocked there are a few question marks over the squad. Just because Dunk (and now White) haven't made it, support someone else? Give your heads a wobble.


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I have a slightly different take. Sadly my England mojo was lost way back in the mists of time. I didn't stop watching or caring because Brighton players weren't picked. In fact for decades, it would have been odd if they were. But if a Brighton player were selected, I would certainly be supporting England more actively. No thanks to Southgate though. My attitude is the same for any team with an Albion player on board, be it Belgium, Spain, Netherlands or whoever. Same applies to loan teams with our lads playing.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

They’re only left out of the Euros squad. Very much part of the training camp and friendlies which is excellent for Ben. And no fatigue etc would be silly to play basically the same 11 outfield players in 2 friendlies within 4 days before the Euros!

It’s not Southgate fault 10 or so of our players played in the big European finals - literally nobody to blame here except covid maybe.

That game was last week FFS, stop making excuses for the ****. What is the point AT ALL of having WARM UP games for a tournament without the ****ing players expected to play in it. Jesus, Mary, the wise men, the wee donkey and the ****ing innkeeper to boot

 

[Jim in the West]

I have a slightly different take. Sadly my England mojo was lost way back in the mists of time. I didn't stop watching or caring because Brighton players weren't picked. In fact for decades, it would have been odd if they were. But if a Brighton player were selected, I would certainly be supporting England more actively. No thanks to Southgate though. My attitude is the same for any team with an Albion player on board, be it Belgium, Spain, Netherlands or whoever. Same applies to loan teams with our lads playing.

Likewise, I became seriously disillusioned with England years ago, mainly due to the hordes of crass idiots who besmirched the nation's name in all parts of Europe (and sometimes beyond). Even nowadays you can still regularly hear strains of "No surrender to the IRA". The FA appear to have made various attempts at making it more difficult for the REAL idiots to travel, but significant numbers of morons still seem to get through the net. I feel very sorry for those that love their country and want to follow our football team in peace, hopefully spreading a bit of goodwill along the way. I was ready to forgive and forget for the Euros in France in 2016, but missed out in the ballot for every game I applied for. Since then we've had Allardyce (thankfully just one match) and Southgate, and the latter appears clueless when it comes to moulding the latest "golden generation" into a tournament winning team. We have so many excellent attacking players, but Southgate seems to want to play 5 at the back PLUS two holding midfielders!! And picking the likes of Eric Dier (luckily no longer), Tyrone Mings and Connor Coady ahead of Dunk, well....

 

[vagabond]

Coady (one decent season with Wolves) & Mings (not even a decent season with Villa) in front of Dunk, Webster, White, Mee, Tarkowski, Konsa, Tomori...

That is ****ing criminal.

Strong words, but that is a very fair point.

Mings is not even just in front of Dunk. He’s in front of all those players. Incredible.

 

[Bry Nylon]

At least after we get knocked out in the Round of 16 Gareth can go back to his sixteenth century North Yorkshire mansion and wonder where his career went so so wrong.

 

[Swansman]

At least after we get knocked out in the Round of 16 Gareth can go back to his sixteenth century North Yorkshire mansion and wonder where his career went so so wrong.


View attachment 137267

Why does he have a maze in his backyard?

 

[Shooting Star]

Personally I don't think that has anything to do with the club, but the position of the club. Success builds confidence and belief. Poor old Dunk's international chances have been hampered by our hanging around the PL bottom 5. The same arguments could be said for the Southampton and Burnley players - relegation battles aren't necessarily the player backgrounds you want for international tournaments.

100% agree with this.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Why does he have a maze in his backyard?

The roof looks as straight as his nose

 

[GT49er]

Personally I don't think that has anything to do with the club, but the position of the club. Success builds confidence and belief. Poor old Dunk's international chances have been hampered by our hanging around the PL bottom 5. The same arguments could be said for the Southampton and Burnley players - relegation battles aren't necessarily the player backgrounds you want for international tournaments.

Successful relegation battles are exactly where the international team should be looking for defenders! They've done twice as much defending as the defenders at the 'Big' clubs - and done it well enough to keep their teams up.

TBH (OK, with blue and white striped glasses) if he wanted a ready made English back three unit, used to playing together like a sweetly oiled machine, I know where he could do worse than look - he's picked one of our back three English defenders (well, nearly sort of picked him) but we've actually got two more better ones (at the moment - that may change). Just pick the three of them, job done, then worry about the other eight positions.
I know - will never happen.

 

[Weststander]

Why does he have a maze in his backyard?

Get knotted.

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

Successful relegation battles are exactly where the international team should be looking for defenders! They've done twice as much defending as the defenders at the 'Big' clubs - and done it well enough to keep their teams up.

TBH (OK, with blue and white striped glasses) if he wanted a ready made English back three unit, used to playing together like a sweetly oiled machine, I know where he could do worse than look - he's picked one of our back three English defenders (well, nearly sort of picked him) but we've actually got two more better ones (at the moment - that may change). Just pick the three of them, job done, then worry about the other eight positions.
I know - will never happen.

Weirdly Steve Bruce never got a cap and yet formed a double winning partnership with Gary Pallister. How many times were Keown and Adam’s capped together? We did go Terry - Cahill for a while didn’t we I suppose, but yeah club positional partnerships must be worth more than the sum of their parts.

 

[Granny on the wing]

Successful relegation battles are exactly where the international team should be looking for defenders! They've done twice as much defending as the defenders at the 'Big' clubs - and done it well enough to keep their teams up.

TBH (OK, with blue and white striped glasses) if he wanted a ready made English back three unit, used to playing together like a sweetly oiled machine, I know where he could do worse than look - he's picked one of our back three English defenders (well, nearly sort of picked him) but we've actually got two more better ones (at the moment - that may change). Just pick the three of them, job done, then worry about the other eight positions.
I know - will never happen.

Agree and going back to our goals against stat ,only 6 teams have let in more goals and 4 are the top 4 .I think Bissouma played a major part as well.

 

[GT49er]

Agree and going back to our goals against stat ,only 6 teams have let in more goals and 4 are the top 4 .I think Bissouma played a major part as well.

Unfortunately Biss isn't available to Southgate (nor is Sanchez!)

 

[Sheebo]

That game was last week FFS, stop making excuses for the ****. What is the point AT ALL of having WARM UP games for a tournament without the ****ing players expected to play in it. Jesus, Mary, the wise men, the wee donkey and the ****ing innkeeper to boot

Are you actually serious? You’re a blaming Southgate for not having the players who played on Saturday just gone at his disposal for a friendly? You are aware none of the players who played are featuring in tomorrow’s friendly - including Chelsea’s Germans and City’s etc? You are aware there’s things called sports scientists who make these decisions to not risk injury? You are aware covid has completely disrupted the season as it started late and these warm up games are crammed in? Not sure why I’d call GS a **** either - got us to the semis of the WC ffs...?!

Sorry, scrap the sports scientists and player conditioning coaches at a variety of top countries teams, ‘Piltdown Man’ knows best.

Heard it all now Jesus Christ

 

[Prettyboyshaw]

I hate leaving Lingard out but think he will be a definite starter tomorrow

Okay Gareth, start someone not in your squad so you can assess how good or bad they play and how others that may be going in the squad play with you. Then you can assess and review that for a few weeks to justify your obscene salary. Then put your notes in the bin because he isn't in the squad and starting or playing him because you feel guilty is utterly pointless you spineless big snozzled clown.

Just to clarify - The above is not because of Dunk not getting in (that's a different rant altogether) or White a versatile, excellent squad addition, and better than a half fit bang average player or some very poor but big club players (slightly less of a rant but still warrants one), it's because he is an awful manager and has done nothing to deserve to England team job.

 

[Prettyboyshaw]

100% agree with this.

Completely correct. Obviously that's why Jordan Pickford is England's number one. He has the confidence after all those medals, never flaps, panics, for no reason ruins a players season with injury or acts like someone with a very bad case of tics and twitches

 

[vagabond]

Unfortunately Biss isn't available to Southgate (nor is Sanchez!)

Let’s be honest Southgate wouldn’t pick them anyway.