[Football] England v Germany 5pm . On the front foot from the start .

[Mellotron]

I'm worried about the big creative void in the middle of the park. With the security of 3 CBs I'd have liked a more progressive CM. With Mount apparently benched, I'd go for Bellingham. Hendo and Rice odds on though.

Henderson would push forward more than Phillips, at least.

 

[Seasider78]

No joke, on BBC's Breakfast program they did a piece from Raheem Stirling's old school which is within sight of Wembley Stadium. At the end of it the reporter said "and more good news, the England Band will be back at Wembley today", and they had them there playing their usual dirge version of The Great Escape!

My heart sank when I saw that this morning and I believe the FA cover all their costs as well. Cringe every time I hear that monotonous garbage coming from the stands and kills any natural atmosphere. Think they are all MASSIVE fans as well so can they not put the trumpets away and wave the little lights on their phones around instead?

https://twitter.com/bbcbreakfast/status/1409766911697637376?s=21

 

[beefypigeon]

England qualify for the tournament playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.
England win the group playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.
England play 3 games without conceding a goal playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.


Now in a game that's the dictionary definition of playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football some fans want/expect England to play on the front foot and take the game to Germany.



Ohhhhh the entitlement is strong today.

Yep, totally agree. If anything we will be more defensive today than we were in previous matches. Fully expect to be really uninspired by the starting 11, just hope it works!

 

[Mellotron]

England qualify for the tournament playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.
England win the group playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.
England play 3 games without conceding a goal playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.


Now in a game that's the dictionary definition of playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football some fans want/expect England to play on the front foot and take the game to Germany.



Ohhhhh the entitlement is strong today.

"we r at are best wen we Just atack"

No, we really ****ing aren't.

 

[Bakero]

Henderson would push forward more than Phillips, at least.

Hopefully. Phillips did that quite well against Croatia

 

[sydney]

leaving all three of Foden Grealish and Mount on the bench. lunacy

Were loose.

yep , by that thinking we should give BW a go.

 

[Mellotron]

Hopefully. Phillips did that quite well against Croatia

That is true.

 

[Seasidesage]

Think and hope we will win. I'd play a 4 at the back but push on the FB as one of Phillips or Rice can step into the back line if needed. Stop the Germans wing backs and to a big degree you stop them IMO. Walker and Shaw at FB and a 5 man midfield of Grealish, Foden and Sterling for me despite Saka's good performance. I think White will make the bench as Southgate will want the option of a three at the back. More than anything I hope Southgate takes the handbrake off 2 DM's is fine but we have a very very good forward line and need to exploit that. I don't think we can keep a clean sheet but I do think we can seriously hurt them at the other end.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Yep, totally agree. If anything we will be more defensive today than we were in previous matches. Fully expect to be really uninspired by the starting 11, just hope it works!

I expect the team to look like this from reports:

———————Pickford———————
——Walker—-Stones—Maguire——-
Trippier—Henderson-Philips—Shaw
——Saka———————Sterling———
———————Kane—————————

Losing is totally inexcusable if he leaves so much attacking flair on the the bench.

This team seems more likely to get us to penalties than win but I’m willing to back Southgate at present. He’d certainly have a number of match-changers on the bench if things got uncomfortable.

It appears that he is much more ‘Dyche’ and ‘Allardyce’ than ‘Potter’ or ‘Pep’ in style and risk. Fingers crossed that his approach wins through.

 

[Bakero]

I expect the team to look like this from reports:

———————Pickford———————
——Walker—-Stones—Maguire——-
Trippier—Henderson-Philips—Shaw
——Saka———————Sterling———
———————Kane—————————

Losing is totally inexcusable if he leaves so much attacking flair on the the bench.

This team seems more likely to get us

to penalties than win but I’m willing to back Southgate at present. He’d certainly have a number of match-changers on the bench if things got uncomfortable.

It appears that he is much more ‘Dyche’ and ‘Allardyce’ than ‘Potter’ or ‘Pep’ in style and risk. Fingers crossed that his approach wins through.

Swap Rice for Phillips and I think you're right.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

And yet more good news, the England Band will be back at Wembley, I think it's at Mr Southgates request.

Ffs, COVID, Brexit and now this? Haven’t we suffered enough?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[JBizzle]

"we r at are best wen we Just atack"

No, we really ****ing aren't.

Honestly, the amount of tosh like that is rife at the moment...

So many people seem to think that having trained a certain way, with a specific style that (like it or not) gets results we should abandon that and go hell for leather against the one team that will be guaranteed to punish us if we leave ourselves open. Weather it's pleasing on the eye or not, we've not conceded a goal in hours of football and generally look the most solid we've been.

Would I take a tight 1-0 win tonight over an exit like France? Hell yes!

 

[keaton]

England qualify for the tournament playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.
England win the group playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.
England play 3 games without conceding a goal playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football.


Now in a game that's the dictionary definition of playing pragmatic 'don't lose' football some fans want/expect England to play on the front foot and take the game to Germany.



Ohhhhh the entitlement is strong today.

Agree completely. I think we should be playing more attacking football as that would play to our strengths.

However the time to try that was in the qualifiers or group stages, not in the knock outs. And not against a team that has struggled against teams that have been compact and solid, and only clicked against the team that tried to attack them

 

[Mellotron]

Agree completely. I think we should be playing more attacking football as that would play to our strengths.

We've conceded 5 goals in 17 games. Starting to think our defence is a bit underrated.

 

[JBizzle]

Agree completely. I think we should be playing more attacking football as that would play to our strengths.

However the time to try that was in the qualifiers or group stages, not in the knock outs. And not against a team that has struggled against teams that have been compact and solid, and only clicked against the team that tried to attack them

I agree, with everything you said there except one part: Is attacking football our strength? We have good attacking players, sure - but we've tried to play to this alleged strength for all of my England-supporting life. So far this has yielded us:

- 2x WC and 1x Euro semi final in SIXTY years;
- NEVER winning a knockout game at the Euros in normal time;
- Only once beating a previous World Cup winner in ANY tournament knockout stage;
- Years of "heroic" failure.

To me it's like the "West Ham Way": An aspirational dream that is mildly amusing to outsiders. Don't get me wrong I would love it for us to play superb, attacking football - but let's not kid ourselves, on the International stage we're more Greece 2004 and Denmark 1992 than France 2000 or Spain 2004/08.

Let's just do what we need to do to win the game within our skillset. If we go out, by all means criticise the style of play, but we're not out yet.

 

[keaton]

We've conceded 5 goals in 17 games. Starting to think our defence is a bit underrated.

I think we defend well as a team. If our defence was better it might no need quite so much help

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Not a fan of walker at CB

Saka deserved time keep his place

 

[keaton]

I agree, with everything you said there except one part: Is attacking football our strength? We have good attacking players, sure - but we've tried to play to this alleged strength for all of my England-supporting life. So far this has yielded us:

- 2x WC and 1x Euro semi final in SIXTY years;
- NEVER winning a knockout game at the Euros in normal time;
- Only once beating a previous World Cup winner in ANY tournament knockout stage;
- Years of "heroic" failure.

To me it's like the "West Ham Way": An aspirational dream that is mildly amusing to outsiders. Don't get me wrong I would love it for us to play superb, attacking football - but let's not kid ourselves, on the International stage we're more Greece 2004 and Denmark 1992 than France 2000 or Spain 2004/08.

Let's just do what we need to do to win the game within our skillset. If we go out, by all means criticise the style of play, but we're not out yet.

I think you misunderstand me,I don't think we usually play attacking football, I don't think that's the English way, most of the years of non achievement was done with as limited game plan as we have now. I don't think we should we be whacking all the attacking players on the pitch at the same time, just trying to play positive football higher up the pitch. At the moment we appear to be play possession based football, with very defensive full backs and centre midfielders, I'm unaware of any other team that attempts that with any success

 

[Acker79]

Is anyone really suprised that Mount isn't expected to start? He's been in isolation for the last week unable to take part in drills with the team. Is it really surprising that Southgate will start with the players that have spent the last week training together?

 

[Dave the OAP]

Power nap Dave?

Just preparing myself

Last night was sport at its best…Croatia game, followed by Murray being brilliant and worrying all at the same time and then watching the last knocking of the french game ( although I had it in the iPad whilst the tennis was on)

Our game can’t match the two yesterday could it?

Calling @dr no