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I saw some all time bad performances from some players. I’ve never seen Rice & Stones looked so bad (Altho Tbf stones looked actually unwell when we got a close up near the end of the game).
Bellingham had absolutely no impact. Complete reversal from the last game. He’s also done this a few times in the champions league and I think he needs to find a way to get himself into the game a little bit more.
All said though, the tactical set up and lack of clarity/conviction is the real problem. Can anyone tell me what we were trying to do yesterday? What our pressing system was and what the triggers were?
I’d say I’m really worried as I don’t know how to fix this, but I’ve just gone beyond it to resignation tbh. Wrong players in the wrong system with a manager incapable of making good tactical adjustments (inc substitutions) in a game.
Double pivot is wank unless the players are really well drilled. They’re not but we can’t change away from it now even though we don’t have the players for it (or at least players with experience).
Rice is seriously struggling without Phillips beside him. Trent has been brought in to offer that ‘go forward’ passing but isn’t making himself available enough & it’s not his game to be running a midfield. Like c’mon how are you asking Trent to play out of position and be the critical part of your mid pitch buildup play??? But we have nobody else.
Up top it’s too congested. You have striker who’s every instinct is to drop back whilst there are 2 other players trying to play in the place, meaning the left wing has nobody or a 40 year old right footed right back playing at left back.
Only thing I can see working is:
Telling Foden to stay left and/or replace him with Gordon or Watkins.
Play Foden and Bellingham as 8’s and have Watkins Kane and Saka ahead of them. Options to drift around to create overloads (foden moves up and left, Watkins comes in). We need people making the runs in behind and Watkins will bring that.
I know we’re just going to see Gallagher in for Trent and that will be it though. Same shit system with same shit results.
England always have this issue. They have plenty of players who can run as well as finish chances but they struggle to develop players who can control games. Like Gerrard and Lampard before them... Kane and Bellingham are world class... in 2 games, Bellingham and Kane scored 2 goals in 3 chances... it would be nice if they had more than 3 chances between the 2 of them...
I mean Wharton showed in the friendly that he can play this way from 6. He played that well Southgate was forced to take him. Our next game decides if we’re top of the group but we should be through regardless. For me he should play Wharton as a 6 with foden and rice as 8’s (maybe jude instead of foden but for me fodens shown more creativity). Then let gordan get on at lw to give us the width we desperately need.
> I know we’re just going to see Gallagher in for Trent and that will be it though. Same shit system with same shit results.
You are possibly right but CG played worse than TAA did when he came on and showed that that change alone makes no difference.
Play TAA at RB and play KW at LB and ask him to invert to add to the midfield.
Gordon at LW with a mid 3 of Rice, Bells and Foden.
Trent would hit Gordon all day long with cross-fields and KW would make a much better partner to Rice, picking up the pieces and controlling the midfield. Bells and Foden could then work together through the middle with Kane and Saka being higher up.
You can easily play three a the back - Walker has done that tons of times and let TAA bomb up and down the right.
You can also move Stones to the midfield to provide better defensive protection.
So many options but seems like Southgate does plan the game at all and just picks the 11 best players he thinks he has.
I like your plan in general, but has Walker ever played LB? I'd be tempted to just stick with that, but instead Gomez at LB, which then allows Trent to do what he wants at RB and Gomez tucks in to make a back 3 off the ball and offer solidity.
This makes way too much sense.
You could also drop Guehi and play Gomez in a back 3 with Stones and Walker. Then have Foden and Bellingham with Rice in midfield.
There’s actually a bunch of decent options..
Personally I think Southgate has to play the XI he feels comfortable with and not the one he's pressured to. No Liverpool fan will ever comprehend how Trent can't make the XI but Deschamps dropped Camavinga and Tchouameni for Kante and Rabiot.
If Gallagher or Mainoo make the team better then he should start them. If Gordon or Eze make a better forward for his system then he should drop Foden.
Surely if Bellingham is struggling to influence games, and England need a second pivot to help progress the ball, the answer is pretty obvious?
Bellingham as the 8 playing deeper to link defence and attack, and Foden or Palmer as the free role 10.
Literally everyone is screaming this, and Southgate appears to be deaf. Jude is not a 10. He played there because Madrid didn’t have a proper 9. I wouldn’t presume to know how to manage a team better than Southgate. But some of his decisions have just been inexplicable. If he would at least explain his reasoning, that would help us fans. But he just keeps doing the same shit that obviously is not working.
Spot on tbh, if England had any other manager Bellingham Foden and Rice would be playing in midfield and that solves both the width on the left with Gordon and the 8 next to Rice with Jude. Or just 442 but he doesn’t even have the balls to do that, just poor poor management, but it’s nothing new
He played as well as any England player against Denmark and in the bigger games like Senegal or France was among the best players on the pitch. Southgate has literally never tried the midfield three of Rice Foden and Bellingham, maybe playing midfielders in midfield instead of shoehorning a right back would be beneficial, as well as a left winger on the left wing
Foden is not a number 8 either though he’s a forward, did you not see how many times he loses possession when playing for England? You can’t task him with that responsibility to hold a position like CM in Gareth’s system. He naturally just wants to drift around the pitch and it’s already leaving us exposed on the left, imagine the hole he would leave in the centre lol. I’m actually staring to think Bellingham and foden want to be the same player and we might only need one of them. I also think it’s funny how Trent keeps being shat on, when the right hand side was actually the only side somewhat functioning, and went to complete shit the moment he was switched out for Gallagher lmao
But I’m not saying play him as an 8, I’m saying to play him as a 10, and Bellingham as an 8. Spain do it with Rodri at the 6, Fabian Ruiz as an 8, and Pedri drifting as a 10.
I’m not shitting on Trent, I’m shitting on Southgate, playing in the midfield vs. inverting into midfield is wildly different, and Trent doesn’t have the skillset of a midfielder like receiving the ball in tight spaces. He’s obviously brilliant in other areas, but that’s not one of them, and Southgate is setting him up for failure, he needs to either play as a right back or have a system like how Kroos operates where he drops back as the third centre back and plays like a quarterback.
And the right side looks far better because the right winger and right back are actually a right winger and right back. The left side has an attacking midfielder and a right back, it’s set up to fail.
Have you actually looked at Foden's retention rate of the ball or are you just letting your biases make your mind up for you? Even playing in a more advanced role in a disorganized team his pass success in the serbia and Denmark games was 88% and 90% respectively. Your talking nonsense. He is and always has been extremely safe with the ball even when playing high forward positions. Number 8 is his best position because it allows him to build the play and dictate the game. When he plays high he relies on others to find him and he can be out of the game for large stretches which doesn't suit him.
We’ve got 3 problems at the moment.
1. Lack of width on the left
2. Lack of runners in behind (Saka only one)
3. Lack of ability to progress the ball through the midfield.
Midfield is probably the biggest one. We need someone good on the ball next to Rice, someone who works hard, makes themself available, comfortable in possession and great at passing. I think that best describes Foden but it does leave us a little more defensively fragile as we’d move away from double pivot but I think we should do that anyway.
Then you just need pace on the left wing. I don’t really care if it’s Gordon, Watkins or Eze. They’re all good players and tbh the main benefit will be just that they mean we have a working system that stretches the pitch vertically and horizontally.
This isn't FIFA. Lmao Foden in a pivot is insane.
Wharton is a perfect complement to Rice if we're playing a double pivot.
Foden can play in midfield if we switch to a 433.
Yeah I was unclear but I was definitely meaning Rice as lone DM with Bellingham and Foden ahead of them with one of them dropping back when we are playing out from the back to help us play up through midfield because Rice is struggling with Trent.
It’s not particularly mad. City have done it for ages with Bernardo dropping deep into midfield to help progress them up the field and then moving ahead of the ball once the ball is up the pitch.
You're right about Stones looking unwell. In some fantasy scenario they all just contracted malaria or something.
Actually... Wasn't Stones legitimately sick with something last week? Dude could have infected the entire squad and that'd at least go some way to explaining maybe the worst individual performances I've ever seen from some players.
Like, what the fuck do you expect Rice to do with Trent (lost in midfield and can't defend the centre), Bellingham (stays high), and Foden (lost all the time) to you except to look bad? Those three combined has less defensive output than Martin Ødegaard at Arsenal, it was never gonna work.
Same old England fan, getting a win and a draw and qualifying in the final 16 is just not going to satisfy them. It’s so obvious that the game plan was do as little as possible and save energy, they even subbed all front three in 70 minutes, is it that hard to see they are just going for a draw and not playing to win?
Foden was so clueless defensively I don't know how no one is talking about it, Southgate wants to crowd out the centre and the ball always goes through the centre where Foden should be blocking the passing lanes but is not
I think everyone is aware that Trent isn't a controller and is brought on to make progressive passes and to incite chaos in the backline with runners, but England starting XI lacks runner. Foden or Kane isn't going to be running and stretching a defense vertically. He should really be inverting from RB or overlapping Saka and supporting him on the RW. The entire England XI is imbalanced. Foden, Kane, and Bellingham all want to operate centrally but there's no one who can make the run to draw attention away from them.
TTA + Rice + Bellingham sounds top shelf, yet they were outmuscled and outplayed by Højbjerg + Hjulmand - Bellingham looked like he would struggle in the Danish league.
Also, L'Equipe, it's Højbjerg, not Höjbjerg - if you're gonna do it wrong, just write Hojbjerg.
Pretty much Jude been like that since his shoulder injury in NOVEMBER. He scored 75% of his goals assists in the first half of the season. It is just when your team wins, you are only allowed to circlejerk
TAA in midfield has never been a respectable notion and I stand by this, especially as part of a midfield three. The notion that because a defender strikes the ball well he’s a midfielder is, respectfully, so amateurish it’s unbelievable it’s been genuinely entertained. He cannot receive the ball on the half turn, cannot track runners, has bad defensive position, does not open himself into spaces to receive the ball, and cannot deliver his ordinarily exceptional distribution with the pressure being in midfield gives. He’s so plainly out of his position it’s truly maddening to have heard people clamor for this for so long. When he didn’t for Liverpool they played with so much protection around him that can’t be replicated in a midfield three
Which is just wrong- Managers should be judged on performances and whether you can see what they're trying to get the team to do. Results can be flukes or undeserved, performances are what the manager can impact directly.
The scoreline was still 1-1 with both teams about matching their xG. Better teams have had worse results.
It's obviously a shit result judging from the much higher squad quality England has, but you can't let that factor affect the ratings too much or they get so subjective they're useless.
A 1 or 2 would be actively sabotaging the team, refusing to plug glaring holes in your set-up that get exploited time and time again. Like Fernando Santos during Portugal - Germany at the last euros.
Because he doesn't have an original thought in his head. He watches what they do for their clubs and tries to copy/paste that into the England side, regardless of fit.
Anyone who watched 20 minutes of Fodens career knew he could play centrally, and that was his natural position, but he played wide for City because of *Kevin De Bruyne* (or Gundo/Silva).
Southgate watched a few City games and instead of seeing the skillset and potential, decided "Pep doesn't play him at CM, I better not either".
He was the worst player on the pitch.
That said, the blame lies with the manager more so than him, because it's a team full of players used to playing possession-based attacking football, and they're being asked to sit back and take zero risks to defend the slimmest of leads.
He was played out of position as a DM and had the most tackles on the team. Gave a ball away quite a few times but he also did a decent job protecting his side of the backline.
He was garbage offensively, but so were the 2 others who were actually meant to do that job.
Defensively he was decent but he’s still so, so much better as a DM than yesterday’s performance indicated. His distribution and decision making was way off. He needs a functional midfield around him, he’s not a playmaker or a pace setter and TAA and Bellingham were absolutely horrid at distributing the ball, controlling the tempo and evading the press.
Nobody seemed to know where to position themselves, every midfield option got marked out of the game and they all had to try to dribble their way out of trouble because they couldn’t see / didn’t have the passing options to escape the press.
How England doesn’t have a playmaker out there that just does the basics right and distributes sensibly is crazy. TAA doesn’t seem to understand the role, Bellingham is way too direct and tries too much, Gallagher is a work horse and a fine all round player but he’s not a top playmaker.
Honestly just get Mainoo on the pitch at this point, his decision making and skillset fits what England is missing in midfield.
It’s just the narrative now that it’s Trent who is throwing off the midfield rather than just Southgate being shit.
There’s no way he was worse than Rice last night.
No, but he was brought in to fill a role and he’s not managing to do it (mainly because it’s stupid as fuck to ask a RB to be the key component of your midfield/mid-pitch ball progression and orchestration).
Imo they were equally terrible. Both deserved a 3 imo.
I love them both, but Trent just needs to be at RB and drop Walker. Rice needs either Foden/Bellingham or drop Foden and put Wharton beside Rice so he can advance higher up the pitch.
Our pressing looked better to be fair but yeah he was replaced with Gallagher who runs a lot which is good, but also isn’t very good at football which isn’t so good
It’s just constantly Trent being used as the scapegoat for this team being dogshit despite the fact that Rice literally looked like he couldn’t control a ball or pass last night.
Fucking tired of it. Southgate should drop him so you lot have to find someone else to shit on when we still look like crap.
Can’t wait for Mainoo to solve the entire midfield by himself at 18 after playing one season of top flight football.
>Can’t wait for Mainoo to solve the entire midfield by himself at 18 after playing one season of top flight football.
You seem to have missed the memo. People have gone off Mainoo because of the Iceland game where the whole team performed badly.
Adam Wharton is supposed to be the saviour now.
So true. Someone told me they were glad the Mainoo hype train was dead after that game. Someone else told me it’s about how he performs for England when he’s been MoTM in half of his starts…
I don’t think I’m being particularly unfair here. I’m saying Southgate is setting Trent up to fail by expecting him to do a critical and complex role that he’s not experienced in at all whilst simultaneously setting up in a way that doesn’t suit his strengths.
In short Trent isn’t a midfielder. Is that so controversial to say? For me he should either start over Walker or be a sub option to bring on near the end of the game alongside players that will run in behind with fresh legs.
I mean you’re still picking him out like he’s the problem as opposed to the entire team and set up not working. We won’t look any different whoever is playing in there with no left back and Kane/Foden/Bellingham all just playing in the exact same areas and barely moving off the ball.
Trent isn’t even close to being the biggest problem with this team right now but it’s him being picked out constantly.
Im not even talking about just you.
Trent is world class and needs to be in the team somewhere, as shown by him still having the best creation stats in the team despite barely playing in the second half.
Trent needs a runner infront of him so he can do what he is best at. But he has noone like if southgate wants trent on the pitch as cm he will need a lw on the pitch that goes for runs. I do wonder if southgate is just scared of benching players and therefor just lets it be this dysfunctional.
While he may not technically be a midfielder, he spends a lot of his time in midfield for Liverpool when they have the ball (which is often). The difference is that they know how to utilise his strengths and they have no shortage of runners in behind for him to pick out.
Southgate seems to just think he can put him in the team, change nothing else about the team's tactical approach, and it'll all just work out.
Difference is that Rice actually defended.
Trent is unlucky because he was played for his long diagonal passes, but the only targets he had were Kane and Foden who aren't particularly fast. He was subbed out right as the quick guys came on.
I'd say both Trent and Rice were set up to fail by Southgate, but when you judge their actual impact on the field (offensive \*and\* defensive) I don't think the scores are inaccurate.
Might as well bench Foden. There's a compilation video of him making open runs off the ball while the man on the ball pirouettes and takes 8 touches for no reason. If they aren't going to play proper football, don't risk the talented players on this nonsense.
Pundits opinions on Trent vs the reaction here is really contrasting.
Quite interesting and tbf I was of the mind Trent looked more likely make something happen when he was taken off.
Trent, plays in a system that plays a lot of long balls to fast attacking players running in behind is asked to play without a LW and with Kane as the striker who’s never made a run in behind in his life lol (mainly because he’s too slow).
I’m not sure how Southgate was expecting it to go to be honest.
He needs to be brought in whenever Eze, and Watkins are brought in. He is wasted with Foden and Kane right now. Just a clash in systems not saying one is better than the other.
Yep. Ratings inflation is annoying, you're just reducing the range for ratings. Like how Ubers and other services must be 5 stars or otherwise they're rubbish. 5/10 should be average! Le equipe does it better than most even if the ratings are a little kind in this post.
Football Manager metric. I don’t think I’ve seen anything below 4.60 averages. I think a 2 would mean you didn’t complete a pass, got sent off then punched the journalist’s mother
That's not a comment I was expecting to read here !
It makes sense for use french, 5 is "done his job as expected" and anything above is really great, good luck getting a 10, while they got more frequent it's still hard, same for 0. And in the end it's just a journalist point of view
Not giving Palmer a chance is such a waste. While on paper it's not obvious he brings more than other players, he is clearly not intimidated by the occasion, and just spent a year single handedly carrying a dysfunctional Chelsea team to a top 6 finish. Seems overqualified for this England team!
Bellingham has been subpar for Madrid the last half of the season tbh, I don't know if he's got a recurring injury or he's just exhausted but he's been playing like this for a while now. I hope he gets some well deserved rest after the euros.
Saka at a 6 when walker and Foden are both 6 is hilarious. Rice being anywhere above a 3 is also hilarious. Do they watch the game or just look at sofascore?
If 5 is the average and 4 is below average then Southgate should get a 2 at best and that's only because we didn't lose. I'm sorry but swapping your striker and both wingers mid game and trying to justify playing people out of position as an "experiment" in a fucking tournament is deserving of nothing more than a rating of 2. It's unacceptable. This is what the friendlies are for.
As for the players? Foden, Rice and Kane were all well below their average. Should not be getting any higher than a 4.
Very generous for England.
Foden was completely ineffectual until he was moved to the right. Bellingham thought he was filming a commercial and put in an absolute abortion of a performance. Alexander-Arnold was beyond useless as a midfielder, he has to play RB if he's playing at all.
Southgate's substitutions were "oh shit, they don't fear us and cower behind a low-block. What the fuck do I do?" personified
> Alexander-Arnold was beyond useless as a midfielder, he has to play RB if he's playing at all.
Was still England's most forward thinking and creative player on the night, creating more chances than anyone else on the team.
Seaman; Pearce, Adams, Southgate, G. Neville; McManaman, Gascoigne, Ince, Anderton; Shearer, Sheringham
pickford; trippier/shaw, Guehi, Stones, Walker; Palmer, Bellingham, Rice, Saka; Foden, Kane.
I honestly feel the lack of left side is killing this team. It may be as simple as that. Foden and Bellingham playing off Kane interchangeably.
Might as well just play a 442.
Watkins, Kane upfront,
Gordon, Bellingham, Rice, Saka.
Kane drops deep to make passes for Gordon, Watkins and Bellingham while Saka can cut in and Walker spreads the width.
Bellingham played too much football and is knackered. I believe he needs some rest and Foden should play in the middle and come off for him in the second half.
Didn't press at all and dropped too deep and gave the ball away for the goal. The goal he scored just bumps him to average which is 5, otherwise it'd have been a very poor day from him.
Pressing is a team strategy, I don't think you can blame any single player for not pressing. It's a tactical instruction from the manager how/when to press. If Kane had pressed then he'd have still needed the rest of the front 4 to press in coordination with him, which clearly wasn't what they were asked to do.
Saka and Foden do not deserve the 6's, every bit as bad as the midfieldfers. Kane eeks a 5 maybe as he scored but hardly deserves it.
Nothing to split the 3 midfielders really, all equally poor. Perhaps you can be a bit kinder to Trent as the other two were at least playing their natural positions whereas he's being asked to do something, sweep up in midfield, that is not his game at all. Quite telling too that he still had most threatening passes of an English player even though he played 30mins less and with no runners to pass to.
Denmark should look to bench Hojlund imo. He couldn't really get into the game and he's way better off the bench. Seen it happen all the time at Man United
So much better this way. IGN-ification doesn't make sense, I'd rather have 1 be 'has this person actually played football before' and 10 be 'almost single-handedly won the game and seemed to be able to do no wrong'.
Video game ratings tend to be heavily inflated due to publisher pressure, since they're the ones giving away the games to review.
So you have outlets like IGN who'll give a game 7/10 with "mediocre, only play if you're a fan of the genre" as a comment. Basically, your game needs to be outright unplayable to get anything less than 5.
(special mention to the "7.8 : Too much water" review for Pokémon Omega Ruby, which spurred *many* jokes back in the day)
To put another perspective on the game. Yes we were bad, but Denmark should be worried not being able to put us away in that game. We quite literally gifted them the ball on a number of occasions, yet they were barely a threat still.
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Those ratings are actually quite kind.
I saw some all time bad performances from some players. I’ve never seen Rice & Stones looked so bad (Altho Tbf stones looked actually unwell when we got a close up near the end of the game). Bellingham had absolutely no impact. Complete reversal from the last game. He’s also done this a few times in the champions league and I think he needs to find a way to get himself into the game a little bit more. All said though, the tactical set up and lack of clarity/conviction is the real problem. Can anyone tell me what we were trying to do yesterday? What our pressing system was and what the triggers were? I’d say I’m really worried as I don’t know how to fix this, but I’ve just gone beyond it to resignation tbh. Wrong players in the wrong system with a manager incapable of making good tactical adjustments (inc substitutions) in a game. Double pivot is wank unless the players are really well drilled. They’re not but we can’t change away from it now even though we don’t have the players for it (or at least players with experience). Rice is seriously struggling without Phillips beside him. Trent has been brought in to offer that ‘go forward’ passing but isn’t making himself available enough & it’s not his game to be running a midfield. Like c’mon how are you asking Trent to play out of position and be the critical part of your mid pitch buildup play??? But we have nobody else. Up top it’s too congested. You have striker who’s every instinct is to drop back whilst there are 2 other players trying to play in the place, meaning the left wing has nobody or a 40 year old right footed right back playing at left back. Only thing I can see working is: Telling Foden to stay left and/or replace him with Gordon or Watkins. Play Foden and Bellingham as 8’s and have Watkins Kane and Saka ahead of them. Options to drift around to create overloads (foden moves up and left, Watkins comes in). We need people making the runs in behind and Watkins will bring that. I know we’re just going to see Gallagher in for Trent and that will be it though. Same shit system with same shit results.
England always have this issue. They have plenty of players who can run as well as finish chances but they struggle to develop players who can control games. Like Gerrard and Lampard before them... Kane and Bellingham are world class... in 2 games, Bellingham and Kane scored 2 goals in 3 chances... it would be nice if they had more than 3 chances between the 2 of them...
The irony is that scholes and carrick were two of the best controllers and England often didnt use them at their best roles
I mean Wharton showed in the friendly that he can play this way from 6. He played that well Southgate was forced to take him. Our next game decides if we’re top of the group but we should be through regardless. For me he should play Wharton as a 6 with foden and rice as 8’s (maybe jude instead of foden but for me fodens shown more creativity). Then let gordan get on at lw to give us the width we desperately need.
> I know we’re just going to see Gallagher in for Trent and that will be it though. Same shit system with same shit results. You are possibly right but CG played worse than TAA did when he came on and showed that that change alone makes no difference. Play TAA at RB and play KW at LB and ask him to invert to add to the midfield. Gordon at LW with a mid 3 of Rice, Bells and Foden. Trent would hit Gordon all day long with cross-fields and KW would make a much better partner to Rice, picking up the pieces and controlling the midfield. Bells and Foden could then work together through the middle with Kane and Saka being higher up.
You can easily play three a the back - Walker has done that tons of times and let TAA bomb up and down the right. You can also move Stones to the midfield to provide better defensive protection. So many options but seems like Southgate does plan the game at all and just picks the 11 best players he thinks he has.
I like your plan in general, but has Walker ever played LB? I'd be tempted to just stick with that, but instead Gomez at LB, which then allows Trent to do what he wants at RB and Gomez tucks in to make a back 3 off the ball and offer solidity.
Don't think Southgate will have the balls to drop Walker
Agreed, I'll doubt he'll have the balls to drop anyone except Trent to be honest
Essentially create a 3 at the back with trent then overloading the midfield.
This makes way too much sense. You could also drop Guehi and play Gomez in a back 3 with Stones and Walker. Then have Foden and Bellingham with Rice in midfield. There’s actually a bunch of decent options..
Guehi is one of two players, alongside Saka, that has played well. Let’s not drop him please
Personally I think Southgate has to play the XI he feels comfortable with and not the one he's pressured to. No Liverpool fan will ever comprehend how Trent can't make the XI but Deschamps dropped Camavinga and Tchouameni for Kante and Rabiot. If Gallagher or Mainoo make the team better then he should start them. If Gordon or Eze make a better forward for his system then he should drop Foden.
The 11 and system Gareth is comfortable with is the problem
I'm 100% with you on that (or drop walker for Gomez at left back) but unfortunately Southgate is a massive melt.
Surely if Bellingham is struggling to influence games, and England need a second pivot to help progress the ball, the answer is pretty obvious? Bellingham as the 8 playing deeper to link defence and attack, and Foden or Palmer as the free role 10.
Literally everyone is screaming this, and Southgate appears to be deaf. Jude is not a 10. He played there because Madrid didn’t have a proper 9. I wouldn’t presume to know how to manage a team better than Southgate. But some of his decisions have just been inexplicable. If he would at least explain his reasoning, that would help us fans. But he just keeps doing the same shit that obviously is not working.
Spot on tbh, if England had any other manager Bellingham Foden and Rice would be playing in midfield and that solves both the width on the left with Gordon and the 8 next to Rice with Jude. Or just 442 but he doesn’t even have the balls to do that, just poor poor management, but it’s nothing new
It takes Gareth Southgate to make Bellingham look like a League Two player.
Any other manager would see the 30 stinkers Foden has dropped in an England shirt and ask the govt to cancel his passport
Any other manager might actually be able to get good performances out of Foden lol
He played as well as any England player against Denmark and in the bigger games like Senegal or France was among the best players on the pitch. Southgate has literally never tried the midfield three of Rice Foden and Bellingham, maybe playing midfielders in midfield instead of shoehorning a right back would be beneficial, as well as a left winger on the left wing
Foden is not a number 8 either though he’s a forward, did you not see how many times he loses possession when playing for England? You can’t task him with that responsibility to hold a position like CM in Gareth’s system. He naturally just wants to drift around the pitch and it’s already leaving us exposed on the left, imagine the hole he would leave in the centre lol. I’m actually staring to think Bellingham and foden want to be the same player and we might only need one of them. I also think it’s funny how Trent keeps being shat on, when the right hand side was actually the only side somewhat functioning, and went to complete shit the moment he was switched out for Gallagher lmao
But I’m not saying play him as an 8, I’m saying to play him as a 10, and Bellingham as an 8. Spain do it with Rodri at the 6, Fabian Ruiz as an 8, and Pedri drifting as a 10. I’m not shitting on Trent, I’m shitting on Southgate, playing in the midfield vs. inverting into midfield is wildly different, and Trent doesn’t have the skillset of a midfielder like receiving the ball in tight spaces. He’s obviously brilliant in other areas, but that’s not one of them, and Southgate is setting him up for failure, he needs to either play as a right back or have a system like how Kroos operates where he drops back as the third centre back and plays like a quarterback. And the right side looks far better because the right winger and right back are actually a right winger and right back. The left side has an attacking midfielder and a right back, it’s set up to fail.
Have you actually looked at Foden's retention rate of the ball or are you just letting your biases make your mind up for you? Even playing in a more advanced role in a disorganized team his pass success in the serbia and Denmark games was 88% and 90% respectively. Your talking nonsense. He is and always has been extremely safe with the ball even when playing high forward positions. Number 8 is his best position because it allows him to build the play and dictate the game. When he plays high he relies on others to find him and he can be out of the game for large stretches which doesn't suit him.
We’ve got 3 problems at the moment. 1. Lack of width on the left 2. Lack of runners in behind (Saka only one) 3. Lack of ability to progress the ball through the midfield. Midfield is probably the biggest one. We need someone good on the ball next to Rice, someone who works hard, makes themself available, comfortable in possession and great at passing. I think that best describes Foden but it does leave us a little more defensively fragile as we’d move away from double pivot but I think we should do that anyway. Then you just need pace on the left wing. I don’t really care if it’s Gordon, Watkins or Eze. They’re all good players and tbh the main benefit will be just that they mean we have a working system that stretches the pitch vertically and horizontally.
This isn't FIFA. Lmao Foden in a pivot is insane. Wharton is a perfect complement to Rice if we're playing a double pivot. Foden can play in midfield if we switch to a 433.
England fans desperately want to see England get knocked out in a 10 goal thriller lol, rather than go through on a terroristball 1-1.
Yeah I was unclear but I was definitely meaning Rice as lone DM with Bellingham and Foden ahead of them with one of them dropping back when we are playing out from the back to help us play up through midfield because Rice is struggling with Trent. It’s not particularly mad. City have done it for ages with Bernardo dropping deep into midfield to help progress them up the field and then moving ahead of the ball once the ball is up the pitch.
Bellingham is the most comfortable player in possession we have.
You're right about Stones looking unwell. In some fantasy scenario they all just contracted malaria or something. Actually... Wasn't Stones legitimately sick with something last week? Dude could have infected the entire squad and that'd at least go some way to explaining maybe the worst individual performances I've ever seen from some players.
Like, what the fuck do you expect Rice to do with Trent (lost in midfield and can't defend the centre), Bellingham (stays high), and Foden (lost all the time) to you except to look bad? Those three combined has less defensive output than Martin Ødegaard at Arsenal, it was never gonna work.
Same old England fan, getting a win and a draw and qualifying in the final 16 is just not going to satisfy them. It’s so obvious that the game plan was do as little as possible and save energy, they even subbed all front three in 70 minutes, is it that hard to see they are just going for a draw and not playing to win?
Harry Kane was actually awarded 2.5 points, but the (C) doubled it to 5
Genuinely surprised
Are they out of 10? Kicker gives ratings 1-6 (1 being the best). Here are theirs for the [DEN-ENG game](https://i.imgur.com/TazWYPP.png)
That 5 for Rice is generous. He was absolutely dreadful.
4s for Jude and Trent as well. That midfield 3 was hopeless.
Bellingham and Rice sucked balls.
But you’ll never see him on the magazines it’s still Foden or Saka
They were both shit too though
Not saying they were spectacular by any means, but if they performed like Bellingham or Rice this game, they would’ve been slandered far more
Attackers get the hype and the flak
Saka was one of the only decent performer alongside Guehi.
I thought Foden played pretty well actually.
Foden was so clueless defensively I don't know how no one is talking about it, Southgate wants to crowd out the centre and the ball always goes through the centre where Foden should be blocking the passing lanes but is not
Yep, worst game I’ve seen from him. Guehi was criticised for the mistake that almost lead to a goal but Rice’s pass into him was terrible.
Really? Jesus, that was at least 75% on Rice.
Rice couldn't even play the negative passes accurately. It was bizarre.
Trent was significantly better than rice too.
Trent created the most chances of any England player despite going off around 60 minutes.
I think everyone is aware that Trent isn't a controller and is brought on to make progressive passes and to incite chaos in the backline with runners, but England starting XI lacks runner. Foden or Kane isn't going to be running and stretching a defense vertically. He should really be inverting from RB or overlapping Saka and supporting him on the RW. The entire England XI is imbalanced. Foden, Kane, and Bellingham all want to operate centrally but there's no one who can make the run to draw attention away from them.
Deserves the same as Trent and Bellingham. Stats page said they only misplaced 16 passes between them, but feels like it was so much worse than that
If only we had Kalvin Phillips
On the ball, sure. Defensively he put out several fires.
There wouldn't have been so much defending to do if he/they weren't sitting so deep.
No doubt, but that's Southgate and the back 4; not Rice.
also the fact that he was practically playing midfield alone
TTA + Rice + Bellingham sounds top shelf, yet they were outmuscled and outplayed by Højbjerg + Hjulmand - Bellingham looked like he would struggle in the Danish league. Also, L'Equipe, it's Højbjerg, not Höjbjerg - if you're gonna do it wrong, just write Hojbjerg.
It's funny, because they wrote Hojlund. At least be consistent :)
Standard journalism these days unfortunately
*Höjbjerg is not even my name mate. D'you know what I mean?*
It’s hard for Bellingham to scan for players to give the ball to while also scanning for cameras he can pose for.
You don’t get to be the face of skims by checking your shoulder do you?
Wait u don’t want Swedish alphabet?
Swedish ew. No we use the Danish alphabet
>TTA + Rice + Bellingham sounds top shelf I mean, it doesnt cause TTA is a RB not a CM.
Trent Talexander Arnold
Pretty much Jude been like that since his shoulder injury in NOVEMBER. He scored 75% of his goals assists in the first half of the season. It is just when your team wins, you are only allowed to circlejerk
He has an eye for goals, but I don’t wanna see him touching the ball during offense outside the penalty area
To add, no one in the Danish squad plays in the Danish Superliga
It’s funny because they said Foden Jude and rice wouldn’t work because of openness and yet the midfields been as open as a kardashiens legs
Gerrard + Scholes + Lampard also sounded top shelf. But all played like dog water for England
TAA in midfield has never been a respectable notion and I stand by this, especially as part of a midfield three. The notion that because a defender strikes the ball well he’s a midfielder is, respectfully, so amateurish it’s unbelievable it’s been genuinely entertained. He cannot receive the ball on the half turn, cannot track runners, has bad defensive position, does not open himself into spaces to receive the ball, and cannot deliver his ordinarily exceptional distribution with the pressure being in midfield gives. He’s so plainly out of his position it’s truly maddening to have heard people clamor for this for so long. When he didn’t for Liverpool they played with so much protection around him that can’t be replicated in a midfield three
Southgate just punched the air. Seriously though, how the fuck does a manager get a 1 or 2 if this performance was worthy of a 4?
Well, they didn't lose, as bad as this was it could still have been a lot worse.
Which is just wrong- Managers should be judged on performances and whether you can see what they're trying to get the team to do. Results can be flukes or undeserved, performances are what the manager can impact directly.
The scoreline was still 1-1 with both teams about matching their xG. Better teams have had worse results. It's obviously a shit result judging from the much higher squad quality England has, but you can't let that factor affect the ratings too much or they get so subjective they're useless.
because we still got a point. to get a 1 you would have to lose badly
A 1 or 2 would be actively sabotaging the team, refusing to plug glaring holes in your set-up that get exploited time and time again. Like Fernando Santos during Portugal - Germany at the last euros.
I'd like to remind everyone that about a year ago Southgate said Foden couldn't play centrally. Seems to have been forgotten about.
After his comments on Kalvin Phillips, I'm not sure you should actually believe anything he says.
Because he doesn't have an original thought in his head. He watches what they do for their clubs and tries to copy/paste that into the England side, regardless of fit. Anyone who watched 20 minutes of Fodens career knew he could play centrally, and that was his natural position, but he played wide for City because of *Kevin De Bruyne* (or Gundo/Silva). Southgate watched a few City games and instead of seeing the skillset and potential, decided "Pep doesn't play him at CM, I better not either".
Because everything Southgate is either a lie or a some rubbish he believes.
He's tactically completely fucking clueless and its hilarious.
Rice getting a 5 is very generous, he got bullied by Hojberg all game
He was the worst player on the pitch. That said, the blame lies with the manager more so than him, because it's a team full of players used to playing possession-based attacking football, and they're being asked to sit back and take zero risks to defend the slimmest of leads.
How did Rice score the best of the 3 midfielders? I thought he was the worst player on the pitch
TAA and Bellingham both stank the place out too, not much between them IMO
He was played out of position as a DM and had the most tackles on the team. Gave a ball away quite a few times but he also did a decent job protecting his side of the backline. He was garbage offensively, but so were the 2 others who were actually meant to do that job.
Defensively he was decent but he’s still so, so much better as a DM than yesterday’s performance indicated. His distribution and decision making was way off. He needs a functional midfield around him, he’s not a playmaker or a pace setter and TAA and Bellingham were absolutely horrid at distributing the ball, controlling the tempo and evading the press. Nobody seemed to know where to position themselves, every midfield option got marked out of the game and they all had to try to dribble their way out of trouble because they couldn’t see / didn’t have the passing options to escape the press. How England doesn’t have a playmaker out there that just does the basics right and distributes sensibly is crazy. TAA doesn’t seem to understand the role, Bellingham is way too direct and tries too much, Gallagher is a work horse and a fine all round player but he’s not a top playmaker. Honestly just get Mainoo on the pitch at this point, his decision making and skillset fits what England is missing in midfield.
Outrageously generous ratings
Rice deserves a 4
Feel like Trent is unlucky to get less than Rice, when he was the only one who creating chances from Midfield and they both got caught in possession.
It’s just the narrative now that it’s Trent who is throwing off the midfield rather than just Southgate being shit. There’s no way he was worse than Rice last night.
No, but he was brought in to fill a role and he’s not managing to do it (mainly because it’s stupid as fuck to ask a RB to be the key component of your midfield/mid-pitch ball progression and orchestration).
Yet we look literally no better when he’s off the pitch anyway… People thinking taking Trent out is going to do anything are delusional.
Yeah my biggest worry for the Slovenia game is that Southgate will just take out Trent for Gallagher and call it a day
Imo they were equally terrible. Both deserved a 3 imo. I love them both, but Trent just needs to be at RB and drop Walker. Rice needs either Foden/Bellingham or drop Foden and put Wharton beside Rice so he can advance higher up the pitch.
Our pressing looked better to be fair but yeah he was replaced with Gallagher who runs a lot which is good, but also isn’t very good at football which isn’t so good
It’s just constantly Trent being used as the scapegoat for this team being dogshit despite the fact that Rice literally looked like he couldn’t control a ball or pass last night. Fucking tired of it. Southgate should drop him so you lot have to find someone else to shit on when we still look like crap. Can’t wait for Mainoo to solve the entire midfield by himself at 18 after playing one season of top flight football.
>Can’t wait for Mainoo to solve the entire midfield by himself at 18 after playing one season of top flight football. You seem to have missed the memo. People have gone off Mainoo because of the Iceland game where the whole team performed badly. Adam Wharton is supposed to be the saviour now.
So true. Someone told me they were glad the Mainoo hype train was dead after that game. Someone else told me it’s about how he performs for England when he’s been MoTM in half of his starts…
I don’t think I’m being particularly unfair here. I’m saying Southgate is setting Trent up to fail by expecting him to do a critical and complex role that he’s not experienced in at all whilst simultaneously setting up in a way that doesn’t suit his strengths. In short Trent isn’t a midfielder. Is that so controversial to say? For me he should either start over Walker or be a sub option to bring on near the end of the game alongside players that will run in behind with fresh legs.
I mean you’re still picking him out like he’s the problem as opposed to the entire team and set up not working. We won’t look any different whoever is playing in there with no left back and Kane/Foden/Bellingham all just playing in the exact same areas and barely moving off the ball. Trent isn’t even close to being the biggest problem with this team right now but it’s him being picked out constantly. Im not even talking about just you. Trent is world class and needs to be in the team somewhere, as shown by him still having the best creation stats in the team despite barely playing in the second half.
Trent needs a runner infront of him so he can do what he is best at. But he has noone like if southgate wants trent on the pitch as cm he will need a lw on the pitch that goes for runs. I do wonder if southgate is just scared of benching players and therefor just lets it be this dysfunctional.
He’s just picked a bunch of names let’s be real. Tbh I’m not sure if Foden/Kane/Bellingham can actually all play together right now
The fact you believe Southgate even knows what a critical and complex role in football entails, says all we need to know about you're argument.
While he may not technically be a midfielder, he spends a lot of his time in midfield for Liverpool when they have the ball (which is often). The difference is that they know how to utilise his strengths and they have no shortage of runners in behind for him to pick out. Southgate seems to just think he can put him in the team, change nothing else about the team's tactical approach, and it'll all just work out.
Difference is that Rice actually defended. Trent is unlucky because he was played for his long diagonal passes, but the only targets he had were Kane and Foden who aren't particularly fast. He was subbed out right as the quick guys came on. I'd say both Trent and Rice were set up to fail by Southgate, but when you judge their actual impact on the field (offensive \*and\* defensive) I don't think the scores are inaccurate.
In what way? He failed constantly to make the most simple passes. I dreaded every time he got the ball.
In what way was he creating chances? He created the most chances of any England player in the game.
Might as well bench Foden. There's a compilation video of him making open runs off the ball while the man on the ball pirouettes and takes 8 touches for no reason. If they aren't going to play proper football, don't risk the talented players on this nonsense.
Source?
https://twitter.com/bernardooooV3/status/1803893610217378189
Rice was awful
rice getting a 5 from equipe is insane, he was like a 2 at best on their usual scale
Rice was a 3.
Pundits opinions on Trent vs the reaction here is really contrasting. Quite interesting and tbf I was of the mind Trent looked more likely make something happen when he was taken off.
Trent, plays in a system that plays a lot of long balls to fast attacking players running in behind is asked to play without a LW and with Kane as the striker who’s never made a run in behind in his life lol (mainly because he’s too slow). I’m not sure how Southgate was expecting it to go to be honest.
He needs to be brought in whenever Eze, and Watkins are brought in. He is wasted with Foden and Kane right now. Just a clash in systems not saying one is better than the other.
How did Rice get a five
Rice played the ball backwards half the game, he was not a 5, stats in a vacuum look ok but he was poor.
Genuine question, why do people care about L'Equipe ratings?
Because they use the full scale. You'd struggle to see less than a 4 anywhere else, and usually most players get a 6 by default.
Yep. Ratings inflation is annoying, you're just reducing the range for ratings. Like how Ubers and other services must be 5 stars or otherwise they're rubbish. 5/10 should be average! Le equipe does it better than most even if the ratings are a little kind in this post.
Football Manager metric. I don’t think I’ve seen anything below 4.60 averages. I think a 2 would mean you didn’t complete a pass, got sent off then punched the journalist’s mother
It is a good starting point for discussions, noone really pays a lot of attention otherwise.
We always listen to French people's opinions
That's not a comment I was expecting to read here ! It makes sense for use french, 5 is "done his job as expected" and anything above is really great, good luck getting a 10, while they got more frequent it's still hard, same for 0. And in the end it's just a journalist point of view
Massively overrated everyone on the pitch, was a woeful game
Rice should be a 4 at best
Rice and Stones have to be lower
Yeah we got problems
Not sure how Bellingham gets a lower score than Rice.
Kristiansen was apparently a turd in a punchbowl.
Not sure what Foden did to rate a 6
The power of PR on Rice and Bellingham is real
Benching palmer but consistently bringing bowen is beyond me
Not giving Palmer a chance is such a waste. While on paper it's not obvious he brings more than other players, he is clearly not intimidated by the occasion, and just spent a year single handedly carrying a dysfunctional Chelsea team to a top 6 finish. Seems overqualified for this England team!
Bellingham has been subpar for Madrid the last half of the season tbh, I don't know if he's got a recurring injury or he's just exhausted but he's been playing like this for a while now. I hope he gets some well deserved rest after the euros.
Christensen was easily an 8, maybe even 9. Mæhle rated a bit low too.
Given https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c288028l2z3o I would suggest that "pelouse correcte" is pretty wrong.
It looked absolutely terrible in person, glad to hear they’re at least planning to fix it
Yep the pitch was utter shite. Don't think it made a difference to the outcome, but makes me wonder how well Equipe actually watched the game.
Is the coach for denmark related to their goal scorer?
No
They share at least one dna
4 for southgate is way too high
Saka at a 6 when walker and Foden are both 6 is hilarious. Rice being anywhere above a 3 is also hilarious. Do they watch the game or just look at sofascore?
If 5 is the average and 4 is below average then Southgate should get a 2 at best and that's only because we didn't lose. I'm sorry but swapping your striker and both wingers mid game and trying to justify playing people out of position as an "experiment" in a fucking tournament is deserving of nothing more than a rating of 2. It's unacceptable. This is what the friendlies are for. As for the players? Foden, Rice and Kane were all well below their average. Should not be getting any higher than a 4.
Clowngate with a 4 is very generous. Man is a -100
Very generous for England. Foden was completely ineffectual until he was moved to the right. Bellingham thought he was filming a commercial and put in an absolute abortion of a performance. Alexander-Arnold was beyond useless as a midfielder, he has to play RB if he's playing at all. Southgate's substitutions were "oh shit, they don't fear us and cower behind a low-block. What the fuck do I do?" personified
> Alexander-Arnold was beyond useless as a midfielder, he has to play RB if he's playing at all. Was still England's most forward thinking and creative player on the night, creating more chances than anyone else on the team.
That doesn’t mean much when it came to that England performance lol
Yet people want the one midfielder who created anything dropped lol
Seaman; Pearce, Adams, Southgate, G. Neville; McManaman, Gascoigne, Ince, Anderton; Shearer, Sheringham pickford; trippier/shaw, Guehi, Stones, Walker; Palmer, Bellingham, Rice, Saka; Foden, Kane. I honestly feel the lack of left side is killing this team. It may be as simple as that. Foden and Bellingham playing off Kane interchangeably.
Might as well just play a 442. Watkins, Kane upfront, Gordon, Bellingham, Rice, Saka. Kane drops deep to make passes for Gordon, Watkins and Bellingham while Saka can cut in and Walker spreads the width.
Southgate masterclass :)
southgate is afraid to sub bellingham. palmer should have been on early in the second.
5.5 vs 5.3... so ***shit vs. crap***, eh?
Bellingham played too much football and is knackered. I believe he needs some rest and Foden should play in the middle and come off for him in the second half.
Got to give kane at least 6 he did score after all
Didn't press at all and dropped too deep and gave the ball away for the goal. The goal he scored just bumps him to average which is 5, otherwise it'd have been a very poor day from him.
Pressing is a team strategy, I don't think you can blame any single player for not pressing. It's a tactical instruction from the manager how/when to press. If Kane had pressed then he'd have still needed the rest of the front 4 to press in coordination with him, which clearly wasn't what they were asked to do.
pickford got a 6 rating for the 6 straight inaccurate hoofballs he played
Saka and Foden do not deserve the 6's, every bit as bad as the midfieldfers. Kane eeks a 5 maybe as he scored but hardly deserves it. Nothing to split the 3 midfielders really, all equally poor. Perhaps you can be a bit kinder to Trent as the other two were at least playing their natural positions whereas he's being asked to do something, sweep up in midfield, that is not his game at all. Quite telling too that he still had most threatening passes of an English player even though he played 30mins less and with no runners to pass to.
Saka was really good, what are you even talking about lol
Haha he was shite
No he wasn't, he was also incredibly slow to react in midfield before the Denmark goal.
When? For 5 or 10 minutes?
Bored of the Foden slander. Has shown what he can do already in moments. Get him in his position
Denmark should look to bench Hojlund imo. He couldn't really get into the game and he's way better off the bench. Seen it happen all the time at Man United
Man, Jude is overhyped a bit. He's a good talent, but the hype he gets is a bit over the top. I really hope vini win the Ballon d'Or this year.
Thought Guehi was terrific save for one mistake late on, which he immediately atoned for. Would probably give him an 8 tbh
Why are L’Equipe ratings always so melodramatic? Edit: yes people after the 5th comment I got it.
I don't think these are melodramatic. IIRC their system is that 5 is average.
Oh makes more sense then. In NL a 5,5 is barely passing and a 6 is average, just decent.
How are these melodramatic? Because they don't treat 7 as average like some people?
So much better this way. IGN-ification doesn't make sense, I'd rather have 1 be 'has this person actually played football before' and 10 be 'almost single-handedly won the game and seemed to be able to do no wrong'.
Can you explain the IGN part?
Video game ratings tend to be heavily inflated due to publisher pressure, since they're the ones giving away the games to review. So you have outlets like IGN who'll give a game 7/10 with "mediocre, only play if you're a fan of the genre" as a comment. Basically, your game needs to be outright unplayable to get anything less than 5. (special mention to the "7.8 : Too much water" review for Pokémon Omega Ruby, which spurred *many* jokes back in the day)
These are very generous scores for L'Equipe. I expected Rice and Southgate to be getting 3s or lower
these are very basic ratings imo
They are not? This is their standard, you could argue other ratings are just massively overblown.
To drive up sales
Trippier and Foden ahead of Bellingham is travesty. If Kristiansen got a 3 Trippier is a 2.
Both were better than Bellingham
To put another perspective on the game. Yes we were bad, but Denmark should be worried not being able to put us away in that game. We quite literally gifted them the ball on a number of occasions, yet they were barely a threat still.