The England Thread

[Riandor]

What does/did Henderson offer going forward?
Team always play with at least one dm no Matter who they play
For me it's either dier or Henderson, not both

I thought Henderson was rubbish yesterday, in fact has been for a while.

However, if he finds some form and Lallana returns to fitness and form, then there's synergy. Players used to playing together and I always think at international level that that works.

So when Lallana isn't playing, I would play Dier instead of him and then a progressive forward thinking midfielder. Maybe Winks, but he needs more game time at club.

 

[nicdic]

England are hard work to watch right now. But when Lallana is out we lack real quality in linking the middle and final thirds. Who'd have thought he'd become such a key player. If everyone's fit we should be able to field a decent enough team, but shoehorning players like Henderson and Rashford into this team is awful.

If Rose gets fit and back playing well then a 3-4-2-1 could be good?

Not Hart
CB CB CB
Walker Dier Winks Rose
Lallana Alli
Kane​

Leaves us with options to do something different from the bench with Rashford, Sterling, Lingard, etc. But that at least offers us players with a bit of intelligent movement and vision.

 

[nailsy]

I've never been one to advocate his appointment as he's been out the game for too long but maybe that's what we need. Someone who understands the game and not Southgate who is just another manual coached manager appointed by Ashworth and his jobs for the boys network.

I think Hoddle would have been a great appointment. At International level you need someone who can get their ideas across to the players quickly and he has the intelligence and eloquence to do that. Like you say though him being out of the game for so long, at least as a manger, doesn't help. His controversial religious views would probably be an issues as well - although it doesn't seem to be an issue when he's talking about the game on TV.

 

[nicdic]

I don't have a problem with Southgate to be honest. I think he understands the issues with the squad, and isn't afraid to give younger players a chance. We need to realise we're not a top tier team, and be a bit more patient. We need to be aiming at a tournament down the road, not the next one.

 

[nailsy]

I don't have a problem with Southgate to be honest. I think he understands the issues with the squad, and isn't afraid to give younger players a chance. We need to realise we're not a top tier team, and be a bit more patient. We need to be aiming at a tournament down the road, not the next one.

I'm willing to give Southgate more time. A lot of what he says makes sense, but I haven't seen much progress on the pitch yet. I'd like to know what it is he's trying to do. What formation does he think we should be playing? Does he want us to try and play like Spain, or does he want us to become more of a hard working team unit like Wales? To be fair to Southgate I doubt he's had much time to get his ideas across to the players. How many International breaks has he had? Eight? And with personnel changing each time as well. I don't think we'll really know if he's making real progress until we get to the actual tournament.

 

[nightgoat]

Sorry, I forgot we are only allowed scapegoats from other clubs. Because that's all you were doing. What does Dier do better than Henderson that would improve a game like this? Better movement ? More incisive passing ? Quicker tempo ? More dynamic ?

Calling for Dier to play instead of Henderson is nothing but childish Spurs bias, and it's tedious.

Yes, all of these things. And as I said he'd also play the defensive role of the two in midfield (like he did exceptionally for us two seasons ago when we still predominantly played 4-2-3-1) which would give Winks more license to operate further up the pitch where his passing and guile could do more damage.

Seriously, take a look around. Henderson has been slated for his performances in these last two games by everyone. Everyone. Quite rightly, because he's been terrible. Even can't-bring-himself-to-say-anything-bad-against-Liverpool McNumpty on the BBC gave Henderson 4/10 for yesterday's game. If you take your anti-Dier blinkers off for one second you'll see the only other options were Livermore, who plays a similar role but not as well, or Oxlade-Chamberlain who has also been terrible this season.

The fact that you're trying to rewrite this as Spurs bias when Henderson is being universally panned just because you can't stand Dier just shows how you've lost the plot on this. But you summed yourself up pretty well as childish and tedious.

 

[nightgoat]

I was thinking exactly this. Hoddles knows what he is talking about. And understands flair. And how to use it. Not these paint by numbers managers who are ruining team England. I want to gouge my eyes watching England for the last 10 years.

The commentator noted at the start of the game that this was the first time England had started a competitive match with a back three since Hoddle was manager. Hoddle was the last England manager to get them playing consistently well, and now every manager and his dog is playing the formation Hoddle used.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

Some of England's dullness in the Qualifiers may be due to the lack of quality opposition.

It's often been the case with Spurs in the past (not so much last season, but still a bit) that if they're struggling to find their best form, they need to play a really top team that will put them to the test. England just haven't been stretched and sometimes you can't play your best in those games. Also a bit like when Spurs are 3 up at half time, it's hard ti produce their best in the second half because there's no real pressure.

There's more to it than just that, but that's a bit of it I suspect. I'm optimistic that England will do better against better teams. Like we never do in the past!

 

[nailsy]

Some of England's dullness in the Qualifiers may be due to the lack of quality opposition.

It's often been the case with Spurs in the past (not so much last season, but still a bit) that if they're struggling to find their best form, they need to play a really top team that will put them to the test. England just haven't been stretched and sometimes you can't play your best in those games. Also a bit like when Spurs are 3 up at half time, it's hard ti produce their best in the second half because there's no real pressure.

There's more to it than just that, but that's a bit of it I suspect. I'm optimistic that England will do better against better teams. Like we never do in the past!

I think this is spot on. Hopefully we'll see an improvement when they launch the new format European League and we're playing better sides.

 

[spursfan77]

The commentator noted at the start of the game that this was the first time England had started a competitive match with a back three since Hoddle was manager. Hoddle was the last England manager to get them playing consistently well, and now every manager and his dog is playing the formation Hoddle used.

Exactly

http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2013/12/17/revealed-glenn-hoddles-tottenham-formation-and-preferred-xi/

Swap the players round we now have into this formation (for both us and England) and its pretty familiar. This was nearly 4 years ago btw.

 

[wakefieldyid]

England are hard work to watch right now. But when Lallana is out we lack real quality in linking the middle and final thirds. Who'd have thought he'd become such a key player. If everyone's fit we should be able to field a decent enough team, but shoehorning players like Henderson and Rashford into this team is awful.

I like Lallana as a player but, over the past 30 years, you could replace the the name "Lallana" with Gazza, Beckham, Gerrand, Rooney, and many, many more names, whose return to the team was expected to guarantee to resolve the failings of the rest of the England side. It's just a cop-out - when these players returned to the side, they rarely transformed the performance of the team as a whole, and the current Lallana cult ignores the fact that he's now approaching 30 and has struggled to stay fit for long enough to risk inclusion in a tournament squad.

 

[Ionman34]

Some of England's dullness in the Qualifiers may be due to the lack of quality opposition.

It's often been the case with Spurs in the past (not so much last season, but still a bit) that if they're struggling to find their best form, they need to play a really top team that will put them to the test. England just haven't been stretched and sometimes you can't play your best in those games. Also a bit like when Spurs are 3 up at half time, it's hard ti produce their best in the second half because there's no real pressure.

There's more to it than just that, but that's a bit of it I suspect. I'm optimistic that England will do better against better teams. Like we never do in the past!

I'll probably get told to remove the Lillywhite glasses here, but here goes;

One of the things that I noticed most about last nights game was what we were trying to do going forward. In our combination play, when the Spurs contingent were linking up, the balls into feet, lay off's, movement into pockets of space etc was quite dynamic and penetrative. On those occasions when Winks got up around their 18 yard box, Dele, Kane and Trippier were always in position to receive, lay off and move with one and two touch passing that opened up some real opportunities, which then broke down when the ball went to a non Spurs player. Rashford was culpable on a few of these occasions when his first touch was extremely poor, or he dallied on the ball, or fluffed the lay off. Henderson too whenever he got involved in the quick one touch play, causing the move to break down.
Now you expect that this will happen as that kind of precision in a packed defence is difficult to execute, but it seemed that the vast majority of the time it was as a result of poor technical ability from those players.

This was in the latter stages of the first half and had me hoping that Southgate would see this, drop Henderson back to a more central holding role, thereby allowing Winks to operate higher up the pitch to increase the opportunities for that quick incisive play. Instead he seemed to have Winks carry out the DM responsibilities while Henderson marauded forward, which completely removed that incisiveness that Winks brought, meaning that Kane had to run the wide channels more as any potential incision was from wider areas.
In effect, playing Henderson as the more forward of the two nullified not only Winks' effectiveness, but Kane's and, to an extent, Alli's as we lost most of our central incisiveness.

It was a poor decision from Southgate, imo, if indeed he did instruct that and it wasn't just Henderson taking it upon himself to maraud.

What it has shown me is that, in just one appearance, Winks has put a huge question mark in front of Southgate. He demonstrated a dynamism and vision that, if harnessed properly, could make a huge difference to the attacking prowess of England.

We know his capabilities at Spurs and that he's only just beginning to display his range of talent. I don't think it'll be long before the rest of the country does too.

And it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up being the fulcrum of the national side for years to come.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

This may have been posted already, but made me chuckle

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Yes, all of these things. And as I said he'd also play the defensive role of the two in midfield (like he did exceptionally for us two seasons ago when we still predominantly played 4-2-3-1) which would give Winks more license to operate further up the pitch where his passing and guile could do more damage.

Seriously, take a look around. Henderson has been slated for his performances in these last two games by everyone. Everyone. Quite rightly, because he's been terrible. Even can't-bring-himself-to-say-anything-bad-against-Liverpool McNumpty on the BBC gave Henderson 4/10 for yesterday's game. If you take your anti-Dier blinkers off for one second you'll see the only other options were Livermore, who plays a similar role but not as well, or Oxlade-Chamberlain who has also been terrible this season.

The fact that you're trying to rewrite this as Spurs bias when Henderson is being universally panned just because you can't stand Dier just shows how you've lost the plot on this. But you summed yourself up pretty well as childish and tedious.

Dier has been varying degrees of terrible in just about every game he's played for England. Did you not see the last 3/4 games ? Scotland etc ? Would Dier have scored even a "4" in those games ?

I didn’t bring Dier into this discussion, others did, by suggesting he’d somehow be an improvement on Henderson.

It's got nothing to do with any bias. I wouldn't have given a shit if Dier had played instead of Henderson, it's just total Spurs bias suggesting that he'd have improved anything, suddenly made England more incisive or intelligent creatively, injected better tempo etc. It's utter nonsense, and the evidence is there in every England game that Dier played prior to yesterday. England actually played marginally better yesterday than they did the previous few games. Moved the ball quicker, etc Just had an atrocious bunch of forwards who fucked away every attack with carelessness and poor decisions.

That game, and most England qualifying games, did not need a purely "defensive" cm. They played a CM2, against a team that did not venture outside it's own box. What England's tactics required was two CM's who would be more dynamic, more offensive minded but not be too much of a defensive compromise either. Dier might have been OK too, but that's not the point, the point is it's tactically bogus and just pure Spurs blinkers to suggest that Dier would have improved anything offensively over and above Henderson.

This "BC hates Dier" bollocks is very unimaginative and boring. I have explained why I don't want Dier playing in CM2's very often (not always though) detail many times. I have always said how much I like Dier as a young CB with potential to be an Alderwireld one day, when others have criticised him as a CB, and as a character in our squad and he's more acceptable in a CM3 system we have played recently and that he was fine with Winks next to him against Huddersfield.

Do you not read these views or is it that you do but just choose to ignore them?

There's a gaggle of clucking lemmings on here that think it's acceptable to label anyone who doesn't share their opinion of a player as a "hater" or as having an "agenda". No matter how much anecdotal and statistical evidence you provide to support, what is in fact, just an opinion, a theory, not a "hate" or and "agenda". And having to constantly keep caveating every conversation with this, just because people don't have the intellect or inclination to discuss and exchange opinions and instead choose to go after the person voicing it, is very, very fucking tedious.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

Perhaps the lack of familiarity with each other does play a bigger part than we realise. Notice that the goal the other day was Walker supplying Kane, something they've done dozens of times before, so Walker knew his pace and what Kane was likely to do in that situation.

Watching some of the "high"lights *cough* the lack of communication is also pretty apparent, especially with our defenders - when we're defending there's no-one out there directing traffic and even when options were there in midfield, getting the ball back out looked like hard work.

Time together, a more aggressive style (and possibly formation) from Southgate and some proper defenders magicked out of thin air are the only way I can see England doing anything other than boring me to sleep in this competition.

Again.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I'll probably get told to remove the Lillywhite glasses here, but here goes;

One of the things that I noticed most about last nights game was what we were trying to do going forward. In our combination play, when the Spurs contingent were linking up, the balls into feet, lay off's, movement into pockets of space etc was quite dynamic and penetrative. On those occasions when Winks got up around their 18 yard box, Dele, Kane and Trippier were always in position to receive, lay off and move with one and two touch passing that opened up some real opportunities, which then broke down when the ball went to a non Spurs player. Rashford was culpable on a few of these occasions when his first touch was extremely poor, or he dallied on the ball, or fluffed the lay off. Henderson too whenever he got involved in the quick one touch play, causing the move to break down.
Now you expect that this will happen as that kind of precision in a packed defence is difficult to execute, but it seemed that the vast majority of the time it was as a result of poor technical ability from those players.

This was in the latter stages of the first half and had me hoping that Southgate would see this, drop Henderson back to a more central holding role, thereby allowing Winks to operate higher up the pitch to increase the opportunities for that quick incisive play. Instead he seemed to have Winks carry out the DM responsibilities while Henderson marauded forward, which completely removed that incisiveness that Winks brought, meaning that Kane had to run the wide channels more as any potential incision was from wider areas.
In effect, playing Henderson as the more forward of the two nullified not only Winks' effectiveness, but Kane's and, to an extent, Alli's as we lost most of our central incisiveness.

It was a poor decision from Southgate, imo, if indeed he did instruct that and it wasn't just Henderson taking it upon himself to maraud.

What it has shown me is that, in just one appearance, Winks has put a huge question mark in front of Southgate. He demonstrated a dynamism and vision that, if harnessed properly, could make a huge difference to the attacking prowess of England.

We know his capabilities at Spurs and that he's only just beginning to display his range of talent. I don't think it'll be long before the rest of the country does too.

And it wouldn't surprise me if he ends up being the fulcrum of the national side for years to come.

I don't agree with what you are saying I'm afraid. For a start, Alli was as guilty as any of the other forwards of failing to control or losing the ball, and he's got less excuse that the likes of Rashford, he's more experienced, has experience as a CM and AM, whereas Rashford is just a direct forward (CF, WF).

Henderson wasn't played as the more "forward" of the two. They were played as a double pivot with similar remits, and I think it was the right way to play, what you would gain by designating one of them more attacking you would lose by anchoring play by having another as more defensive in a game like this. The problem's were more about the fact that none of the players are of high (top class) quality, and particularly those playing in advanced positions (ahead of the midfield) were fucking awful yesterday, erratic, clumsy, selfish (and even Kane said the same post match). Winks isn't Modric yet either, but did at least add some of the qualities England midfields have been sorely lacking, a metronome with a progressive remit, and there will be games where pairing him with a more defensive partner will be viable, but games like yesterday's aren't one of them.

I think Winks probably did take more balls off defenders in deeper positions, but I think he would have done this regardless of who he was paired up with because he's that type of player, he wants the ball, he's more comfortable receiving it under pressure, will offer himself to defenders or team mates looking for an out. Dier is even less comfortable doing that than Henderson is, so wouldn't have changed that aspect. Winks would still have been the one showing more. I posted stats for the Huddersfield game, where Winks played an identical system with Dier.

v Huddersfield (Winks 64 passes, 87%) (Dier 45, 75%)

v Lithuania (Winks 99p 96%) (98p, 89%)

This shows that not only were both CM's for England far more involved in the game, but Winks input increased by 30%.

What happened in the second half was just that Lithuania got deeper and deeper and this just decreased the forward options for England, inc. Winks.

For the record, here's a heat map of both games:

Eng v Lith

Hudd v Spurs

Very little difference in positional relationship between Henderson/Winks and Dier/Winks overall. Just in the England game they are camped further up the pitch.

 

[teddy_sheringham_125]

Personally, this would be my preferred line up right now:

Butland
Jones Stones
Walker Dier Rose
?
Lallana Dele Rashford
Kane
​

Dier slotting in and out of the back 2/3 as and when required. Gives license to Walker and Rose. Not sure who should be the other centre mid - nobody has grabbed it yet for me, but needs to be a player who can pick a pass (i.e. not Henderson).

 

[Bus-Conductor]

@Ionman34

Here are the touch maps for Winks in both games:

Eng

Spurs v Hudd

As you can see, he's seeing far more ball in deeper areas playing with Dier for Spurs.

Now, we have to factor in the different types of games and how they unfolded etc, but there were good tactical similarities in both games, with many similar players involved even (Kane, Alli, Trippier etc).

 

[Marty]

http://www.football365.com/news/stop-criticising-england-just-lower-your-expectations

Good piece from the usually excellent John Nicholson. Particularly like this bit

“Surely we should expect more from our national team?” said Danny (who also wanted Jermain Defoe introduced because “…he’ll run around…”) Well why should we expect more? Expectation, be it positive or negative, is largely based on history. If the history suggests they’ll play fairly boring football, then the expectation should be that they will do so again. We apply that logic in life all the time. If episodes one, two and three of a 20-part series are boring, you know episode four will likely be too and adjust your expectations accordingly. And thus when England play as per usual, they should not be criticised; they’re performing to par. To decry them for doing that is like complaining that red is not being blue.

 

[Streetspur77]

England are hard work to watch right now. But when Lallana is out we lack real quality in linking the middle and final thirds. Who'd have thought he'd become such a key player. If everyone's fit we should be able to field a decent enough team, but shoehorning players like Henderson and Rashford into this team is awful.

If Rose gets fit and back playing well then a 3-4-2-1 could be good?

Not Hart
CB CB CB
Walker Dier Winks Rose
Lallana Alli
Kane​

Leaves us with options to do something different from the bench with Rashford, Sterling, Lingard, etc. But that at least offers us players with a bit of intelligent movement and vision.

If we play that with butland in goal and stones, jones and Cahill we will do decent in the tournament imo