Rashford. Dropped

Other than 2 goals and an assist you mean?

 

When on form, Rashford is the best player we have for the best right sided forward position, and he is on form.

A selection made worse by the fact that Saka was a struggling so far (like most of them)

 

family problems apparently

 

Well in Saka. Proves what little I know about football.

 

What if he's saving him for France. Anyway players in a squad game are not dropped just swapped. Being dropped is an old fashioned term in todays game.

 

I don't understand you. We're tearing this world cup apart.

 

I think you are viewing this England team through the shiit-tinted glasses of the days of Seaman and Gerrard. Which is understandable, but this lot aren't like those losers and they haven't been for a while now.

We've absolutely battered, annihilated the opposition in 3 of the 4 games we've played. In the other we were really poor and still didn't concede.

 

There's about five or six teams capable of winning this competition. We're one of them.
So far we've played four games we'd be reasonably expected to win on paper. We've won three and played well in patches and badly in others.
The real challenges start against France.

 

We’ve battered 3 out of 4 teams what more do you want?!

France will be a totally different challenge but our tournament so far has been incredible.

 

Saka -
PL - 4 goals, 6 assists and widely being praised as being in outstanding form and large part of Arsenal being top.
WC - 3 goals in 3 games.
I’d settle for players struggling with stats like that TBH.

 

I meant that he was struggling specifically in the game, which he was in the first 30 minutes when I posted. He played better after the first goal, which was down to good play from Kane and Bellingham, but we can't afford a first 30 minutes like that against France, and will need better movement from the wide forwards from the start.

 

I don't think there's such thing as being dropped unless you have a mare. It's all about the group these days.

 

We’re one of only 4 teams not to have lost this tournament.

Gareth and the team deserve credit. And we’re the top scorers in the competition, with a 0-0. Another team scored 7 in one game.

I don’t get why people give Southgate or the team abuse for being too negative. I personally think we’ve looked the strongest, most attacking team in the competition so far.

The US game, they deserve more credit, rather than us being rubbish. Did a job on us that day. But positively, we defended really well. Some would say that’s our weak point too.

 

I still think France will do us based on what I've seen thus far. They are a way better side and all things being equal should beat us. That's not to say I'd be pleasantly surprised if we won.

It's been a nagging doubt of mine whether we'd have beaten France had we got past Croatia in 2018. I don't think we've improved or regressed as a side since that night. I reckon it should have been the last Final.

 

Southgate gets criticism from me for allowing a position of strength in both games against Croatia and Italy to become hour long periods where we dropped deep and handed the initiative. If that wasn't his tactic (to drop deep) he should have done something to change the game.
Two massive games we went from on top to overrun.
We've done OK this tournament against teams we're expected to beat. The crunch comes against France. We have the players to beat them. If he is positive within reason and we get beat fair and square I'll have no issues with him. If we score first and try to defend it for an hour like the last two big occasions.....

 

I think he'll go for it against the French and wish he hadn't. Look at the Poles on Sunday. They went hell for leather and burnt themselves out. I think the pragmatic approach will work against the French.

 

I think, in future, we have our opinions, but we also say that the best person in position to make these calls is probably the manager with all the experience, who has been in training and who is close to the team.

Not some bloke on a computer in England.

 

I'm all for a bit of pragmatism but he has to give the players who are capable of winning the game for us the licence to do it. He has to tell them to try and open France up rather than pass it square and back hoping one of their world class players is going to go to sleep and leave somebody unmarked. And he has to, should we go in front, tell the team to not drop back to the edge of our area and try and defend for an hour cos that will not work against a top class team.
I get that we can't go completely gung ho at them though.