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England - Euro 2016 Thread


Djstu23

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what options really are there at LB right now though? Baines isn't really cut out for international football and Shaw's always injured. Gibbs doesn't play regularly enough for Arsenal and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Ben Chilwell still something of an unknown quantity cos they're still so inexperienced at even senior club level. Bertrand might be just about the only viable option we have right now.

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what options really are there at LB right now though? Baines isn't really cut out for international football and Shaw's always injured. Gibbs doesn't play regularly enough for Arsenal and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Ben Chilwell still something of an unknown quantity cos they're still so inexperienced at even senior club level. Bertrand might be just about the only viable option we have right now.

Danny Rose? Not that he's any better or worse than the usual suspects.

Actually Cresswell at West Ham might be worth a shout too.

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what options really are there at LB right now though? Baines isn't really cut out for international football and Shaw's always injured. Gibbs doesn't play regularly enough for Arsenal and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Ben Chilwell still something of an unknown quantity cos they're still so inexperienced at even senior club level. Bertrand might be just about the only viable option we have right now.

I'm guessing you're mentioning Cameron Borthwick-Jackson purely because he played a couple of games for Man U? Barmy, forget the fact he's rubbish, and runs like a T-Rex, has he even been capped at u21?

It'll be Baines (if Shaw doesn't make it). Should be Cresswell though, he at least deserves a chance.

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I'm guessing you're mentioning Cameron Borthwick-Jackson purely because he played a couple of games for Man U? Barmy, forget the fact he's rubbish, and runs like a T-Rex, has he even been capped at u21?

It'll be Baines (if Shaw doesn't make it). Should be Cresswell though, he at least deserves a chance.

Doubt you've seen much of CBJ, but he is decent, however he's only just (barely) about ready to break into the first team, let alone go anywhere near England. He's not capped at U21 as he is still playing U19 football (still 18) having been capped at every junior level under that.

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I think it's getting a tad late to start chucking in new guys. We only have 2 games left to prepare. Of course there is room for players in exceptional form but I think the core of the squad is already there.

3 keepers, Clyne, Smalling, Cahill, Stones, Bertrand, Henderson, Alli, Milner, Dier, Barkley, Sterling, Walcott, Rooney, Kane, Vardy are all certs unless they get injured.

Roys shown he's quite conservative with his picks. He doesnt really chuck players in for the hell of it. Even Alli, who was in great form, got called up the first time for 2 dead rubbers against Estonia and Lithuania only saw like 20 mins on the pitch but clearly impressed as he was rewarded with games against Spain and France. Which I think is the right way to go really. The likes of Drinkwater and Cresswell have no chance really, not until the next cycle.

I think these friendlies won't see many newbies. Be more of a chance to see if Alli & Dier can continue what they started, settle on a first choice centre back pairing and see what Vardy can do up top at this level.

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Doubt you've seen much of CBJ, but he is decent, however he's only just (barely) about ready to break into the first team, let alone go anywhere near England. He's not capped at U21 as he is still playing U19 football (still 18) having been capped at every junior level under that.

True, but the couple of times I did watch him I thought he'd won a raffle to be on the pitch.

You're right though, he's a professional footballer so I need to see more of him.

He does run like a T-Rex though.

http://youtu.be/idxU5PMGtoo

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Cameron Borthwick-Jackson was the 3rd best English left back on the Old Trafford pitch on Saturday, Ryan Bertrand (playing as a left centre back in a three) and Matthew Targett are higher in the England pecking order than him. Targett is the current England under 21 left back and with Shaw injured and Baines not performing well... Bertrand should be first choice for England as he is having yet again another superb season. Appears Hodsgon now prefers Bertrand over Cresswell, Gibbs, Rose and rightly so.

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Is Baines not playing well? Or is this one of those things that if you repeat it enough times it becomes true?

Much like Baines being out of his depth at the World Cup because he couldn't defend against 2 players. Nothing to do with Rooney and/or Gerrard not helping him out at all (but it doesn't pay to criticise them).

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Is Baines not playing well? Or is this one of those things that if you repeat it enough times it becomes true?

Much like Baines being out of his depth at the World Cup because he couldn't defend against 2 players. Nothing to do with Rooney and/or Gerrard not helping him out at all (but it doesn't pay to criticise them).

You had a point until you mentioned Rooney and Gerrard, who got a tremendous amount of stick for World Cup performances, bizarre to suggest otherwise.

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But not for not protecting Baines. Rooney was the left sided forward, Gerrard was the left sided central midfielder. They should both have seen he was being doubled up on (and he was telling them) and Rooney didn't have the discipline or energy to track back and Gerrard either didn't have the tactical intelligence to recognise it or he wanted to hide in the centre.

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But not for not protecting Baines. Rooney was the left sided forward, Gerrard was the left sided central midfielder. They should both have seen he was being doubled up on (and he was telling them) and Rooney didn't have the discipline or energy to track back and Gerrard either didn't have the tactical intelligence to recognise it or he wanted to hide in the centre.

This was also pointed out a lot during the world cup too. Gerrard also didn't have the physical ability to actually cover, in fact he was a player that needed covering. Which made it all the more insane he was doing that job.

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But not for not protecting Baines. Rooney was the left sided forward, Gerrard was the left sided central midfielder. They should both have seen he was being doubled up on (and he was telling them) and Rooney didn't have the discipline or energy to track back and Gerrard either didn't have the tactical intelligence to recognise it or he wanted to hide in the centre.

People wanted Baines to fail so they could have a go for not taking Cole. Even though by this point Cole was well passed his best and no longer playing every week.

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Baines has come back from injury and set up 2 of the three goals against Chelsea. Yeah he should be nowhere near the England team /s

If Shaw was injured or not, I'd still start Baines over Shaw. And yeah Baines was made to look poor at the World Cup vs Italy because he had Darmian and Candreva ganging up on him , where Gerrard and Rooney did nothing to help defend. Cole wasn't as good anymore, and his move to Roma showed us all how bad he's fallen.

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Cameron Borthwick-Jackson was the 3rd best English left back on the Old Trafford pitch on Saturday, Ryan Bertrand (playing as a left centre back in a three) and Matthew Targett are higher in the England pecking order than him. Targett is the current England under 21 left back and with Shaw injured and Baines not performing well... Bertrand should be first choice for England as he is having yet again another superb season. Appears Hodsgon now prefers Bertrand over Cresswell, Gibbs, Rose and rightly so.

This. This. This. Bertrand should be no.1 but Baines has been decent since returning. Against us, him and Barkley ran the show. It will be a close call between him and Baines. But if there are three LB going, I think it should be Bertrand, Baines and Rose. If it is 2, most probably Bertrand and Baines.

And for RB, I think people really underestimate Walker. He has the odd lapses in concentration etc but he has really improved from last season and even better this season. A lot of Spurs fans thought Trippier would take his place but he has not been able to. Recent weeks he seems to be starting ahead of him. Not sure what that is down to but going forward, he is excellent and defensively, he rarely gets beat in a one on one situation. Him and Clyne is a tough choice but Hodgson will probably go for Clyne.

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He has improved in that aspect. He rarely gets beaten in a one on one situation. I remember when they played Arsenal this season. He was excellent against Sanchez. Clyne has gone to Liverpool now and even people are saying he is suspect defensively. Tottenham just bomb their Fb forward at every opportunity so that is why he might be exposed but I say his positives outweigh his negatives.

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but you can't get away with it at international level!!

Honestly the cliche **** people come out with about international football is so tiresome

I know it's trendy, particularly in football journalism, to label things as being clichéd. The thing is, sometimes tropes are repeated because they are true, but if it continues to be true, the idea is not a cliché. Repetition does not make a concept a cliché.

An example of a meme that probably is a cliché is something like "foreigners footballers aren't hard working enough" or "the team plays better when down to ten men". It's repeated, not demonstrably true, and has lost meaning. That's what a cliché is.

If you honestly think the Premiership places as much of a demand on concentration as international tournament football, and assuming you actually watch football (I assume so given your forum status), you are just wrong. Champions League, yeah, that's more like it. But not the Premiership.

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So what you're saying is if you make a mistake in a cup competition then it can have a greater impact than if it was a league game as the consequences are greater. Of course thats true and its just common sense thing to say so, you could say the same thing about any cup competition.

Yeah I watch football surprisingly, I watched a team get to a World Cup semi final and concede 7 goals, you know because the standard of player and teams is so much higher there than the laughable quality you'd see in the PL

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For a lot of our players I think playing at the Euros will be some of the toughest football they've ever played. Not necessarily due to the quality of opposition but the pressures and unfamiliarity of it all. Likes of Vardy, Alli, Stones, Clyne, Barkley, Kane etc it will be a certain kind of adapting they'll have to make. So I don't think it's a cliche to say 'so and so can't step up to international level'. Maybe step up in the wrong word though.

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What does being able to handle the pressure even mean? When your supposedly veteran captain is heading a ball back that ends up knocking your team out of the World Cup, does that mean he couldn't handle the pressure either?

I'd put not being to handle the pressure at that level as another cliche **** statement

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What does being able to handle the pressure even mean? When your supposedly veteran captain is heading a ball back that ends up knocking your team out of the World Cup, does that mean he couldn't handle the pressure either?

I'd put not being to handle the pressure at that level as another cliche **** statement

You don't know what handling pressure means? If you were playing one of your first games for England at a European Championship would you not feel pressure?

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BC I think you're right to be cynical of cliché but you also need to be aware of where there's good reason for common sense. I also think you're right that "can't handle the pressure" hides a multitude of problems.

It swings the other way too. A player might appear out of his depth in the Premiership, but look good at international level. Demichelis? It's just because different forms of football develop that suit different players. We have a more physical game, international level is more mental (that's very broad, granted). What I always think is interesting is: what would it take to *change* those forms of the game? i.e. what would it take for a Premiership style team to actually do well at international level? Or the other way around? I guess the answer is they'd have to be so so outstanding at that form, and be prepared to somehow mentally separate themselves from external factors ("Attack, attack, attack" *groan*).

Thinking about it, worst cliché for me was the England Golden Generation. Now that IS a cliché.

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What does being able to handle the pressure even mean? When your supposedly veteran captain is heading a ball back that ends up knocking your team out of the World Cup, does that mean he couldn't handle the pressure either?

I'd put not being to handle the pressure at that level as another cliche **** statement

That's Gerrard though, 10 years previous he played Thierry Henry through on goal. A couple of months previously he played Demba Ba through on goal. I'm sure he did the same to Drogba once as well.

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I don't call that a failure to handle pressure. I call it just not having the nous and it can show on either stage. Alternatively, you're talking about a few incidents in a 15-20 year career so you can also say that maybe conclusions about Gerrard himself are statistically insignificant. Maybe you'd have to broaden it to England players in general.

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Well thats what i'm saying, how do you determine whether someone can handle the pressure 'at that level,' what do they have to do one way or the other to make that judgment? Why would someone like Rob Green making a huge blunder warrant the label of being unable to handle it after not being given a chance to redeem himself, but Gerrard doing the same thing at a key moment doesn't

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Well thats what i'm saying, how do you determine whether someone can handle the pressure 'at that level,' what do they have to do one way or the other to make that judgment? Why would someone like Rob Green making a huge blunder warrant the label of being unable to handle it after not being given a chance to redeem himself, but Gerrard doing the same thing at a key moment doesn't

It was the same with Shawcross and being written off after the Sweden game, which he wasn't even that much at fault for.

International matches especially at tournament level are so few, so people jump on one or two performances as career defining at international level.

Yet from what I remember of the "golden generation" the best players at the 2002 and 2004 tournaments were none of the golden generation starters but players like Trevor Sinclair, Danny Mills and Nicky Butt, but none of them get remembered as being great England players despite the fact if they'd have made a mistake they'd certainly be written off as crap England players.

I agree with what your saying. Big name players get a let off based on one or two appearences in which anyone can put in a good or poor performance. Maradona "single handedly" winning the '86 WC is basically down to him putting in 3 great performances against Korea, England and Belgium, but he wasn't particularly notable in the final or closing 2 games. I remember Jonathan Wilson writing an article about it.

We've seen Denmark and Greece win this tournament in the past 25 years which can happen over a short-form knock-out tournament! It's knock-out football, anyone can have 1 or 2 good or bad performances and that can even cost you or it can't. I'm not sure it's necessarily about having more or less pressure.

Rooney has been abysmal at every tournament since 2004 for example but no one writes him off the same way and puts it down to the "pressure of international football".

In truth I think it's a more difficult thing to judge than that.

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To be clear, my point was around concentration, which is a separate point to the pressure one. I do still think international tournament football makes more mental demands than Premiership football does. Furthermore the ramifications of loss of concentration can often be worse, because play is more controlled rather than end to end - one lapse in positioning can totally open a team up.

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People wanted Baines to fail so they could have a go for not taking Cole. Even though by this point Cole was well passed his best and no longer playing every week.

That bit did make me laugh. Ashley Cole played approximately 5 games in the second half of the 2013/14 season and then was essentially out of football 6 months after the World Cup. Anyone who thinks he could have helped England were remembering him as he was at his best, not at that point.

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