England squad announcement

Just to be clear, this is 100% my view. I could not care less about International football anymore and if you give me the option of a Liverpool player being happy to have made the squad but being injured for a pre-season game for Liverpool or a player temporarily unhappy at missing out on the squad but being fit and available for Liverpool then there's no choice to be made.

Top level club football is the pinnacle now and it is in the eyes of most players too.
I think the tournaments still hold an allure, but the sharp increase in relatively meaningless international games, both friendlies and matches against countries 100 or 200 below you in the ranking does get staid and boring.
 
Just to be clear, this is 100% my view. I could not care less about International football anymore and if you give me the option of a Liverpool player being happy to have made the squad but being injured for a pre-season game for Liverpool or a player temporarily unhappy at missing out on the squad but being fit and available for Liverpool then there's no choice to be made.

Top level club football is the pinnacle now and it is in the eyes of most players too.
Surely it depends on the player. I wish Konchesky had been called up rather more often in his time with us.
 
Just to be clear, this is 100% my view. I could not care less about International football anymore and if you give me the option of a Liverpool player being happy to have made the squad but being injured for a pre-season game for Liverpool or a player temporarily unhappy at missing out on the squad but being fit and available for Liverpool then there's no choice to be made.

Top level club football is the pinnacle now and it is in the eyes of most players too.

I understand where you are coming from, especially if you avoid all international football in protest. Otherwise it’s rather hypocritical.
 
I think squad chosen is decent over all tbf.

I don’t think Southgate however will let them play to there max abilities as I think for the players we have we could be far more adventurous than we have been
 
I understand where you are coming from, especially if you avoid all international football in protest. Otherwise it’s rather hypocritical.
I do but I don't do it as a protest, I do it as the quality is just a bit ****. The best international sides are a million miles behind the best club sides these days.
 
I do but I don't do it as a protest, I do it as the quality is just a bit ****. The best international sides are a million miles behind the best club sides these days.

I don’t deny a lot of the games are like watching the Championship, but the reason I watch it is the jeopardy of the tournament, the scarcity of them for the players in their career. The drama and romance of say Messi finally getting the only trophy he had never won at the World Cup.

Whilst the PL is exciting a lot of the times, the jeopardy of a league match in the middle of the season, and often even the last day of the season isn’t there as the title is settled by then.
 
I don’t deny a lot of the games are like watching the Championship, but the reason I watch it is the jeopardy of the tournament, the scarcity of them for the players in their career. The drama and romance of say Messi finally getting the only trophy he had never won at the World Cup.

Whilst the PL is exciting a lot of the times, the jeopardy of a league match in the middle of the season, and often even the last day of the season isn’t there as the title is settled by then.
That's fair and I may watch the final (I think I watched ET & pens of the WC Final) for the drama rather than the sport but International football as a sport is dead to me.

It's not just the quality of the football but major tournaments bring out the part time fans, face painters and the like which just makes me want to jump off a bridge. There's 3 things that stick out in my mind that lead to me hating international football. The first was an England match in the mid 2000s in which Emile Heskey and Phil Neville both ended up captaining England. The second was watching the 2008 Euros while in Vegas and having to listen to groups of Americans talk about how Beckham was still the best player in the world (the fear of being shot or arrested can be the only reason why I kept my mouth shut). I can guarantee that at some point in the next month or two I'll end up being asked about the Euros by somebody that doesn't understand football (probably asking where's Rooney) and I just pray I'm in a patient mood. And finally, believe it or not I used to be a regular at Wembley for England games but the never ending Mexican waves (combined with Stuart Pearce being the caretaker manager) was the final straw.
 
Is he only taking 5 midfielders ? still should surely go far i think, as long as they dont get munsoned

Well, they count Bellingham as a forward and he can play midfield.

Foden & Eze also plays behind Kane and they are more attacking midfield.

Essentially England has 5 "holding" midfielders in the centre of the park, he plays 2 of them at a time so 5 should be enough and there is always Bellingham to step in there if need be. Or even Stones as well.
 
Problem is if Stones plays in midfield then that's both of the 'normal' (whether you agree with it or not) first choice CBs not playing.

I think squad chosen is decent over all tbf.
I think it's an overrated squad (favourite for Euros with that defence?!?) but based on the English players we've got there's limited options. I've seen worse decisions made about players being on the plane (Walcott) or left behind (Le Tissier). It's hard to keep a straight face comparing our CBs today with 20 years ago when you had to pick who to bench out of Sol, Rio and JT.
Is Gealish not fully fit? He seems the strangest choice to leave out.
I think it's more that he's not got many big games for City lately, until recently that didn't seem to bother Southgate as he was always picking Phillips, Maguire etc but maybe that's factored into it a bit. We've also seen the emergence of Eze and Palmer this season plus a good year for Bowen who is very versatile. Basically he has a lot more options in attacking areas than at the back.

100% guaranteed we'll see some pics/vids of him partying on some island over the next month with all the tabloid headlines about how he's put the disappointment behind him.
 
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