England squad announcement

Robbo said:
Yeah, it's a shame really as he's clearly very talented. Hopefully it's something that can be worked on... he is only 22.
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I wonder if he has the same problems like Dele Ali has. Hopefully he can get a decent run of games and at least for ourselves it is one less player going to the world cup.
 
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adam cool dude said:
Tomori is playing week in week out for AC Milan and in champions league football. He was also rated as one of the best defenders in Serie A last season.

I am also surprised Chris Smalling didn't get a look in either. He has 7 goals in the two seasons he has played for Roma and played 38 games last season.

Both are better than Maguire and are in far better form.
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Liverpool sent a much weakened side the the San Siro last season and beat AC Milan so I wouldn't get too excited about how well a player is playing over there. I'm also not too sure Smalling's 7 goals count for a great deal too.

I mentioned it a few weeks ago in defence of Maguire, England's CB options are pretty horrendous. No matter who was selected we'd still be saying they weren't good enough. The fact that manic pointed to Ben White being England's most in form CB, when he's not played CB, sums up just how poor the options are.
 
I've not seen him play, but I've seen Maguire play when he's actually had game time and he's been absolutely abysmal every time. Hard to imagine Tomori being worse.

We've got better options either way. Guehi and even Tarkowski are better options than Maguire.
 
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BaZ87 said:
White who cannot get a game at CB for Arsenal. I'm not having a dig at White btw but it highlights just how poor England's CB options are.
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I totally agree, we've got a pretty atrocious pot to choose from. And I would also agree with the people who might argue that we should have given Tomori / Guehi / White / Coady more time in things like the nations league to bed in, rather than being stuck with blooding new CBs now or playing the old guard who are out of form. But given where we are, I think playing Maguire and Stones is just about the best of a bad set of options.
 
BaZ87 said:
Liverpool sent a much weakened side the the San Siro last season and beat AC Milan so I wouldn't get too excited about how well a player is playing over there. I'm also not too sure Smalling's 7 goals count for a great deal too.

I mentioned it a few weeks ago in defence of Maguire, England's CB options are pretty horrendous. No matter who was selected we'd still be saying they weren't good enough. The fact that manic pointed to Ben White being England's most in form CB, when he's not played CB, sums up just how poor the options are.
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There was an article on talksport that Chris Smalling's wife posted opta stats that puts Smalling as the best performing English CB this season.

He was also central in Jose's reign where we only conceded 28 goals in 17/18 campaign.

I am not saying he is a world beater but compared to Maguire and Stones he should have been a shoe in.
 
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England will probably play a back 5 apart from some group games hence the Maguire pick.

He just let the other two CB's cover his butt and stick that forehead into anything that goes airborne.
 
adam cool dude said:
There was an article on talksport that Chris Smalling's wife posted opta stats that puts Smalling as the best performing English CB this season.

He was also central in Jose's reign where we only conceded 28 goals in 17/18 campaign.

I am not saying he is a world beater but compared to Maguire and Stones he should have been a shoe in.
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Stattos will tell you that it's hard to measure a CB's performance with stats. He may well be marginally better than Maguire but he's still not very good and this is the ultimate point. Whoever England picked we'd be having this same conversation.

I guess it's simply a case of if you're going to pick a CB that's not very good, you may as well stick with the one(s) you know.
 
Somewhat surprised to see Kane is favourite for the golden boot, I guess it helps that he typically plays as a lone striker and is on pens so is expected to score the majority of the goals for England rather than sharing them around.
 
HangTime said:
Somewhat surprised to see Kane is favourite for the golden boot, I guess it helps that he typically plays as a lone striker and is on pens so is expected to score the majority of the goals for England rather than sharing them around.
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Taking a quick glance at the groups, of the potential golden boot candidates, Kane's probably facing the lowest quality opposition at the group stages.
 
Hard to say, on paper it shouldn't be that easy as it's the only group where all the opponents are in the top20 of the official world rankings.
Then if you look at the bookies, France are considered the most likely team to win all 3 group games, followed by Brazil.
However France for example have the issue where they have Mbappe and Benzema as two elite strikers who will have to 'share the opportunities'.

I'm kind of fancying Ronaldo on the basis that he's the main man, will be greedy and hog pens etc, he'll have a point to prove after the MU shenanigans, and Portugal also have a pretty decent team. It's a bigger price for Ronaldo to get golden boot than it is for Portugal to win the World Cup, but I'd be surprised if that happened and an E/W bet on him being top scorer didn't bear dividends.
 
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Looking forward to the end of the World Cup tbh

With a bit of luck -

- Southgate out
- Maguire and Dier out never to be seen in an England shirt again.

in with a new manager who hopefully is less interested in being "on message" and more interested in playing attacking football.
 
The FA have charged Ivan Toney with over 230 breaches of betting rules. No doubt that played a big part in him not being selected.
 
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