(Round of 16) - England 2-0 Germany - Tuesday 29th June, 2021

[nudge]

It's been pretty boring so far, England with better chances, but can't seem to take advantage of that. Germany way too passive and lethargic. 

[Happy Blue]

Kane is just a shit Eden Dzeko, hope we wait for Haaland

[montybhopa]

Kane can't even score tap ins anymore. Bring in Grealish and Sancho

[El Profesor]

One of the biggest myths in football is that Guardiola makes every forward a better player. 

I like this version of Sterling a lot more than City's Sterling. Reminds me of young Sterling under Rodgers.

[Eco]

1 minute ago, Smiley Culture said:

Kane would have struggled to make much contact with that first time to send it goalwards 

No doubt it would have been difficult, but how many balls were drilled into the box for England, yet Kane was no where to be seen. I understand England relies on Maguire's heading ability more, but still, you'd like Kane would have made some kind of impact in the area. 

[Spike]

Just now, Happy Blue said:

Kane is just a shit Eden Dzeko, hope we wait for Haaland

Dzeko is criminally forgotten

[Tommy]

[Spike]

Just now, El Profesor said:

One of the biggest myths in football is that Guardiola makes every forward a better player. 

I like this version of Sterling a lot more than City's Sterling. Reminds me of young Sterling under Rodgers.

I would have said the opposite. Sterling is usually only good for Man City, he is has unusually fantastic for England lately.

[Stan]

2 minutes ago, shut up said:

Kane is fucking awful. DCL not on the bench is criminal 

Sterling and Saka playing well, as is Philips 

Southgate fucked up there. Not even having DCL as an option is fucking stupid. 

Gives Kane a free ride at that position and Southgate doesn't even have the balls to haul him off at HT, which would be the wise option. 

 

[Spike]

1 minute ago, Tommy said:

 

I prefer the hand placement of fig1

[6666]

3 minutes ago, Happy Blue said:

Kane is just a shit Eden Dzeko, hope we wait for Haaland

Do either fit Guardiola's style?

[Smiley Culture]

Rice will go off at some point due to the yellow, depends on what the situation is but I think we’re more likely to try and play for the draw and Henderson to come on. 

[Bluewolf]

Well, if we make changes I hope we don't wait until we are 1-0 down with 10 minutes to go before giving it a proper go.. 

[RandoEFC+]

Hard to judge that half. Both teams look comfortable. England winning the midfield battle while Germany's chances show what happens when you actually have a plan in attack instead of just chucking your two undroppable big names alongside whichever other attacker played the best in the last game with 7 defenders behind them.

If England can't find another gear in attack and go out tonight then there are a lot of questions for Southgate to answer from the use of countless players in the warm up games who aren't even in the tournament squad to why his matchday squad contains 3 goalkeepers and only one striker who hasn't bagged in the tournament yet.

I don't want to go in too hard on Kane. He clearly isn't at 100%, it's not his fault. Southgate just doesn't seem to know how to get the most out of him. It's not as if the team is even built around him because if it was you'd probably have Sterling or Rashford play the "Son" role so that Kane can drop to pick up the ball without leaving the team without a striker. Even a forward of his ability, you can't just tell him to go out there and play up front and that's it. There just doesn't seem to be any patterns of play in attack and it seems to all be down to waiting for individual quality to make a difference. Overall, this England side looks very much like a very organised team who do little to no attacking training.

Still, all that said you can't complain too much, they look the most likely against a solid opponent after qualifying top of the group with 7 points. You just look at that squad and some of the selection decisions and it feels like there's so much more to get out of it.

[Inverted]

I think Sterling is more a victim of the modern game where tactics become so fine-tuned that players often find themselves being encouraged to just focus on their few best qualities. 

So City for example have De Bruyne hanging wide right and spamming first time crosses, and Sterling is mostly limited to nipping into the box and scoring tap-ins. 

Intl football is a bit less tactical and players end up having more leeway to try out different things.

[Whiskey]

2 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

Rice will go off at some point due to the yellow, depends on what the situation is but I think we’re more likely to try and play for the draw and Henderson to come on. 

Phillips off first, no?

[Azeem]

Bit harsh on Kane not getting any penalties. 

[Bluewolf]

Meat Pie, Sausage Roll, C'Mon England gis a goal........ 

 

[The Käiser]

15 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

So Phillips gets booked for the same tackle that Ampadu got sent off for. 

Makes sense. 

Doesn’t VAR check red card offences?

like what happened in Nederlands v Czech Republic?

no call there ?

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Hard to judge that half. Both teams look comfortable. England winning the midfield battle while Germany's chances show what happens when you actually have a plan in attack instead of just chucking your two undroppable big names alongside whichever other attacker played the best in the last game with 7 defenders behind them.

If England can't find another gear in attack and go out tonight then there are a lot of questions for Southgate to answer from the use of countless players in the warm up games who aren't even in the tournament squad to why his matchday squad contains 3 goalkeepers and only one striker who hasn't bagged in the tournament yet.

I don't want to go in too hard on Kane. He clearly isn't at 100%, it's not his fault. Southgate just doesn't seem to know how to get the most out of him. It's not as if the team is even built around him because if it was you'd probably have Sterling or Rashford play the "Son" role so that Kane can drop to pick up the ball without leaving the team without a striker. Even a forward of his ability, you can't just tell him to go out there and play up front and that's it. There just doesn't seem to be any patterns of play in attack and it seems to all be down to waiting for individual quality to make a difference. Overall, this England side looks very much like a very organised team who do little to no attacking training.

Still, all that said you can't complain too much, they look the most likely against a solid opponent after qualifying top of the group with 7 points. You just look at that squad and some of the selection decisions and it feels like there's so much more to get out of it.

Isn't that the issue though? Saka and Sterling getting in to the game and trying their best to make moves happen, but there's only so much they can do on their own or as a 2 either side of Kane. What are they getting from Kane? I'm trying not to go too hard in to Kane as well but without Kane offering much to play his part in any patterns of play, it is like playing with 1 less player.

A player as good as him you'd expect his individual quality to show. He's not fully fit though so even before the game he becomes a bit of a liability.

[Carnivore Chris]

This will go to pens, it's pretty much nailed on 

[Bluebird Hewitt]

3 minutes ago, The Käiser said:

Doesn’t VAR check red card offences?

like what happened in Nederlands v Czech Republic?

no call there ?

Should do and don't think it was checked. 

[Stan]

Great save from Pickford. 

[Danny]

Said this before but commentator just mentioned it, get Saka at left back, much better going forward than Shaw is and allows us to put another forward on

[Stan]

1 minute ago, Danny said:

Said this before but commentator just mentioned it, get Saka at left back, much better going forward than Shaw is and allows us to put another forward on

I'm not sure that would work. Shaw is being man-marked pretty much by Kimmich when he's on the ball. I don't think Saka would be able to get up as much which is where he's most impactful.