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England v Croatia World Cupsemi final

Discussion in 'Tottenham Hotspur' started by remembercolinlee, Jul 9, 2018.

  1. vimhawk

    vimhawk Well-Known Member

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    If you have one world class asset then use him in his proper position. I know it's not the same as taking corners, but Harry plays his club football as the focal point of the attack and scores or brings others into the game. Too often - and this probably happened to a greater extent as the competition went on - we found Harry in a deeper role trying to provide flick-ons or even deeper. This was either planned or where he ended up because Sterling was often in advance of him. In other words we had our best striker trying to flick on or pass forward to a non-scoring midfielder, rather than (what sounds much more logical) the midfielder trying to supply the class striker. Even if Kane adopted this role himself (which I doubt) the manager should have corrected it, but the obsession with Sterling got in the way of this. I like Southgate but he massively failed here, and also failed to take the big decisions of recognising this and not play Sterling if he can't play the more natural way. The media won't recognise this as Southgate is (and is) a "nice guy". Basically we got to the semi because we didn't play anyone good until then, or this weird system would have been found out before that. Even having said that you won't find any pundits pointing out Kane being too deep as it might lead to criticism of their darling Sterling, which clearly isn't allowed. Southgate made other mistakes too, but I think the Kane/Sterling one is the most decisive. We effectively built the team around Sterling instead of Kane, which meant Kane (and also Alli) couldn't play their natural game in their natural positions.
     
    #201
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2018
  2. Spurf

    Spurf Thread Mover
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    After so many years of entirely negative England displays it was refreshing to watch this young England strive for positivity. In the first half against Croatia they played some very good football which had me believing they could reach the final although the runs of Stirling were pretty pointless as Kane wasn't there to receive the pass (even if Stirling had decided to look for it). Was that the fault of Kane for not being there or the manager for the set up? Or Stirling for not having the nous to hold the ball up. Whatever it was it was a glaring fault in an otherwise decent team. I agree very much that Kane and Dele were to some extent stifled in this team although Southgate had realised that Dele needed to play further forward, hence the better performance from him in this last game. It's a pity he did not try Stirling further back, his runs (his only asset?) would have been more useful in midfield with Kane and Dele ahead of him.
    I never really expected us to beat Croatia, our weakest area was their strength (a creative midfield) and that came to the fore when Croatia came out in the second half determined to show England no further respect and concentrate on their own strengths. They deserved to go through and I wish them luck, it would be good to see a new name on the cup.
     
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  3. "Thanks for that Brian"

    "Thanks for that Brian" Well-Known Member

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    From the BBC website concerning behaviour after the game...

    "However, one fan in Shoreditch, east London, was seen climbing a lamppost, while Avon and Somerset Constabulary said it had arrested a man for assaulting an officer and punching a police horse."

    Don't you just love country folk.......punching a police horse. <laugh>
     
    #203
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  4. humanbeingincroydon

    humanbeingincroydon Well-Known Member

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    One obvious issue with the team that hasn't been highlighted is the closest they had to a Plan B was just Plan A, but more of it.

    Plan A was to try and catch teams out with pace, and if that wasn't working introduce Rashford and/or Vardy to...try and catch teams out with pace. While that is a tactic that can work against teams who are starting to tire after 70+ minutes of stubborn resistance such as Tunisia, it is completely ineffective when deployed against a team who are capable of nullifying the threat by fair means or otherwise, which was obvious against Colombia and Croatia and it's fair to presume France would've had no problem dealing with it either.

    Can nobody see the obvious Monte Carlo Fallacy of thinking that, if attacking with the pace of Lingard and Sterling isn't breaking down the opposition, attacking with the pace of Rashford/Vardy/Welbeck/Sturridge isn't going to miraculously solve the problem? That's why you need another option on the bench, and considering England's success from set pieces during the tournament an all-action target man would certainly have been that option.
     
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  5. The Serious Guy

    The Serious Guy Active Member

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    So your saying England should have brought Peter Crouch?
     
    #205
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  6. humanbeingincroydon

    humanbeingincroydon Well-Known Member

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    I'm noticing a pattern with the Twitterati slagging off Alli's performance...



     
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  7. "Thanks for that Brian"

    "Thanks for that Brian" Well-Known Member

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    To a great and sad degree, it's welcome to see an England team with a Plan A. I've no idea what Hodgson, Keegan, Cappello, Sven, etc. were trying to do. Bobby Robson's 'success' at '90 came from the players suggesting 3 at the back, rather than managerial brilliance. England had options at that tournament because we had better players on the bench. This time [More Than Any Other Time], after the starting XI, who did we have who was any good at all?

    Rose - Certainly but how fit was he?
    Dier - Not really suited to playing the role he was asked to play and brought on too late to make a positive change?
    Vardy - Not set international football alight. England really didn't make many chances at all in the games against Columbia, Sweden or Croatia.
    Reuben Loftus Cheek, Marcus Rashford - these really are kids and total 'Hit or Miss' gambles.......and that's about it really

    The only English players that offer any degree of controlling force from midfield right now are Harry Winks [injured] and Shelvey [walking red card]. The only option that I could see was to take off the ineffective Lingard, Sterling or Dele and get Dier on alongside Henderson before we became overrun and swap Rose on to push higher up the field than Young did.
     
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  8. humanbeingincroydon

    humanbeingincroydon Well-Known Member

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    Keegan's reign is best summed up by these two quotes...
    i.) "Go out and drop a few hand grenades" - to Paul Scholes before a Euro 2000 qualifier against Sweden. Scholes was sent off in the 51st minute after getting his second booking for yet another one of those challenges that commentators always found so bloody funny
    ii.) "We asked him for hand-grenades and got an exocet" - Kevin Keegan's response when asked about Scholes' sending off

    Or, you know, this...

    please log in to view this image
     
    #208
  9. NotSoMightyEastbourneBoro

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    To be honest there is little creativity in midfield that we should have just gone solid there and concentrated on the wings....... but other than Kane we had little attacking threat to make those opportunities count. It was painful trying to watch us thread passes through the middle at times and then resorting to lumping it up the middle instead. Trippier was our most creative player and Young could have been if he had trusted his left foot more instead of stopping, taking a calm look at his surroundings, reading another chapter of War & Peace before deciding to cross the ball (or pass it backwards.... or sideways into the creative vacuum of our central midfield).
     
    #209
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  10. vimhawk

    vimhawk Well-Known Member

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    It's been attributed to Einstein, but whoever said it said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Doesn't this sum up the contribution of Sterling, who has now failed in three competitions and countless matches (well not countless, but pretty much every one he's been in). Yet I am sure that come the Euros we'll be seeing him again, "frightening the opposition with his pace" (TM) and - er - that's about it because as the new front man (he has apparently replaced Kane as the focal point of the attack) he isn't actually expected to score. I keep hearing on the radio that we've learned a lot from this tournament. Well we clearly haven't learned anything about how useless Sterling is, and that if you have one great asset (Kane), use him in his best position and make the rest of the team support that. Instead we have Kane trying to give knock ons to Sterling. Not sure why.

    Good points earlier about Plan A and Plan B being the same.
     
    #210
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  11. deedub93

    deedub93 Well-Known Member

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    Before the tournament I said that I thought Troy Deeney might be an option. If you are losing it in midfield, then bypass midfield and go route 1. Particularly if you are a goal in front.
     
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  12. "Thanks for that Brian"

    "Thanks for that Brian" Well-Known Member

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    We took Welbeck for ****'s sake......and Phil Jones. People have forgotten that getting out of the group stages was beyond us 4 years ago and 2 years ago we lost to Iceland in the Euro's.

    We had a great WC. No, we didn't win it. Realistically, we were never going to. However, the players gave their all, it was a great run and we gave it a shot for the first time in decades. I'll take that.

    However, next time...........................
     
    #212
  13. deedub93

    deedub93 Well-Known Member

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    Which was my point, why take past it has beens when one could have taken an albeit aged, 70 minute maximum duration player who could have done a very good job and provided a Plan B.
     
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  14. ----HistoryRepeating----

    ----HistoryRepeating---- Well-Known Member

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    We need to harvest the new Peter Crouch. Seriously need a strong plan B.
     
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  15. "Thanks for that Brian"

    "Thanks for that Brian" Well-Known Member

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    I said Crouchie before Southgate picked Welbeck. I'd have had no problem with Deeney but I'm not sure that he fitted Southgate's idea of personality, a bit like Shelvey.

    Right or wrong? I've no idea. On a football only basis, I wouldn't have argued over it.
     
    #215
  16. deedub93

    deedub93 Well-Known Member

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    Well the French, even with all of the skilful players that they have, have taken and used Giroud.
     
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  17. PleaseNotPoll

    PleaseNotPoll Well-Known Member
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    And the Belgians had Fellaini. Some teams can't deal with a physical, aerial game.
     
    #217
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  18. deedub93

    deedub93 Well-Known Member

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    Who? ENGLAND?
     
    #218
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  19. “****ing Danny Welbeck!!” Said Adolf <laugh>
     
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  20. SpursDisciple

    SpursDisciple Booking: Mod abuse - overturned on appeal
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    It used to push Rooney on though.
     
    #220
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