joey_big_nose

France look far and away the best squad. Should walk the euros, haven't got a weakness anywhere. Then Belgium next after them who are exceptional but don't have the depth. Below those two England's in that pack of roughly equivalent teams - Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, maybe the Dutch have fallen away a bit - who have quality but also weaknesses. Any of them could beat each other. So we could win the Euros but probs about a 5-10% chance alongside each of the other teams at our level, whereas Belgium and France I would say have around a 30% chance each. To kick on and become really dominant we need more physicality like France have with Varene, Kante & Pogba. Their midfield would blow ours away. It's strange because England have always been physical, but recently that's faded away as we have got more technical. Need both to get to the top.

What's the deal with Tomori? He's playing really well for AC Milan and England have really poor centrebacks at the moment. How's he not getting a call up? Seems very odd. I wonder if Southgate has a beef with him for some reason.

Main issue for England at the moment is there is no clear squad really. The only definite on the teamsheet is Kane. You could make a case for multiple players for any other role in the team. Not ideal being so up in the air 2 months before a major tournament. For what it's worth I would aim for something like : Pickford James Stones. Maguire. Chilwell Foden. Rice Mount Rashford. Kane. Stirling But really you look at that side and say it is very talented, and you would love to have a few of those players in your team. But where's the experience? Maguire and Pickford have been shaky, Henderson's injured. Stones has only just come back into the squad. Tricky. I can see the the attraction in Lingard to add some experience. But not really inspirational.

For 90% of the game yes, but we had several moments of total defensive lunacy where we were lucky to only concede once due to a mix of poor finishing from Norwich and defensive heroics from Lenihan and Kaminski. Rothwell and Douglas both gave the ball away in really dangerous areas, and we got outnumbered on the counter several times... I would say we would have had a much better season if 1) We had a steady fit quality partner for Lenihan - we've got one now in H-B but it's taken 70% of the season 2) we had an effective defensive left back - Douglas has improved offensively but defensively he is absolutely shocking. I'd honestly rather have Bell. 3) We had some tactical flexibility to change things when we play against teams who set out to nullify us, and be prepared to focus more on defending than attacking in some games and counter attack. Next team who we play who decide to 343 us like Preston or Barnsley will batter us. Sure Wycombe will do this as their manager will have watched the videos since we battered them and figured out a simple change is all that is required to turn the tables.... Also - I'm sure no matter who we appoint as next manager from the entire world of football we won't be seeing Gallagher on the wing and Buckley/Elliott at CF. I mean it is absolutely insane.

Good performance from most ways of looking at it, but actually if you think about decent chances we relied on Kaminski a lot more than Norwich did on Krul. It's the same adage that we can dominate long phases of the game in terms of possession and half chances, but we will steadily gift 3 or 4 quality chances to the other side per game. And recently on top of that we have really struggled to generate good attacking chances. it's not a winning formula... We would be better off to play more conservatively and gift fewer opportunities to the opposition. We've got a good set of counter attacking players. We could play that way...

Overall thought we totally dominated the game in terms of stats, but we were quite lucky to get out with the draw. We gifted Bristol City quite a few really good chances that they luckily didn't finish. Sort of shows the issue with Mowbray's philosophy - what's the point in dominating possession and having more long range shorts if you are going to give away three or four quality chances every game for nothing, and never actually get in behind the opposition? We really lack someone who can score goals when the opposition sits deep. A proper target man. And Douglas is a total liability defensively at left back. Anyway... we've had four years now. It's not going to change. Time for someone else to have a spin.

Why is he still here? What do we really think will change in the new season? Surely he must be going shortly.... It must be dawning on the owners that the risks that we get relegated next year are rising.

Thats amazing. Reminds me of quite a few exchanges on here!

I am just totally amazed he is still here. We've won one game in ten, lost seven in ten, we had the explicit target of making top six. It's insane he is still in a job.

This is an interesting read. https://www.physioroom.com/info/acl-knee-injury-players-who-overcame-it/

Considering the vast numbers of players we need I would say it's pretty key we hold onto the few who are decent and not that injury prone. Absolute maximum number of decent players you could sign in a single window is, I would say, 8 so if your are looking for 15 your just going to pick up rubbish imo. So keep - Kaminski, Nyambe, JRC, Pickering, Lenihan, Wharton, JRC, Rothwell, Buckley, Travis, Dack, Brereton, Dolan Release - Johnson, Holtby (sad to see him go as is quality but way too injury prone), Evans, Bell, Douglas, Downing, Davenport, Bennett, Branthwaite Sign - Trybull, a new bloody pitch, CB, lb, rb, cm, cf x2, lw, rw Promote from youth - McBride, Pike, Magloire, Carter Successfully Sell - Armstrong Try and sell but no one will have - Gallagher, Ayala Loan again - Elliott, Harwood Bellis Aim for a first team of. Kaminski Nyambe. Lenihan. THB. Pickering Travis. Buckley Elliott. Rothwell. Brereton Top signing... But as ever it will really come down to how many injuries we get. We really really have to sign players who.di not have injury records.

Nah I think everyone would have been furious, he's the only player out there who has any goal scoring pedigree at all.

My mate did both of his ACLs quite rapidly after each other. Why do you think that is? Seems odd that you would be more vulnerable?

He looked absolutely devastated.

Brentford have been really well run for 10 years now but never been promoted. Shows how hard it is to get out of the division.

To be fair he spent a lot of his career wide left. Big Sam loved a wide forward....

Yeah, but part of that is he is asked to run with the ball and pass it from wide which is mad. I think with a run at centre forward he would be better. But maybe not.

You look at the second half and it's hard to not wonder if we would just have been better with Gallagher straight through the middle. That we didn't even try it when we are struggling to create just seems so strange to me.

Well recently he thought Gallagher and Nyambe were out long term when they weren't so I would take his assessment with a big pinch of salt!

Interested to see Mowbrays interview. Wondering if he might go.

Wel got totally owned first half. Second half looked pretty decent, should have got two pens, probably on balance of play worth a draw. But...... Brentford looked solid defensively, we didn't. That was really the difference.

Bennet looked really really concerned Definite pen for me, Raya tripped Dack up.

No way are we playing 433. Would be crazy to go back to to that after playing 4231 and looking decent. I think it will be same team barring injury, maybe Elliott gets back in ahead of Gallagher who was poor last game. So : Kammy JRC Lenihan THB Douglas Buckley Trybull Elliott Dack Brereton Dolan

Yeah, Id take Trybull. Massive midfield overhaul coming up - Evans, Johnson, Bennett all on their way out. All nice guys, have good games from time to time, but way way way too injury prone for us to cover them. Let them all go, bring in Trybull and one high quality other and promote someone from the youth side. Job done.

Yes - the last unequivocally good performance in the 433 was Preston away back in at the end of November..... We just ran out of steam to play that way. Too many games to play with the required intensity to make it work, too many injuries, other sides tactically figured us out. How did it take us 3 months to come up with an effective plan B? I'm not having Dack as part of that, Rothwell or Holtby could have played behind the striker in a 4231. We had all the personnel to do it...