World Cup Squad

Give the lads a chance.

Some youth and some experience in the squad plus plenty of pace.

You never know.

 

I'm assuming you mean 1990! Fair enough point though, since Shilton our keepers have either been complete gash, or made inexplicable errors in key matches. How Seaman let in Ronaldinho's punt I still have no idea.

 

Like others I have grown a bit frustrated with the national side. I will still watch all the games though.

I think Southgate has picked a decent squad there. I'm glad he's dropped some of the dead wood/ poor performers. I think our midfield looks a bit light as Id have delph playing as he does at City, but we don't have a great amount of talent in midfield these days.

My starting XI would be something along the lines of:

Pickford
Walker, Stones, Maguire, Jones, Delph
Sterling, Henderson (c), Alli
Kane, Vardy

 

Pickford was awful at the weekend. I mean, really awful. Feet of clay. I'd chuck Pope in.

 

Pope
Trippier, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Delph
Henderson, Dier
Sterling, Kane, Vardy

 

In what way?

 

The calibre of teams, the calibre of so called "world class players", the style of play, the lack of quality of 90% of the league. I moderately enjoy watching Liverpool, i cant stand to watch Man City, it's tedious. I fancy if Man City this season had to play pretty much any of Fergusons title winning sides, Mourinho in the first 3 seasons at Chelsea or Arsenals invincibles.... they'd get absolutely battered. Even Newcastle under Keegan.

Nobody can defend anymore, and I don't think that's down to the quality of attacking, just the attrition over the last decade of tackling dieing as an art and honest efforts to do so being repeatedly penalised by dives, cards, penalties and sendings off.

 

I can’t believe anyone finds City tedious to watch. No offence but if you don’t enjoy watching De Bruyne, Silva, Sane, Sterling & Aguero play football I don’t think you can be a football fan either that or you must have a soft spot for Man Utd.

They’d absolutely rip that Newcastle team apart, look at the defenders they had.

The Fergie 99 & 08 champions v City & Arsenal 98 side & invincible’s v City would be a great watch. Not so sure Mourinho’s Chelsea would be as he’d just try & kill the game like he did in El Clasico’s when he came up against a superior footballing team.

 

Just an attacking team competing in a poor league. Flat track bullies is the term I'd use. The moment they came up against any sort of decent team, they folded. Liverpool smashed them 3 times out of 4. I can't say I get the lovefest the media is bestowing on them. Awful keeper, average £50m fullbacks, poor centre halves, but a very good midfield they paid insane amounts of money for and pace up front.

I've watched them a handful of times and i don't think i've ever got to the end. It's just boring and epitomises modern football. One dimensional tippy tappy with no ticker. Would much rather watch Liverpool any day. But would much rather watch the proper Liverpool that dominated Europe for years.

Just personal preference, but spending hundreds of millions on players to fall over in between 80% tippy tappy and have biased referees gifting decisions... it just doesn't do it for me.

 

Oh.... and I think the Chelsea side would do the most amount of damage... Drogba vs Kompany, Stones and or Otomendi..... they'd be in rehab for months after that mauling.

 

I'm of completely the opposite opinion and, though this may be an unpopular opinion on here, I've never enjoyed watching football of all standards more than I do now. That's not to say I like the absurd financial disparity and corporatization of it all, but in terms of quality and excitement it's never been better.

I'm 28, I don't have much memory of the pre-Premier League era. The first season I really fell in love with the game was Keegan's Newcastle 95-96 season. I was Newcastle supporter before I was taken to my first game at Oakwell. I loved that Keegan side so much as a six year old I sent them a parcel (with the help of my gran) containing a collection of random ***** I thought they'd like. But they'd get absolutely battered by this City side. I've seen a ton of televised games and highlights from the 80s and early 90s; you can make arguments about how it was better back then for a number of reasons, but the standard of football is certainly not one of them. The standard of defending in particular has greatly improved.

 

I agree with a lot of what you posted, but I'm 59 and to my mind defending is a lost art when compared to the defenders in past generations.

 

Great you're enjoying it. I think for me the thing that ruins it is the cheating and bias. Yes, there has always been some in form, but now its just about falling over and getting people sent off or penalties. One or two people get caught out, but now the rule seems to be if there is any contact at all, to its most ridiculous degree, an eyelash placed on a player... they fall over, its a foul. It's not. Contact is allowed, but referees and players have ruined it so any form of contact is now a foul. Hence why defending is so bad as they aren't allowed to tackle, or are too afraid to.

Passing is better, but then so it should with the pancake pitches on offer nowadays, but defending isn't.

I think the side i enjoyed most was Arsenal. There was invention, pace, physicality, steel, technique. Amazing side.

 

Really? Whenever I watch games or clips from prior eras the defending is the most obvious difference to me. Yes, there were hard tackles and a safety first mentality that we could do with adopting now occasionally, but it's nowhere near as organized, well-drilled and pacey as it is nowadays. Look how much space attackers had, how much time midfielders had on the ball, how many embarrassing mistakes were made even at the top level (love this twitter account btw: https://twitter.com/crap90sfootball?lang=en). It's perhaps a bit daft to make these comparisons but I think Sane, Aguero and Sterling would embarrass any defensive lineup of the 70s and 80s.

I wish we had the atmosphere and culture of those times, but not the football.

With you there. Used to spray my hair red like Freddie Ljungberg that summer.

 

Here are our lowlights: https://twitter.com/i/moments/890666785158156288

 

Who do you mean by awful keeper? Surely not Ederson, he’s brilliant, are you talking about Bravo who’s now no. 2?

There’s nothing average about Mendy.

They’ve got 4 quality centre backs, Stones & Otamendi have improved loads & Kompany been back close to his best.

They don’t get the benefit of biased decisions, according to stats they’re one of the most harshly done to teams in the league in terms of bad decisions.

I don’t think they’re one dimensional, that sounds like the Spain team who tried to replicate Barcelona without Messi’s flair.

City can pass teams to death, they score goals from range, they’ve got Sterling & Sane dribbling past full backs.

Klopp just seems to have Guardiola’s number a bit like Guardiola has Mourinho’s & Mourinho has Wenger’s. Don’t think it’s anything to do with meeting a quality side. They’ve gone & won at Man Utd, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal this season, did well against Napoli in the champions league

 

yes Man City do bore teams to death, and sorry but i don't recognise the sky sports esque eulogies about Man City. And didn't Manure beat Citeh with a couple of simple floated balls into the box that keeper and the quality defenders all missed?

We'll agree to disagree, I just feel football now is empty, vacuous and lacking in heart, spirit and grit. And the more money pumped in by the oil barons at the top.... the more that cascades and ruins the other leagues and the kids who look to these tattooed idols who just aren't worthy of it.

But each to their own, i respect your opinion even though i disagree with it.

 

For me. The game itself has evolved into such a way that athleticism far out ways natural talent

The England team of the late 80s early 90s oozed talent. Players such as Gascogne and Waddle made the game look easy. The ball did the talking

This bunch don’t have an ounce of what these guys had. I rate kane but give me shearer over him any day.

The passion has died from the players since beckham retired and has transferred to the fans. I will watch the tournament but with lack of optimism

 

You’re right about athleticism but I do think the current players have the talent those guys had but there’s so little time on the ball these days. Waddle & Gazza in today’s game wouldn’t be half as successful due to the lack of time on the ball & how super fit the players marking them would be.

Players just don’t get the time on the ball to showcase their skills the same, unless you’re absolutely world class like Messi or how Salah’s been this season it’s almost impossible to stand out the same.

 

You’re using one game as an example in a game where City should’ve been playing against 10 men from early in the first half & had 2 clear penalties. That 2nd half was the biggest fluke of the season & largely down to complacency.

They’ve managed to romp away to the league title in an era where there’s 6 quality teams unlike the era’s when Man Utd, Arsenal & Chelsea were on top. They’ve scored more goals than anyone else in premier league history, have more points & have one of the best defensive records in the premier league all whilst going deep in to the cup competitions. Can’t blame any media for praising them, it’s deserved.

I know what you’re saying about the oil money but all sport is pretty much rotten, virtually every sports full of doping & cheating & has dodgy people pumping money into it.

There’s still plenty of good people in football, especially British lads with great stories, Harry Kane, Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Kyle Walker, Harry Maguire, Nick Pope, Marcus Rashford, Chris Smalling & Adam Lallana off the top of my head. None of them have had any scandals about them.

Look at Trent Alexander-Arnold, photos of him walking out with Gerrard as a mascot 10 years ago & Andrew Robertson, who was asking mates for part time jobs when he was in the Scottish lower leagues a few years ago, they’ll be playing in a champions league final next week. Incredible. They’re worthy of been any kids idols