*Official* English Football Season 2022/23

[sledger]

Yeah Saka would be wasted there tbh, but I'm also quite a fan of reckless gung-ho style wingback play when watching teams I don't much care about haha

Wouldn't want to see him playing there for Arsenal ever again, for example

 

[Pothas]

I reckon Rico Henry is better than Shaw. I think he should be in the England squad more than I think Toney should.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I don't rate Shaw but he will be picked.

 

[wpdavid]

For better and worse Southgate puts a lot more stock in performances for him than club form. And on that basis Pickford is rightly his number one. I tend to think it’s a good approach because you’re building a team not a collection of individuals but at the same time he goes too far with it eg Maguire - always good for England in the past but his malaise is everywhere now.

I agree with that. it's your club form that gets you in the side and your international form that keeps you there. Which maybe works for Shaw, but not for Maguire. And I'd go for Pickford on that basis too.

 

[wpdavid]

Shaw has had some good years and some bad years. He's been poor this past year but we'll see where he is in November.

Re: Saka, I'm not really a fan of makeshift wing backs because so much of playing there is positioning. Some of the best players there have been guys like Doherty and Alonso with remarkably limited physical and technical ability. Tbf that's also a good case for Chilwell over Shaw. But Shaw makes more sense than Saka, who might be more useful elsewhere anyway.

Totally agree. tbh Saka looked out of place at wing back against Italy, whereas he made a big difference in his normal role against Germany.
And I thought Shaw looked OK last night. In this bits I saw, anyway. Not a worldie, but tidy enough for the most part.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I don't really follow Italian football to any meaningful extent, but surely Tomori has to be a better bet than Maguire currently?

Starting centre back for the Italian champions must count for something?

Maguire just looks all over the place right now. Jerry's first two goals were pretty much both down to him.

 

[Furball]

League A isn't for everyone

 

[GIMH]

League A isn't for everyone

Neither is the World Cup

 

[Furball]

We were right to boycott it. It's shameful that England and Wales will be participating in sport washing this winter.

 

[duffer]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1575205824309624832

Same old Ajax....

 

[andruid]

We were right to boycott it. It's shameful that England and Wales will be participating in sport washing this winter.

Some of us aren't even FIFA members due to their ties to this blood-soaked regime.

 

[sledger]

I am gutted scotland did not qualify tbh, they always provide comedy gold

unlike Wales who are always just horrible and with no redeeming features whatsoever

 

[sledger]

just looked it up and apparently Scotland have only one 4 world cup tournament matches in the entire history (one of which was against the mighty Zaire in 1974), brilliant

good old jocks

 

[Lillian Thomson]

That Zaire game was quite costly for Scotland as they only won 2-0 and missed a hatful of chances and went out on goal difference after decent draws with Yugoslavia and Brazil.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Think another of their wins was against NZ in 82, but their other victories were against proper teams: Netherlands in 78 (Archie Gemmel and all that) and Sweden in 90. Unfortunately less creditable results against Peru and Iran in the former and (IIRC) Costa Rica in Italia did for them.

Pretty sure goal difference did for them in 78 & 82 as well.

 

[Furball]

just looked it up and apparently Scotland have only one 4 world cup tournament matches in the entire history (one of which was against the mighty Zaire in 1974), brilliant

good old jocks

Took me ages to work this out due to the dreadful written English on display.

 

[Furball]

Think another of their wins was against NZ in 82, but their other victories were against proper teams: Netherlands in 78 (Archie Gemmel and all that) and Sweden in 90. Unfortunately less creditable results against Peru and Iran in the former and (IIRC) Costa Rica in Italia did for them.

Pretty sure goal difference did for them in 78 & 82 as well.

Yeah it did, I think we required a 3 goal win against the Dutch in 1978.

 

[GIMH]

Took me ages to work this out due to the dreadful written English on display.

Well said.

 

[sledger]

Buffoons

 

[grecian]

2,500 tickets sold for our Women's team on Sunday. The Euro football could genuinely be a pound spinner for clubs. Yeah there will be a lot of discounted stuff and so on, but for our pretty poor level, that's amazing.